The Director of the Centre, Zongmin Chen, began thinking about developing a language centre in late 2012, as she thought about what she would do after completing her contract at Charles Darwin University (CDU) at the end of 2013. While dismayed at what she saw as of CDU Chinese programs (as discussed in the sidebar or below), largely by managers with no expertise in either Chinese or language teaching, she increasingly saw the weakness of its Confucius Institute as an opportunity for a private provider, with well qualified, professional staff, to fill some gaps in Chinese language education in Darwin.
We began more definite planning for the Eastern Road Language Centre in mid 2013, using its current name (in both English and Chinese versions) in documents as early as 3 August. In Chinese, the name 东方之路 'Eastern Road' seemed pleasant, and with the addition of 'Language Centre', the name did not seem to be in use for any other organisation.
To us the metaphor of a road was significant. While the Great Wall is often taken to symbolise China, and while we value the Great Wall Chinese multimedia materials for the study of Chinese, the term 'wall' may suggest a barrier, or worse, something to keep the 'barbarians' out. From our use of pictures of the Great Wall, however, you can see that the top of it can also be viewed as a road or a pathway, if perhaps suggesting an occasionally steep one towards the mastery of Chinese.
One practical issue we needed to resolve before we could start was finding a place to use as a classroom in Darwin. Renting a classroom seemed problematic because of costs for ones equipped with multimedia resources, so we began developing our own small classroom in October. We also registered the business name of the Centre with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) on 13 November and the 'easternroad.com.au' web domain name on 22 November.
Over the next month and a half the Centre developed further developed during a trip to China. The Centre's web site was started, the use of Skype for teaching was explored, discussions were held with Chinese teachers in China and elsewhere, and further resources were obtained for the Centre's library. Back in Darwin in the second half of January 2014, the Centre's programs were advertised locally, audio-visual resources for teaching in Darwin were perfected, and the first Darwin-based class was held on Wednesday 29 January.
