Gu Zhen received a CLP grant to develop and lead a workshop to share the effective teaching methodologies and teaching practices, that she learned in the United States, with English as a Foreign Language teachers from her home school and sister schools in China. She worked with other TCLP alumni to show how they apply what they learned from their TCLP experience to their home classroom teaching.
Gu Zhen (Wright Elementary School, Fort Walton Beach, FL, 2015-16) organized a Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Professional Development Workshop on November 8, 2019. Held at Qinzhou No.1 Middle School in Qinzhou, China, approximately 140 teachers from area schools attended five sessions including two led by fellow 2015-16 TCLP alumni Xia Zhi (Watson B. Duncan Middle School, Palm Beach Gardens, FL) and Li Long (Roton Middle School, Norwalk, CT) who presented on project-based learning and interactive classroom activities. Teachers shared best practices and are eager to participate in future workshops. Their intention was to create an atmosphere for the participant to experience a very interactive, participatory workshop. At the end, they introduced the participants to the Teachers of Critical Languages Program (TCLP) and shared resources for online courses for professional development. They believe that they can always be better educators and want to share this expectation with their colleagues in China.