With the start of the new school year, the Confucius Institute in Auckland welcomed the 2018 class of Mandarin Language Assistants to New Zealand on February 2nd.

The 47 MLAs hosted by CI Auckland are teachers and graduate students, selected from various Chinese universities and dispatched by the Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing. They either have experiences of teaching Chinese overseas or major in “teaching Chinese as the second language” at top universities in China. In the coming eleven months, they will assist local Chinese language teachers in over 130 schools with their expertise and talents. Also, they will have the opportunities to enjoy the Kiwi hospitalities with their homestay families and travel around the country as part of their overseas experiences.

The Mandarin Language Assistant programme has been a part of the Free Trade Agreement between New Zealand and Chinese governments since 2009. The MLA’s role is to help promote the learning of Mandarin and to raise the quality of Mandarin language provision in NZ schools. The programme also provides MLAs with an opportunity to improve their English and to work collaboratively with experienced NZ teachers.