Chinese Language and Culture Workshops
30 Year 8 pupils from Archbishop Sentamu Academy in Hull visited the University of Hull over two days on 28th and 29th September 2010. The day events had been specifically designed to accommodate the learning needs of the pupils who had already begun to study Chinese in their first year at secondary school.
The days kicked off with a presentation on Why Study Languages? and some funny clips about language learning which got the pupils off to thinking about why languages are important, not only for their success in school but looking ahead to University and their future careers.
Then it was up to the teaching rooms in Ferens to start the first Chinese session of the day, devised and delivered by Shu-Mei Li. This lesson focused on Chinese Language and pupils got to learn the basics such as numbers, greetings and how to form basic sentences – putting into practise what they had learnt in their Chinese lessons in Year 7 and building upon this.
After a short break it was back to the hard work and this time pupils got stuck into learning about Chinese characters – what they are, how to read them and then practising how to write them down. It was fascinating to discover that the characters actually look like what they represent. For instance, a picture of one tree means ‘tree’, a picture of two trees means ‘forest’ and a picture of three trees together represents ‘a dense forest’.
A packed lunch was devoured and then it was on to a campus tour for everyone and a chance to look round the university and take a peek into the Library, Students Union and the Language Learning Centre.
The last session of the day looked at Chinese culture and the pupils got a great insight into the way Chinese people celebrate certain festivities and what they are fascinated with – such as circles.
The days were a huge success and this was reflected in the pupils’ feedback:
“I had lots of fun and I have learnt a lot more than what I knew.”
“I have learnt to speak a lot more Chinese. It challenged me by making me learn and remember more facts and phrases.”
“I have learnt a lot about China, also its culture. I enjoyed learning numbers.”
“It was very interesting and I learnt new things about languages.”
The aim is to open these days up to different schools in the future so that more pupils in Hull get the opportunity to learn about a language and culture that is very different from our own.
