An activity of “Chinese corner” was held in Faculty of Humanities, Latvian University
An activity of “Chinese corner” was held in Faculty of Humanities, LatvianUniversity at 6 P.M.on April, 14th, 2016. Dr. Agita Baltgalve, professor of Sinology at the Faculty, hosted the activity which attracted active participation of not only undergraduate and graduate students who specialized in Sinology but also local Chinese immigrants, Chinese students studying in the university, Chinese language teachers and volunteer Chinese language teachers in Confucius Institute. The topic of Chinese corner this time was sport. There were twelve cartoon pictures put up on the wall, each representing a different sport with illustration of the Chinese characters and Pinyin. The pop singer Comospeople’s song of “Let’s go jogging” played as background music. The first phase of the activity was to introduce oneself with emphasis on favorite sports. Dr. Agita Baltgalve started by saying that she loved to do sports outdoors and that in summer she would swim while in winter she would ski. She was also fascinated by Chinese martial arts, an interesting fact she proved by showing participants a video of her stick aerobatic play. Her presentation was soon followed by other attenders who related with enthusiasm what sports they loved and how they felt. The second phase of the activity was demonstrating particular postures of a certain sport. Everybody enjoyed this part, some doing yoga and some boxing and a little Chinese boy even performing radio calisthenics. The third phase was free talk. Sinology students partnered native speakers of Chinese, their talks still focused more on those cartoon pictures illustrating sports items. One of them was kicking birdie, which great interested the Latvian students who had never seen before in Latvia. The activity lasted approximately two hours with drinks and cookies served on the table. All participants said that the activity was rather important and particularly helpful for Sinology students who wanted a deeper understanding of China and improvement in practical skills in using the language.
