Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Dr Zhengsheng Zhang

Dr. Zhang obtained his BA in English from Capital Normal University in Beijing China and Ph.D. in Linguistics from Ohio State University. He is currently Professor of Chinese in the Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle-Eastern Languages at San Diego State University. His research interests include the structure of the Chinese language (dialects, writing system, discourse structure), language teaching pedagogy and technology for language teaching and research.
His recent linguistic research investigates stylistic variation in written Chinese, using corpus and statistical methods. In addition to a series of journal publications on the topic, his monograph Dimensions of Variation in Written Chinese will be published by Routledge of UK in fall 2016. His recent pedagogy-related research includes the teaching of characters, vocabulary, reading and the use of mobile apps. In the area of material development and teacher training, he has co- authored a series of teacher’s handbook for Integrated Chinese, the most used textbook in the US (Zhang et al. 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). In the area of computer technology, he has coauthored a book on natural language processing in Chinese Introduction to Chinese Natural Language Processing (Wong et al. 2010). He has served on the board of directors of the Chinese Language Teachers Association-USA. Since 2009, he has been Editor-in-Chief of the journal Chinese as a Second Language, Journal of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA.

Wei Ha

Wei Ha graduated from Peking University in 1982 majoring in Chinese language and literature, and then taught Chinese language at the university for six years. In 1988, Wei came to Australia and started teaching Chinese and ESL in 1990 at Footscray Girls Secondary College after gaining his Graduate Diploma of Education from Ballarat University and Australian Catholic University. From 1995 to 2005, Wei worked for the Department of Education as a NALSAS project officer, a SAL project officer and Community Languages School officer. From 2005 to 2006, Wei worked as a program manager of the languages center at the Council for Adult Education. From 2006 till now, Wei has worked at different schools and currently is the Head of Chinese at Camberwell Grammar School. Wei Ha has been heavily involved in the development of Chinese curriculum and assessment in the last 20 years, including writing VCE Study Designs, the CSF and VELS, and the Australian Chinese Curriculum. He has also conducted many teaching training programs and workshops. Wei Ha also developed many teaching resources, including SALs teaching materials, VCE resources and textbook “My Mother Tongue” with Jixing Xu. Since 1990, Wei Ha has been an active member of CLTAV and he was the president of CLTAV for six years. He also worked as the president of CLTFA for two years and worked hard to promote the learning and teaching of Chinese in Australia to the world.