Chinese Language Promotion Activities in Romanian Primary and Secondary Schools

Abstract

In recent years, with the fast developing of Chinese economy and the bilateral exchanges between China and Romania, more and more Romanian students are willing to learn Chinese. In this context, to analysis how the Chinese teaching activities is taking in the Romanian Primary and Secondary schools, would be very helpful for making both Chinese teaching and learning process more effectively and efficiently.

Full text

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Management of Sustainable Development Sibiu, Romania, Volume 8, No.2, December 2016
10.1515/msd-2017-0007
CHINESE LANGUAGE PROMOTION ACTIVITIES IN ROMANIAN PRIMARY
AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS
Wang, YUQIN
Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing, China, e-mail: yuqinwang88@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT: In recent years, with the fast developing of Chinese economy and the bilateral exchanges between China and
Romania, more and more Romanian students are willing to learn Chinese. In this context, to analysis how the Chinese teaching
activities is taking in the Romanian Primary and Secondary schools, would be very helpful for making both Chinese teaching and
learning process more effectively and efficiently.
KEY WORDS: Chinese language, primary and secondary school, teaching activity
1. INTRODUCTION
With the increasingly bilateral exchanges and cooperation
between China and Romania in the fields of politics, economy,
culture, education and other aspects, the Chinese teaching and
cultural promotion activities of Confucius Institute have been
developed quickly in Romania in recent years. China has
proposed ”the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century
Maritime Silk Road” Initiative, focuses on connectivity and
cooperation among countries primarily between China and the
rest of Eurasia, among which Romania plays a very important
role. Romania and China always have a very good relationship.
In order to keep the good relationship, exchange and
connection between the two countries, we also need people
who know both Romanian and Chinese, therefore, it would be
important for the students from both countries to learn the
language of each other.
This paper focuses on Chinese teaching in primary and
secondary schools in Romania, and some of the problems
encountered in teaching Chinese were also mentioned.
2. THE OVERVIEW OF CHINESE
TEACHING IN ROMANIAN PRIMARY
AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS
The start of Chinese teaching in Romanian primary and
secondary schools was after the establishment of Confucius
Institute at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, which was the
first Confucius Institute in Romania. In recent years, we have
seen that more and more Chinese investors have come to
Romania for collaboration and investments, more and more
people are becoming interested in learning Chinese language
and culture. We have now four Confucius Institutes in
Romania, Confucius Institute at Lucian Blaga University of
Sibiu, Confucius Institute at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-
Napoca, Confucius Institute at Transilvania University of
Brasov and Confucius Institute at the University of Bucharest.
There are almost 5300 students from approximate 50 primary
and secondary schools, who are learning Chinese language and
culture, mainly from Sibiu, Cluj, Brasov, Bucharest, Timisoara,
Iasi, Constanta, Craiova, Galati, Pitesti, Arad, Bacau, Targu
Mures, Deva, Hunedoara, Petrosani, Harghita, Suceava, Alba
Iulia, Giurgiu, Bistrita and other cities.
3. SEVERAL THOUGHTS ON CHINESE
LANGUAGE PROMOTION ACTIVITIES
IN ROMANIAN PRIMARY AND
SECONDARY SCHOOLS
The Chinese language promotion activities in Romanian
primary and secondary schools have been very fruitful during
the last several years. From one hand, Confucius Institute has
made great efforts for being a multi-platform for the students to
have a better understanding of China and Chinese culture;
From the other hand, after the official visit of China's Premier
Li Keqiang to Romania in 2013, a series of cooperation
agreements were signed between the two countries, the
relationship between China and Romania has entered a new
era, more and more people realize that to know Chinese is very
important; The rapid economic growth of China also makes
Chinese learning in a high demand. With all of these, we
believe that Chinese will be the language of the future.
As a Chinese teacher of Confucius Institute at Lucian Blaga
University of Sibiu, after 6 years of teaching Chinese in
Romanian schools, I would like to summarize the situation and
some problems encountered during the teaching activities from
these aspects:
1. For the primary and secondary schools in Romania which
we already have taken the Chinese teaching activities,
most of them, have the collaboration with Confucius
Institute, which is also the outcome of Confucius
Institute’s active promoting activities. We believe that, the
partnerships concluded between the Confucius Institute
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38
and the local authorities, School Inspectorates would
assure the sustainable developing of Chinese courses in the
schools. With the cooperation agreement guaranteed, more
schools will look for instead of waiting for the
collaborations for Chinese teaching activities.
2. For the Chinese courses we have in these almost 50
schools, although there are several schools, the Chinese
course has been already taken as an optional discipline in
the school curriculum; but for most of the schools, the
Chinese course is out of the school curriculum, which
means, the students need to stay more after they finish the
outline courses. For the primary school and secondary
school students, at an age of expecting more fun and
colorful life, they need to be really interested in Chinese
language and culture to stay over the school schedule.
We’ve did a research on why the students want to learn
Chinese, most of the students choose that they are
interested in Chinese culture, the other reasons would be:
China’s fast developed economy makes Chinese learning
necessary; being interested in the Asian culture; want to go
to China to travel; want to study in China in the future;
enjoy Chinese movies and music; There are also some
students, they choose to learn Chinese just because of
curiosity.
However, Chinese is not an easy language to learn for
Romanians. To stay over the school schedule to learn two
months of Chinese still seems Ok for them, but when the
study becomes harder, like to learn any other languages,
some students would start to give up the learning.
When taking the Chinese teaching activities for primary
and secondary school students, the teacher should guide
the students to learn in an active way, introduce culture
aspects while teaching the language, try to make the
teaching activities more interesting. Learning Chinese
through Chinese movies and Chinese songs could also be a
very good way.
The teachers can help the students to set a short-term goal,
e.g. to pass the first level of Chinese HSK examination
after 8 months of learning, so he could also participate the
summer school in China; to get one year of scholarship in
China after passing the third level of HSK, etc. Each year,
there are also students getting the chance of visiting China
through the participation of the ‘’Chinese Bridge’’—
Chinese Proficiency Competition for Secondary School
Students.
We’ve seen that more and more Chinese companies are
coming to Romania for investments and collaboration, to
learn Chinese would also be very helpful for the future
career plans.
3. In Romania, the main teaching materials used are ”Happy
Chinese”, ”Learn Chinese with me”, ”Road to Success”
and ”Chinese Paradise” etc. Actually not a lot of Chinese
learning books could be found in the local book stores. In
my opinion this could be an aspect which we should work
for, to develop a series of teaching materials to meet the
needs of the locals.
For the teachers, we should choose different kinds of
books, different ways of teaching method for different
group of students; pay attention to each individual’s needs,
make sure everybody could learn something from each
single lesson, and try to maximize the teaching
effectiveness.
With the development of bilateral economic relations between
China and Romania, the cultural and educational exchanges
between the two countries are more frequently. More and more
people are willing to understand China, to visit China or to
study in China. We’ve seen that a lot of parents want their
children to learn, and more and more students are interested to
learn Chinese, a language which they believe would be quite
useful in the future. As the Chinese teachers at Confucius
Institute, we should try our best to do as much as we can for
those who are interested in Chinese language and culture, to
have a better understanding of China, in order to promote the
mutual understanding between both countries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. Zhu, Zhiping (2010). “A Historical Perspective of
Teaching Chinese as a Second Language”. In Teaching
and Learning Chinese: Issues and Perspectives
2. “Pedagogical Issues Raised and Discussed in The Chinese
Repository’’ (2001). Journal of the Chinese Language
Teachers Association
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Belt,_One_Road
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