Zhang is a professor. He is currently the executive director of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching, a member of the National Steering Committee for Graduate Education of MTCSOL, and the director of the Research Center for Language Education in Ethnic Areas at ECNU. He is engaged in the theory and practice of international Chinese language education, international Chinese language education technology, and linguistic education in ethnic areas. He offers courses such as Introduction to International Chinese Language Education, Listening to News Broadcast, etc.
As an expert in language teaching, he led the development of Chinese mainland's first large TCFL website, Chinese.com, and multimedia Chinese learning courseware such as Special Chinese. He is a former member of a panel of experts on online language education programs set up jointly by the education departments of the Chinese and US governments. He led the creation of the ECNU Model that focuses on online education to improve the ability of teachers in minority areas to teach national common languages, which has been applied and promoted nationwide with approval of the Ministry of Education. He won the Shanghai Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award for his project on the International Training System for Chinese Language Seed Teachers.
He is in charge of 20 research projects, including Research on the Current Situation of Language Teaching Software in Elementary Education and Feasibility Study on Distance Chinese Education. He has edited or co-authored nine books, including Tai County Dialectal Geography and Theoretical Study of Computer-Assisted TCFL, edited and published 6 textbooks, including Communicative Chinese and Get Started, and delivered 21 papers, including International Chinese Language Education in the Global Political Context and The Role of Culture in Curriculum Design of TCSOL. He has given dozens of lectures in countries including the US, France, Australia, etc.
