Project Director: Ping Xu, Assistant Professor of Chinese, Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, Baruch College

        Mr. Ping Xu received his PhD in Comparative Literature and MA in Philosophy from the State University of New York at Binghamton and MA in Chinese Language and Literature from Nanjing University. He has taught Chinese language at Colgate University and the Claremont Colleges, and since 1997 he has been an Assistant Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Baruch College. He is currently also serving as the Coordinator of CUNY Lower Manhattan/Downtown Brooklyn Consortium of Foreign Languages, whose members include all the foreign language departments at Hunter College, Baruch College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and New York City Technical College.
        He has extensive experience in integrating foreign languages into college curriculum as he served for three years as a Language Resource Specialist under the directorship of Professor Stephen Straight of SUNY-Binghamton's successful Languages across the Curriculum Program. He has also completed graduate courses in C++ Programming, Networking, and Management Information Technology.
        Mr. Xu's scholarly interests cover a broad range of Chinese topics, including literature, philosophy and language pedagogy. His recent publications include "Penless Chinese Character Reproduction" (co-authored with Theresa Jen) in Sino-Platonic Papers edited by Dr. Victor Mair of University of Pennsylvania, "Chinese Characters in the Computer Age" in Geolinguistics: The Journal of the American Society of Geolinguistics, and "'Rose-Cherry-Sunset-Iron Rust-Flamingo' Diagram and the Genesis of Ezra Pound's Ideogrammic Method" in Paideuma: A Journal Devoted to Ezra Pound Scholarship. In past three years, he also presented five papers in national and international conferences on the issue of Chinese characters in Chinese language instruction and the "pen-less" solution.
        While a PhD student at SUNY-Binghamton, he received a Graduate Student Excellence in Research Award. And he has since served as director for two projects funded by the City University of New York, and associate for a project funded by FIPSE: "Foreign Languages in the Workplace: A Program of Faculty and Curriculum Development to Integrate Campus Learning with Workplace Needs" (1998-2000).

Project Co-Director: Theresa Jen, Assistant Professor of Chinese, Chair, Department of East Asian Studies, Bryn Mawr College

        Ms. Theresa Jen received her Ph.D. in Sociolinguistics and Second Language Acquisition from Rutgers University, MA in Asian Studies and Language Education from Seton Hall University and MA in Performing Arts and Piano from the Julliard School of Music. She is now the Director of Bryn Mawr/Haverford Chinese Language Program, and Assistant Professor on the NEH Jye Chu Lectureship of East Asian Studies. Prior to her appointment with Bryn Mawr, she also served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer of East Asian Studies at Princeton University.
        Ms. Jen is an ACTFL certified trainer and tester for Chinese Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI), Chief Faculty Consultant and Task Force Committee member for SAT II Chinese Language Achievement Test, and the Director for the High School Chinese Language Teacher's Certification Program co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Board of Education and Bryn Mawr College. She has also been a recipient of Bryn Mawr College's Distinguished Professor/Teaching Award, and a Fulbright Scholar in East Asian Language and Literature.
        In recent years, Ms. Jen has completed a series of projects funded by NEH and Mellon Foundation that are computer-related, such as "Interactive Web-based Review Exercises for Elementary and Intermediate Chinese Courses" and "Chinese Characters Challenge: A Computer-Assisted Program". Her recent publication includes: "Language, Language Theory, and Language Acquisition" in CAERDA, "Error Analysis and Its Implications in Chinese Language Teaching" in MLA Journal, and "Pen-less Chinese Character Reproduction" (co-authored with Ping Xu) in Sino-Platonic Papers. A text and workbook for film Tuishou (Pushing Hands) compiled by Ms. Jen is to be published by the Far East Publisher in Taipei, Taiwan, and her ground-breaking book on error analysis in Chinese language teaching is also to be published by Wuhan University Press in China.

Project Associate: Wenchao He, Coordinator of Chinese Language Instruction, East Asian Studies Department, New York University.

        Mr. He received his BA from Beijing University majoring in English Language and Literature. He received his Master and Ph. D. in Second Language Acquisition from Clark University. His career of teaching Chinese as a foreign language started in 1986. Since he came to the United States in 1989, he has been teaching Chinese at different universities and colleges.
        He joined the Faculty of Arts and Science of NYU in 1994. In his service at NYU, he created many new courses such as "Computing and Writing in Chinese", "Chinese Language and Structure",  "Applied Linguistics in Chinese", "China’s Past and Present Through Nanjing", and recently "Advanced Business Chinese I & II" in addition to teaching regular Elementary and Intermediate Chinese classes. With support of a grant from the NYU Curriculum Challenge Fund, he created the "Computerized Elementary Chinese" course, employing computer technology in Beginning Chinese language instruction, which is considered as a new approach to reform the Chinese language curriculum. With support from faculty and staff of the College of Arts and Science, he established NYU in Nanjing program, and has been serving as Director of the program since 2000. He worked with other colleagues in the East Asian Studies Department to set up the HSK Chinese Proficiency Test (Which is the national standard test sponsored by the Ministry of Education of PRC) Center at NYU in 1999.
        His publications include Chinese textbooks, translations, and papers on Chinese pedagogy, pragmatics and linguistics. He actively participated in organizing the first and second International Conference on Chinese Pedagogy in the past two years, and is the Chair of the Organizing Committee of the Third conference in Naning, China, in June 2002. He has also been involved in many other professional activities in Chinese language teaching field. His research interest includes using technology in Chinese language instruction, Chinese pedagogy, second language acquisition, and discourse analysis and pragmatics.

Project Associate: Weimin Liu, Software Engineer, Unisys Corporation

        Mr. Weimin Liu received from the State University of New York at Binghamton his PhD in Psychology with a dissertation entitled "Seeing What You Are Hearing: Development and Use of a Multi-Modalities Software Systems in Eye Movement Measurement" and his MS in Computer Sciences with a thesis entitled "Phonological Access During Eye Movement in Chinese Reading".
        Since 1997, he has worked as a software engineer at Syracuse Language Systems Inc., CHI Systems Inc., and Unisys Corporation, developing language learning and speech recognition products, eye-tracking software toolset for automated instructional environment, and eye-voice interface for three-dimensional application.
        His computer programming expertise includes Visual C++ 6.0, Borland C++, Visual Basic 6.0, ActiveX/COM, ATL/VB/MFC, OOD/OOA, HCI design, Client/Server application development, Win32, VXD, OpenGL, TCP/IP, Serial Communication Programming, Visio, Web application development, CGI, Perl5, ASP, Html, SQL, Java, Java Script, VBScript, and Microsoft Interdev 6.0.
        His recently published articles include "Use of Prelexical and Lexical Information during Chinese Sentence Reading: Evidence from Eye-Movement Studies" in Reading Chinese Script: A Cognitive Analysis, "The Perceptual Span and Oculomotor Activity during the Reading of Chinese Sentences" in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, "Eye-Movement-Contingent Display Changes Are Not Compromised by Flicker and Phosphor Persistence" in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, "The Range of Effective Vision during the Reading of Chinese Sentences" in The Cognitive Processing of Chinese and Related Asian Languages, and "Use of Spatial Information during the Reading of Chinese Text" in Cognitive Aspects of Chinese Language.

Project Associate: John Yu, Assistant Professor of Chinese, Department of Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, Baruch College

        Mr. John Yu is Assistant Professor of Chinese and Director of the Chinese Program at Baruch College, CUNY. He earned his Ph.D. degree in 1996 from the University of Washington, specializing in Chinese dialectology, grammar, phonology and classical literature. He studied with several internationally known scholars, including Dr. Jerry Norman, Dr. South Coblin, Dr. Anne Yue–Hashimoto and Dr. David Knechtges. He also received an M.A. degree in Asian Civilization from the University of Iowa in 1993 and a B.A. degree in Chinese Literature from Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China, in 1986.
        Prior to his appointment at Baruch College, John Yu taught Chinese language, literature and culture at various American universities, including the University of Iowa, the University of Washington, Princeton University and Middlebury College. His current research interests are in Chinese linguistics, pedagogy, name studies and instructional applications with Visual Basic and SQL programming.
        Mr. Yu has been the director for a research project funded by the City University of New York, an associate for a project on Chinese dialectology funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, and most recently, for a project funded by FIPSE: "Foreign Languages in the Workplace: A Program of Faculty and Curriculum Development to Integrate Campus Learning with Workplace Needs" (1998-2000).