Barbara Trube presented two workshops in Xi’an, a major city in China, during the summer of 2009.

Trube presented a workshop entitled “Reading, Set, GO!: Graphic Organizers for Teaching Young Readers” to 50 primary school English Immersion (EI) teachers on June 23. Teachers from 12 primary and middle schools in Xi’an participated in the workshop, which focused on strategies to improve students’ English language reading comprehension skills.

Each primary and middle school sent teacher representatives who are members of the China, Canada, United States English Immersion (CCUEI) Research Collaborative, which is sponsored by faculty from the Shanxii Foreign Language Institute in Xi’an.

English immersion is considered a major educational reform experiment of the Education Department of the Shanxii Provincial Government, explained Trube, associate professor of early childhood education.

Additionally, Trube presented a 10-day, 30-hour workshop in oral English acquisition for 22 Chinese English teacher trainers. Many of those in attendance are from rural areas of China. Trube followed TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) standards for adult language learners and Chinese national standards for foreign language instruction. She implemented Word Windows, a collection of strategies that help make learning a foreign language comprehensible to language learners.

The workshop was sponsored by Plan International, an international organization that funds projects to improve the conditions of world populations. Plan International: Plan China has several areas of interest, including a primary focus on education.

“In China, rural educators deem foreign language teacher training in English as extremely important in school reform efforts to provide educational opportunities for Chinese students in grades one through eight,” Trube said. “Because the Chinese government mandates that English is taught in primary and secondary schools, the provincial government of Shanxii Provence supports involvement of native English speakers from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom or the United States.”

Trube was invited to present in the final phase of the two-year professional development Plan China project because of her 8-year involvement with South China Normal University and the China, Canada, United States English Immersion (CCUEI) Research Collaborative).

This is Trube’s 11th trip to China, and her 10th trip to the Xi’an area where the CCUEI English Immersion model began 12 years ago.