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Xining Symposium, 2015 The International Symposium on Trilingualism and Trilingual Education in China was hosted by the School of Foreign Languages, Qinghai University for Nationalities, in Xining, 4th-7th June 2015. This symposium drew about 80 researchers, scholars and postgraduate students from mainland China and abroad. They included 20 or so researchers from minority regions and other countries and territories such as Canada, the UK, Australia and Hong Kong, and more than 50 teachers,researchers and postgraduate students of the host university and Qinghai Normal University. The symposium progressed smoothly according to the programme, with only a few minor adjustments. Many participants agreed it was a very successful symposium in terms of theoretical discussions, empirical research on policy, practice and curricula and research methodology. As usual, there was a strong ‘family’ atmosphere, a close bond of researchers from all over China and beyond. More importantly, there was a greater sense of ownership of the Society. Below, we would like to highlight some major outcomes, proposals and activities: · Two book proposals were made and response was very positive: Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson proposed a book on promoting good practice (strong models) through in-depth case studies and action research in smaller sociolinguistic domains such as a school, a small community or a family, or individuals. Five excellent chapters were already under discussion. More chapter proposals are welcome. This will be our Society’s second book to be published in English with the aim to produce strong impact through concerted efforts of all research teams. Another book is commissioned by Guizhou Education Press and People’s Education Press and will be edited by Zhang Zhen’ai, Bob Adamson and Yi Yayuan. That book has a title focusing on teaching English to minority students. Please see the ppt for more details. All presentations were very interesting and stimulating. We would highlight a few contributions that are particularly inspiring and impactive in terms of promoting additive trilingualism: · The Qinghai team did a fantastic job. Prof Wu Xiaohong presented in a clear fashion how two parallel trilingual education programmes were initiated and have been running in their school in the last 5 years. Her colleague, Zhu Xikui, conducted an evaluation of the programmes. They both identified strengths and weaknesses of the programmes, and their pioneering work which has remained largely unknown outside the province, Qinghai, is truly inspiring. · Prof Liu Quanguo presented findings of a pilot experimental study on trilingual pedagogy conducted in a Tibetan school in Gansu. This is a small-scale pilot study with room for improvement, but a promising one. · Prof Yuan Yichuan elaborated the details of the innovative Tengchong event with the theme, tourism and trilingualism. Some agreements were reached verbally on the number of delegates for each region (2) and the provisional programme. · At the end of the symposium, a seminar and workshop on research methodology and methods were conducted by Anwei Feng and Bob Adamson which were found very useful. · The last panel session, which was tried out for the first time, also proved very useful. At this session, the panel members did a summary of the symposium and then engaged in a very interactive session with the audience in which some interesting queries were answered and useful suggestions were heard. Prof Liu Quanguo kindly offered to host the next symposium in 2016 at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an. Quanguo has just started his new role as professor in English Language Education in the School of Foreign Languages, Shaanxi Normal University. The exact dates of the symposium will be decided and announced soon. Prof Yuan Yichuan rounded up the symposium by highlighting achievements in his usual humorous way and thanking the hosts for their great hospitality and contribution. There were also some good suggestions made to increase the impact of research and to further improve the quality of future symposia: · Dr Stephen Bahry suggested we should involve more school teachers in our activities and symposia. · In relation to 1, we are going to try to extend our network email distribution list to include at least all the people who attended our past symposia and others who are interested. So, team leaders in Yunnan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Ningbo, Yanji and Qinghai, please send more names and email addresses to Bob as soon as possible. · Prof Yuan suggested that each regional team should send a representative or two if the team leader cannot make to the symposium · Another one by Prof Adamson is that we have a ‘market place’ session, a type of extended time of tea/coffee when junior researchers can interact with senior researchers over specific issues. · Prof Liu Quanguo suggested that there should be formal executive board meetings before and after each symposium. | 
