Teachers’ training curriculum on L2 Chinese teaching

According to the statistics, there is a huge increase of Chinese learners in the world. Chinese learning has changed its nature from Saturday classes in the China Town programs to formal curricula from primary to tertiary education. This trend has proved that the Chinese Language has a tendency in being received abroad and is gradually becoming another potential international language besides English. Since the learners are abundant and are found in different parts of the world, a lot of topics concerning the learning of Chinese are arising. For instance, different levels of curricula, teachers' education for Chinese as an L2 teaching (the teaching of Chinese as a second language (TCSL)), Chinese L2 (TCSL) teaching materials and curricula design. These issued have to be well studied by the academy. Recently, universities in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are competiting and they are keen to offer new programs in training L2 Chinese teachers. Similar programs are offered to attract applications. A number of new colleges among the universities have been established to train the teachers to fulfill the needs. In this article, I would like to discuss the main characteristics of the teaching of Chinese as a second language? How should the teachers' training course be designed? In what ways will these courses differ from the traditional Chinese courses? The article will also discuss the background and the development of this new discipline: Teaching Chinese as an International Language. Hot topics of research in this field will also be discussed.