For the last five years, participants of the STARTALK Goodwill Teacher Programs organized by Teaching Chinese Resources have earned much praise from school districts. Graduates of Teacher Credential programs have a lot of knowledge of education, but not necessarily much practical experience, especially for teaching Chinese specifically. The Teacher Training Program strives to fill that gap as a supplement to Teacher Credential programs, and has succeeded, according to feedback from participants and employers alike. More than 25 trained participants have been hired by school districts and 200+ trained participants are working for Chinese heritage schools in southern California since 2007. In 2012, we will provide 60-80 aspiring Chinese teachers with the chance to attend three courses: Advanced Instruction of Design and Grammar for teaching Novice Proficiency Level Students, Advanced Strategies of Task-Based Instruction for teaching Intermediate Level Students, and Instruction of Chinese Advanced Placement Course. Courses have 60+ hours in lectures with practicum in STARTALK Summer Student Programs which are funded by the federal government and co-hosted by school districts.
The mission of Teaching Chinese Resources, TCR, is to expand the teaching and learning of strategically important but less taught world languages in local communities and to provide prepared and ready packages to school districts for simplifying the initiation of less taught language programs. The Summer Chinese Language Immersion Program, implemented by TCR teaming with consortiums of heritage language schools, is both a feeder program and a way to either initiate a Chinese language program aimed at attracting new students and/or increasing the number of students learning Chinese in school districts that have Chinese classes or function as an alternative language class in school districts without any Chinese classes.
TCR also devotes great efforts to help teachers in their professional development through on-going professional workshops on learner-centered curriculum design and task-based Chinese language instruction and is dedicated to the goal to promote accountability and reliability of teaching and validity of students' learning within Chinese heritage schools to meet the National Standards of Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century.