Founded in 2008, the Multi-language Base for International Promotion of Chinese Language of Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) is among the first batch of bases for International Promotion of Chinese Language of Confucius Institutes Headquarters/Hanban. Hao Ping, the then President of BFSU and Vice Minister of Education, was appointed as the first Chairman of Board of Directors of the Base. The aim of the Base is to achieve balanced and sustainable development of the international promotion of Chinese language, through the development of Chinese teaching materials, references and tools as well as the training of qualified Chinese teaching talents for non-English speaking countries.
With the great advantage of 70 foreign languages in BFSU, rich resources of the second language teaching, research and publication as well as the communication network with world-famous universities, the Base dedicated itself to the training of teaching staff and the development of teaching materials for Chinese language promotion in non-English speaking countries, strengthening of the discipline construction and talent cultivation for the Chinese International Education and non-English language majors as well as the sustainable development of overseas Confucius Institutes.
Since its foundation, the Base has undertaken nearly 40 teaching staff training and material promotion projects which were entrusted by Hanban in which over 3,000 people were involved, including the pre-service training for Chinese Directors of Confucius Institutes, the pre-service and in-service training for Chinese teachers teaching in non-English speaking countries, the training for local teaching staff in non-English speaking countries, international Chinese teacher trainers, Chinese cultural and cross-cultural teaching staff as well as the Chinese language training for foreign journalists and EU officials visiting China. The Base has also held summer camps for foreign undergraduates and middle school students, which attracted a total of over 2,000 foreign students. In addition, entrusted by Hanban, the Base holds tests for candidate volunteers, Chinese teachers and the Chinese directors of Confucius Institutes every year, and the number of test takers has accumulated to over 2,000.
Actively cooperating with Confucius Institutes to develop reading materials as well as teaching references and tools, the Base has published eight versions of Insights into Chinese Culture, six English-Chinese bilingual “Chinese Stories” series (in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean and Arabic), four “International Chinese Language Education History” series and three “Cultural Communication of China and German-speaking Countries” series; also, the 22-language (Chinese to foreign language/ foreign language to Chinese) dictionaries for Chinese language learning are being published successively.
The Multi-language Base for International Promotion of Chinese Language has always been aiming at building BFSU into a talent training base for international promotion of Chinese language in non-English speaking countries and an important place for the development and publication of Chinese teaching materials for non-English speaking countries, providing talent reserve for Chinese language teaching staff and Chinese teaching materials in different languages for non-English speaking countries. Over the year, it has made outstanding contributions to the balanced development around the world and the rapid development of international education and promotion of Chinese language in important countries and regions.
