Senior Advisor to the President and Provost (China) (Office of the President)
Professor of Chinese
Contact:
Email: george.zhang@richmond.ac.uk
School: School of Liberal Arts
Research centre: The Study of the State, Power and Globalisation
About
Dr George X Zhang is Professor of Chinese and Director of the Centre for Modern Languages, in the School of Liberal Arts of the university. He has over thirty years’ experience in language teaching in British and Chinese universities as well as commercial experience in management consultancy and training. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies in China and obtained his PhD from the University of Nottingham in 1991. He was first appointed as a professor in language education by a Chinese university in 1994.
Before joining Richmond University, Professor Zhang was the Director of SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) Language Centre, University of London and the Director of London Confucius Institute (the first Confucius Institute in the UK). He has participated and managed quite a few projects on Chinese language learning and teaching, including EBCL (European Benchmarks for Chinese Language), the first EU funded non-European language CEFR benchmark project (2010-12), which he coordinated between 2010 and 2011. He was the Chair of British Chinese Language Teaching Society (BCLTS) between 2006 and 2008.
Professor Zhang is an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, and an associate researcher of PLIDAM, INALCO (institut national des langues et civilisations orientales). He also serves as a vice president for the European Association of Chinese Teaching (EACT). As a language specialist, Professor Zhang sits on a number of national and regional language education boards or organisations, and he also lectures extensively all over Europe and other parts of the world.
Professor Zhang has researched and published on language policy, language learning and teaching, teacher training, intercultural communications and cross cultural business management. He is an author of a number of books, including several Chinese language textbooks, of which the Chinese in Steps series won the Outstanding International Chinese Teaching Material Award at the Fifth Confucius Conference in December 2010.
Research interests
Teaching & learning
Research outputs
Research extracts
Preparing for Asia in the new age of globalisation: University language centres in face of changes in higher education
George X. Zhang: Richmond University, The American International University in London, Richmond.
“British higher education is becoming more and more market-driven following the increase in tuition fees in 2012. As a result, universities need to respond more readily to the market, and student demand and the high employability of graduates are now a priority for most universities. With the growing importance of Asian economies in the new age of globalisation, there is an increasing interest in learning languages such as Chinese, especially among those who intend to seek Asia-related jobs upon the completion of their university studies.
These diversified language needs represent both opportunities and challenges for university language centres, which are known for their responsiveness to changes in demand, innovativeness in their language teaching, and flexibility in their service provision. It is not uncommon that university language centres offer Asian language courses, but there is still a lot to be done if compared with their more established teaching practices in European languages. University language centres should consider working in a collaborative and coordinated manner, not only to assess, anticipate and prepare for changes in higher education, but also to manage and shape changes in language learning and teaching with a more diverse language profile.”
Language Learning in Higher Education. Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 271–283, ISSN (Online) 2191-6128, ISSN (Print) 2191-611X, DOI: 10.1515/cercles-2014-0015, October 2014.
