2015–2016 Annual Openning Ceremony of the First Semester of Chinese Language Courses of Confucius Institute at the University of Latvia

On the evening of September 7th, the first semester of the Confucius Institute at the University of Latvia officially commenced. Latvian Director Peteris Pildegovics, Chinese Director Shang Quanyu and all of Chinese teachers and volunteers of Confucius Institute at Latvia University attended this ceremony. In this meeting, Latvian Director Peteris Pildegovics introduced the basic information and the future development of Confucius Institute. He encouraged all students to take the opportunity to learn Chinese to enrich themselves. And Chinese Director Chinese Director introduced three new changes of Confucius Institute—the foundation of new teaching locations and Confucius Classrooms, the increase of Chinese teachers and volunteers and the increasing number of students. In the meanwhile, Professor Shang also gave a brief introduction about several grand activities of Confucius Institute, and he also invited all students to come to take part in. At last, he hoped that all the students studying at the Confucius Institute of the University of Latvia could learn Chinese knowledge, experience Chinese culture, participate in activities and seize the opportunities to study abroad in China.

Compare to last year, more students come to learn Chinese. And the age span is great, from the young to the old, as well as many students from the University of Latvia and people from different sectors who have great interests in Chinese language and culture. Among them, some who have never been to China but feel great interest to Chinese culture, some who have learn Chinese for many years but still want to improve their Chinese, some who are about to go touring or further studying in China and some came back from China not long ago. According to the actual situation and needs of the participants, Chinese courses of Confucius Institute of University of Latvia divide to two children’s classes, a junior class, a middle class, a senior class and a high-advanced class, which will be undertaken by three Chinese volunteers teachers, Mo Wanting, Yin Shasha and Huang Rui, who come from South China Normal University.

From now on, the staffs of Confucius Institute at the University of Latvia will continue to offer a variety of Chinese cultural experience activities to enrich students’ school life and to further expand the influence of the Confucius Institute of the University of Latvia.