To bridge the gap between technology and teaching methodology as well as curriculum and to enhance the exchange on technology-based Chinese language teaching, a biennial conference TCLT1 (The 1st Conference on Technology and Chinese Language Teaching in the 21st Century) was initiated and hosted by Hamilton College, June 8-11, 2000. With the success of TCLT1, TCLT2 was co-sponsored by Yale University and Hamilton College and was held at Yale University, June 7-9, 2002; followed by TCLT3, which was co-sponsored by Columbia University and Hamilton College and was held at Columbia University, May 28-30, 2004; and TCLT4, which was co-sponsored by University of Southern California and Hamilton College and was held at University of Southern California, May 5-7, 2006. TCLT5 will be held at University of Macau, June 6-8, 2008. So far over 300 scholars from the U.S. and overseas have participated in TCLT conferences and workshops, and TCLT series has had a profound influence in the field of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.
Since many overseas scholars (from 13 countries) attended TCLT1 and TCLT2 which had actually turned into international conferences, TCLT3 was named the 3rd International Conference and Workshops on Technology and Chinese Language Teaching in the 21st Century, henceforth followed by TCLT4 and after-coming conferences.
Funding for TCLT conferences and workshops was from the President's Office of Hamilton College, the Dean's Office of Hamilton College, the Center for Language Study at Yale University, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Center at Columbia University, the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning headquarters at Yale University, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, Cultural Division, and College of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Macau. TCLT5 (June 6-8, 2008) is expected to be another success, same as TCLT1 to TCLT4, but with more participants from overseas as well as from the United States.
There are three similar biennially held conferences on Technology and Chinese Language Teaching in the world. One is TCLT (5th conference to be held in Macau, June 6-8, 2008) in the U.S. The other is TTLC in China. The third one is ICICE (5th conference held in June, 2007) in Taiwan. TCLT has stand out among these three conferences with its unique feature-a combination of conference and workshops with hand-on sessions to teach up-to-date new technology on Chinese language teaching, and has therefore attracted more and more participants.Tao-chung Yao, University of Hawaii
For more information about TCLT, please visit its web sites at