From the Immediate Past President
January 2011

It has been my honor to serve as the President of CLTA for the past year. I give my special thanks and appreciation to Yea-Fen Chen, CLTA Executive Director, for her efficient and tireless work for our organization. I thank the members of the CLTA Board of Directors for their support, and our Journal Editor Zheng-sheng Zhang, Newsletter Editor Tianwei Xie, Webmaster John Chang, and Web Assistant, Alan Peterka, for enabling us as an organization to communicate with each other. I congratulate Janet Xing, Conference Chair, and Chuanren Ke, Program Chair, for our very successful 2010 Annual Meeting, and I congratulate
Professor Ke as he begins his term as this year’s CLTA President.

These are exciting and challenging times for the Chinese language teaching field. Chinese language study continues its increase in the United States and the world. The Modern Languages Association survey of foreign language study in the US, released December 8, 2010, shows that Chinese language study increased 18.2% at the post-secondary level in the past four years, making Chinese the sixth most commonly studied language in the US at the post-secondary level. Official enrollment figures at the K-12 level are not available, but we know that enrollment continues to increase as more and more schools add Chinese to their inventory of foreign language offerings.

The increase has spurred the growth of regional CLTA organizations, and these regional associations will soon be able to affiliate with the national CLTA. The affiliation guidelines will be posted soon on the CLTA website.

Expanded interest in Chinese language study has led to an abundance of riches in teaching material as well. At the 2010 Annual Meeting, CLTA hosted a book exhibit featuring donated Chinese language teaching material authored or co-authored by CLTA members. There were so many books that we could not display them all at our CLTA conference booth, and next year we plan to expand the booth so that we can better showcase our member-authored books.

Finally, as our field grows, so does our participation at our annual meeting, held in conjunction with ACTFL. Members may not realize that the number of papers and panels that we can accept is determined by ACTFL. This year, in response to our high submission rate and conference participation, ACTFL has increased the number of CLTA sessions at the conference. This will make it possible to accept more papers and panels, and will provide greater opportunities to share developments with the field. If you are planning to submit a proposal, please study the submission guidelines carefully before you submit. I hope to see you all in Denver in 2011.

Sincerely,

Claudia Ross 罗云