On 14 October 2011 Zongmin Chen had started a 'Chinese corner' at Charles Darwin University, and it has continued ever since then, now within CDU's Confucius Institute. She did not want to compete with this, so when she started the Chinese Conversation Circle within the Eastern Road Language Centre she scheduled it to run in weeks when CDU's Conversation corner was not running, so that interested people could choose to attend either or both as they pleased.

The Circle was a free activity for students and friends of the Centre. Since it was being run by a centre, it seemed best to call it a 'circle': it's in the Centre rather than off in a corner :-) The Circle was later abandoned as the Centre discontinued adult classes to focus on ones for Chinese-background children.

About ten people attended first meeting of the Circle. Over Chinese tea and snacks they watched the first episode of a Chinese television series called (in English) Home with Kids.

Chinese learners were then able to practise using Chinese in three groups, namely for beginners, intermediate, and advanced, with kind assistance from several Chinese speakers. (The groups are not actually shown in this picture).