TCLP 2015 alumna Zheng Meng was awarded a Critical Language Project grant in the amount of $2950 to conduct a TESL Professional Development Workshop at her home school in China. The full day workshop featured speakers from the Regional English Language Office (RELO) and two TCLP Alumni who shared best practices in student performance assessment and English teaching methodologies. The project was implemented in Chongqing Experimental Foreign Language School, where 40% of the teachers have been in the teaching profession for less than 5 years and needed improvement of their teaching practices. On the day of the workshop Ms. Zheng Meng together with Ms.Sun Liang (2009 alumna and Mr. Xia Zhi (2015 alumnus) did a TCLP program introduction, followed by a brief discussion on the differences between Chinese and American educations. This session was followed by four breakout sessions conducted by two RELO guest speakers and two TCLP alumni. Two of the hour-long sessions provided training on Multiple Intelligence and Cooperative Learning (conducted by Ms.Sun Liang) as well as Project-Based Learning (conducted by Mr.Xia Zhi). The workshop also include two 90 minute sessions on Formative Assessment and Rubrics (conducted by Mr.Ian Baecht) and Communicative Reading Activities and Reading Fluency (conducted by Mr.Kevin Sprague). 140 teachers attended and directly benefited from this highly successful workshop. Furthermore, the workshop materials were shared widely among the English teachers in the school who couldn't attend the event. As a result of the training over 9000 students will have better English learning experience , and with 3000 new students joining Chongqing Experimental Foreign Language School each year, the number of benefiting students will continue to grow.
