By Jingran Wan
Understanding the New CED and Designing for the AP Course Project
Presenter: Ying Zhang, College Board AP Chinese Consultant
Date: October 11, 2026
Meeting Overview
Ying Zhang led a workshop on the revised AP Chinese Course and Exam Description (CED) and ways to connect its expectations to classroom instruction. She emphasized a shift toward what students can do with their Chinese, with the goal of helping them become more independent learners and stronger communicators.
The session reviewed the revised course framework, including its six themes, streamlined skill categories, and assessment tasks. Ying discussed how students can prepare for listening and reading tasks, presentations, question-and-answer sessions, story narration, and email responses. She also demonstrated how teachers can use AP Classroom to target practice to specific task types.
Authentic Materials and the Course Project
A central focus was the AP Course Project and the Personalized Project Reference (PPR). Ying reviewed the project process, preparation timeline, presentation and Q&A expectations, and scoring criteria. She encouraged teachers to make project work part of the course throughout the year and to plan backward from the final assessment.
Ying stressed that project research requires students to engage with authentic materials in greater depth than they might for a typical reading-comprehension task. Students should learn to describe, compare, and reflect on cultural products, practices, and perspectives. The workshop used tutoring classes and beliefs about success as an example, with questions that invited students to examine Chinese and U.S. experiences and connect the topic to their own perspectives.
The presenter also shared strategies for guiding students from a project prompt to a focused inquiry. These included brainstorming possible topics, developing research questions and an action plan, using checklists for self-assessment, and choosing Chinese-language sources suited to students’ proficiency levels. Teachers should give students room to shape their own research while ensuring that their projects address the cultural dimensions of the course.
Classroom Practice and Discussion
The examples showed how teachers can use authentic texts and structured activities to build language skills and prepare students for project work. Ying also discussed multimodal input, email responses, and ways to help students use circumlocution when they do not know a word or phrase.
During the Q&A, participants raised practical questions about PPR submission, listening notes, music-related projects, and selecting authentic sources. Ying emphasized using a consistent language and research framework across different topics, while adapting support and materials to individual students.
Ms. Ying Zhang explained the revised CED and AP Course Project in a clear, practical way. The class examples showed how authentic materials can support discussion of cultural products, practices, and perspectives.
Sample questions and project-planning strategies gave teachers ideas they can adapt for their own classes. The Q&A addressed useful questions about PPRs, authentic sources, listening notes, and music-related projects.