Let’s learn and experience the charm of Chinese together on the Chinese Language Day.
The Cardiff Confucius Institute organized a performance of traditional Chinese instruments including Erhu. (Copy from Google)Many international students state that they are very interested in Chinese—— the world’s most populous language.
Chinese people all over the world are going to celebrate the Chinese Language Day on 20th of the April as called for by the UN.
As the world’s most wildly spoken language, it could be appropriate to have a specific day every year dedicate to Mandarin Chinese. Today, let’s take a look at the most professional place for learning Chinese in Cardiff—— the Cardiff Confucius Institute.
“Cardiff Confucius Institute has been creating a decade, and the founding institutes are Xiamen University and Cardiff University. Xiamen University and Cardiff University have established friendship and cooperation relations around 1986. Hence, the Cardiff Confucius Institute has a good reputation which is the best choice to learn Chinese in Cardiff,” said Professor Lin Lifang who comes from Xiamen University and also the Chinese Director of Cardiff Confucius Institute.
The teachers team of Cardiff Confucius Institute. (Copy from google)In the Cardiff Confucius Institute, the Chinese Director and managers are generally teachers from Xiamen University. The tutors are teachers of Xiamen University and teachers who are recruited by the Office of Language Council International. In addition, they also have local British teachers.
“We have three local teachers in Cardiff Confucius Institute. For example, our teacher Linsay who lived in Dalian of China for many years and she studied teaching Chinese as a second language which helps her to become a professional Chinese teacher here,” said Professor Lin.
There are mainly three types of students studying at the Confucius Institute. The first part is full time students from Cardiff University. The second part is working people around Cardiff. Last Inst, it faces to all communities, middle and primary schools and also universities around the whole Wales. With regard to the setting of the course, the choice of students is very rich. It has five levels for adult students to choose from beginner to advance. By contrast, for students in middle and primary schools, it combines culture activities with language learning. Otherwise it will be very boring to just teach them how to write and how to read and they will feel boring easily.
Students are having their Chinese characters lessons. (Copy from Google)The greatest advantage of Cardiff Confucius Institute should be its resources advantages. The students learning here will be more well-trained because of systematic learning. Because the students who come to class all need to pay, they all had expectations when they actually came to class. Every teacher teaches very serious to meet their expectations and fully prepare for every time teach. Each time, they give students a lot of hand outs, so they can preview and review.
Apart from learning in class, the Confucius Institute also organized a lot of interesting events connecting with Chinese or Chinese culture. For example, there will be a Chinese Calligraphy club in Cardiff Central Library regularly. Also, there are some events like Tai Chi, Beijing Opera, or Chinese chess.
“It’s really exciting to join in these events after class. Usually I can be faster and better than studying in class,” said Alex, a local student studying Chinese in the Cardiff Confucius Institute.
The Cardiff Confucius Institute organized the Ping-pong competition. (Copy from Google)However, one of the troubles of the Confucius Institute is that its influence is not enough. ‘People who don’t know or familiar with the Confucius Institute may confusing what it is actually doing. They may think that this is a figure more than 2000 years ago, so why we use Confucius? However, it just like Goethe-Institute of Germany, we use the image of Confucius to spread Chinese,’ mentioned by Professor Lin.
Confucius Institute’s use of Confucius’s image is not mean that it is teaching the doctrine of Confucius and Mencius, because Confucius’s thoughts should be inherited creatively. For example, ‘Lord you want me to die, then I have to’ this kind of thoughts is wrong nowadays. However, many ideas are still treasures and worth learning or understanding for everyone. What Chinese people always accepted is the ideological education of ‘Ren’ (benevolence), ‘Yi’ (justice), ‘Li’ (ceremony), ‘Zhi’ (intelligence), ‘Xin’(loyalty).
Professor Lin explained that, “‘Yi’ is hard to translate. It couldn’t find an equivalent word in English to explain this word. We sometimes translate into ‘justice’ but it’s not quite proper. Only after you reading countless Chinese books and deeply understand Chinese, you can truly understand what is ‘Yi’ actually mean. I think this is exactly where Chinese is so profound.”
You can find the courses and the location of the Confucius Institute from the OFFICIAL WEBSITE, which is easy for you to contact with them.