The flourish of Confucius Institute is a reality or just simple illusion? : the reflections and feedbacks of the volunteer Chinese teachers' experiences in Confucius Institutes overseas

Abstract

This study aims at looking into the reflection of volunteer teachers’ experiences in Confucius Institutes (CI). It will mainly investigate the teachers’ feedbacks on working for CI in overseas and also to examine the role of volunteer teacher in CI. Meanwhile, for a better understanding on the particular study, it will discover certain aspects about the perception about volunteer teachers work in CI. Via this research, a qualitative study is organized to the volunteer teachers who had the experiences working in CI which out of the mainland China. 12 interviews had been conducted to the volunteers teachers who are working in different counties and regions, such as Thailand, Columbia, Mongolia, such wide scope of interviewees provide a diversified answers to the questions. The result presented that the volunteer teachers cares the development of CI, and they pay a lot of attention into the teaching quality improvement, overseas cultural and social study, the textbooks development, career development, institute administration development and even marketing matters. In fact, these questions affect the further development of CI in future. This study also investigated whether CI should hire so many volunteers, these teachers gave direct feedbacks and answers about these points. Their feedback is one of the most efficient way to understand and evaluate whether the CI is working well or not.