Teaching Chinese at the University Level in Serbia: Examples of Good Practices and Possibilities for Further Developments

The aim of this paper is to give a short overview of the current situation in the field of Chinese language teaching in Serbian formal education with a special emphasis on teaching Chinese at the university level. The Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade is one of the institutions with the longest tradition of teaching Chinese language as a major in the whole Balkan region, and in Serbia it is the only one where students can study Chinese at both the undergraduate and the graduate level. An elaborate curriculum, which includes courses on language, literature and culture, enables their students to gain a thorough insight in many aspects of ancient and modern China. Accordingly a large section of this paper is dedicated to presenting the teaching practices used at that institution, together with examples of some practical in-class methods. The paper also offers a short introduction to one private university in Serbia where Chinese language teaching has been carried out successfully. Finally it offers some ideas how teaching Chinese as a foreign language can be improved at all levels of study worldwide.