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 biannial 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. TCLT2 was co-sponsored by Yale University and Hamilton College and was held at Yale University, June 7-9, 2002; continued 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. All of them were a success with respect to well participation and influence in the field of Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. So far over 300 institutions in the U.S. and overseas have sent representatives to the conferences and workshops of TCLTs.
Since many overseas scholars (from 9 countries) attended TCLT1 and TCLT2 which actually had turned to international conferences, TCLT3 was renamed the 3rd International Conference and Workshops on Technology and Chinese Language Teaching in the 21st Century, henceforth followed by TCLT4. TCLT5 is expected to be held overseas in Macao.
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, and the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning headquartered at Yale University. TCLT3 is expected to be another success, same as TCLT1 and TCLT2, but with more participants from overseas as well as from the United States.
There are three similar biyearly held conferences on Technology and Chinese Language Teaching in the world. One is TCLT (3rd conference to be held in May, 2004) in the U.S. The other is TTLC (4th conference to be held in July, 2004) in China. The third one is ICICE (3rd conference held in Oct. 2003) in Taiwan. TCLT has stand out strongly 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