Chen Dong (astronaut) 2016, marking China's longest manned space flight to date. The reentry module of the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft landed in Inner Mongolia around 2.15 p.m(China time) after detaching from the space lab on 17 November. For his achievements on the Shenzhou 11 mission, Chen was awarded the Spaceflight Merit Medal (Third Class) along with the honorary title of "hero astronaut" on 26 December 2016 by the Central Military Commission. Chen has twin sons. Chen Dong (astronaut) Chen Dong (; born 12 December 1978) is a Chinese pilot and astronaut selected as part of the Shenzhou program. A fighter pilot in the People's
Chinese as a foreign language using intonation whilst retaining the correct tones. Chinese courses have been blooming internationally since 2000 at every level of education. Still, in most of the Western universities, the study of the Chinese language is only a part of Chinese Studies or sinology, instead of an independent discipline. The teaching of Chinese as a foreign language is known as "duiwai hanyu jiaoxue" (). The Confucius Institute, supervised by Hanban (the National Office For Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language), promotes the Chinese language in the West and other parts of the world. The People's Republic of China began to accept foreign