"June 16 to July 4, I have participated in STARTALK Chinese Teacher Academy ran by University of Virginia, and I was so lucky to get the chance to be trained in this program! It was three very intensive weeks, but the best three weeks of professional development! I have learned so much from Dr. Tseng, especially how to use the communicative instructional strategies in the class and use 100% target language to teach. And the most important thing is, we had three teaching practicums after learning all these theories. It was so unforgettable that we stayed up late many nights to discuss teaching methods and activities. In the three weeks, we became a big family by discussion and sharing with each other. Also, during all these precious experiences, I realized my shortages and practiced to be a more confident and effective teacher. I cannot wait to applying the theories and techniques in my class. Again, I feel so grateful for all the teachers in the program, especially Dr. Tseng, who organized such amazing teacher training program!"

Reminiscence: 

"I feel that I learn a lot from this program and it is so necessary for me in the period of my teaching career. Dr. Tseng is a perfect professor and I feel so lucky to participate in the UVA STARTALK in this summer vacation.

I want to bring what I have learned from here to my class teaching in the following semester and I want to help new Chinese teachers to adapt to the teaching environment in U.S. in the future. I will do a presentation in WEST VIRGINIA FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHER CONFERENCE in this coming October, but I did not have confidence on talking about the topic of assessment based teaching. Right now I feel that I might talk a little bit better on this topic because I have learnt a lot from our UVA STARTALK and understand a lot during this program training.

When I review the video I did with the STARTALK students I realized that how much I have changed in teaching and how much they can speak by the method I am using to teach them. I also learned a lot from other teachers. Everyone is so nice and they help each other to deal with the problems. I look upon this is a perfect chance to learn from Dr. Tseng and all the good Chinese language teachers from all of the United States."