A screenshot of the 1st International Forum on Chinese and Portuguese held by the University of Macau online. [Photo/sdu.edu.cn]

Professor Wang Jun from the College of International Education (CIE) of Shandong University attended the 1st International Forum on Chinese and Portuguese held by the University of Macau (UM) online on April 6.

Wang gave a presentation on "Rebuilding presence links: How to improve the effectiveness of the teacher-student and student-student interactions in international online Chinese teaching and learning" at the forum.

Language teaching requires a high level of practicality and interactivity, whereas online teaching has many limitations in terms of perceptual channels, technical conditions, activity forms, feedback channels, and emotional communication, necessitating teachers to optimize the design in order to achieve the effectiveness of online interaction, according to Wang.

Wang shared examples of CIE teachers' practices in Chinese language pre-college education for international students, the creation of a virtual learning community for American teenagers learning Chinese, and the innovation of online language and culture exchange platforms and live real-life courses for both Chinese and foreign students, which focus on three aspects: teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, and student-society interaction.

The forum was conducted bilingually in Chinese and Portuguese, and set up three sub-venues for "teaching Portuguese as a foreign language", "teaching Chinese as a foreign language under a new situation: present situation and countermeasures", and "Portuguese resource platform of academic library alliance", attracting professors and experts from universities like Peking University, Beijing Language and Culture University, and Shanghai International Studies University.