At the National Chinese Language Conference

Last week, we joined the College Board's National Chinese Language Conference in Chicago. Around 1,000 Mandarin speakers and teachers, as well as school administrators, attended. NLSC recruiter Bridget Baker and I staffed our table, and NLSC Chief Linguist Dr. Bill Rivers spoke in a breakout session.

Our table was a in a great location. It would have been difficult for any attendee to visit the exhibitor's hall and not at least see us. We had neighbors on one side of us, and they couldn't be nicer. It turns out that this is one of the first vendors of Mandarin Chinese educational materials. Both exhibitors - the owner and a freelance writer - filled out application to join us!

One nice feature of the conference was that the exhibit hall closed during major presentations, so exhibitors could attend as well.

Dr. Rivers spoke on the topic "Foreign Language Skills in the 21st Century: What’s Next?" He talked about the importance of foreign language skills and cultural knowledge as we move away from the events of 9/11. The discussion included the potential of the NLSC, new Federal programs, and trends in industry and social services. He must have done well because after he spoke, several visitors to our table mentioned that they came by because of his presentation.