Peking University, Apr. 21, 2010: In the global trend of growing enthusiasm for learning Chinese, Peking University, the top institution of teaching and research of the Chinese language, is also in the lead of research and application on automation.
On the morning of April 20, PKU and Pearson Education held a ceremony at PKU's Yingjie Overseas Exchange Center, in which two sides signed the "PKU Chinese Oral Automated Test Joint Development Agreement" and inaugurated the Research Center of Chinese Oral Proficiency Test. Prof. Zhang Guoyou, Vice President of Peking University, and Mr. Douglas Kubach, President and CEO of the Assessment and Information Group at Pearson, jointly signed the agreement and announced the establishment of the test development center.
"We faithfully hope to promote closer ties in order to make further achievement in the automation of oral Chinese test, and thus contribute to the Chinese language teaching," Prof. Zhang said. He also highly appreciated PKU's cooperation with Pearson and expected future progress by the collaboration. "Mutual cooperation will achieve much more than individual effort," Mr. Kubach responded to Peking University, the top institution of Chinese teaching and research, which recruits more than 1,000 overseas students of the language annually in both long-term and additional training programs, and has joined with nine foreign counterparts to build Confucius Institutes since 2006.
Prof. Zhang then inaugurated the Research Center of Chinese Oral Proficiency Test, and announced the full list of the expert committee. On behalf of the committee, Prof. Li Xiaoqi, Dean of PKU International College for Chinese Language Studies (ICCLS) and director of the office of the research center, delivered a speech, emphasizing that this would make up the blank of the automation of Chinese language oral test. Representatives from both sides then introduced the current process of this program, showing their confidence in future cooperation to promote the language and the culture of China in the world stage.
After the ceremony, the first round of the expert committee meeting was held at Linhuxuan later in the afternoon, covering plans and future operations of the program in detail.
Prof. Xiao Qun, Executive Vice Director of PKU Office of Humanities and Social Sciences, presided over the event.
Pearson Education is an international PreK-20 educational publishing company of textbooks and other educational material, such as multimedia learning tools. It was created in 1998 when Pearson purchased the education division of Simon & Schuster and merged it with its own education division, Addison Wesley Longman.
Pearson Education is headquartered in Boston, MA, Glenview, IL, Chandler, AZ and Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA. It is part of Pearson PLC, which is headquartered in London, England, UK, with offices in Harlow and Oxford.
Its businesses and brands include Prentice Hall, Longman, Scott Foresman, Addison Wesley, Allyn & Bacon, Benjamin Cummings, PASeries, ELLis, Celebration Press, PEMSolutions, SuccessMaker, Waterford, and Family Education Network. Pearson's other primary operations include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.
Extended Reading:
China Presents Stockholm Confucius Institute with Massive Digital Collection of Founder-Apabi E-books of Chinese Literature
Translated by: He Chenlu
Edited by: Jacques
Source: PKUOIR and ICCLS
