Ping Wu, OATC President

Founded in 2008, the Ohio Association of Teachers of Chinese (OATC) has been the major force for promoting Chinese language and culture and supporting Chinese teachers in Ohio.  With the growing popularity of Chinese study and the concomitant expansion of Chinese programs in the schools, OATC has witnessed a rapid growth in our membership.  This has allowed us to undertake diverse tasks to assist our members and to provide opportunities for them and their students.

Recent OATC Events

Columbus Regional Meeting.  OATC’s Columbus Regional meeting was held at Columbus School for Girls on December 12, 2015.  In the first presentation, a member presented the notes that she took of the sessions she had attended at the 2015 ACTFL Convention for the benefit of those members who could not attend the Convention.

A second presentation (which was originally given at the 2025 ACTFL Convention) was repeated for the teachers attending the Columbus meeting.  Titled “Teaching Reading and Pushed Writing in Chinese,” it discussed the importance of continuous input via speaking and reading; techniques for teaching reading literacy; how to find authentic materials; how to give students effective feedback in their writing lessons; and how to push students’ writing performance through the circle of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

A third presentation was given by a former student from Gahanna Lincoln High School about his post-high school experiences studying in Kunming, China and working in Beijing, China.  He has been invited to give similar talks to the students at various local high schools.

There was also a teaching workshop in which a number of teachers demonstrated classroom-tested foreign-language games and activities.  Then, all the participants played the games and tried out the activities to understand them from the students’ perspective.

Dayton/Cincinnati Regional Meeting.  Also on December 12, 2015, OATC held its Dayton and Cincinnati Regional meeting at Wright State University.  A number of presentations were given.  They included: Using Google in the Classroom; How to Improve Your School’s Chinese Program, The Teaching Resource Available at chineseflagship.byu.edu/k-12; Preparing for Ohio’s RESA; Effective Classroom Activities; Making Your School’s Chinese Club Fun; Classroom Management Techniques; and Making 3-D Paper Chinese Characters.

All of the teaching resources shared during both regional meetings can be found (in Chinese) at: http://www.ohioatc.org/resources.html.

Upcoming OATC Events

OATC is collaborating with the Confucius Institute at Cleveland State University to host the 4th Chinese Speech and Essay Contests sometime in the Spring of 2016.