Chinese New Year cultural theme activities held by Smiltene Secondary school

“迎狗年，庆新春”。连日来，世界各地的孔子学院不约而同地举办各种形式的中国春节庆祝活动。在拉脱维亚东北的一个小城里，斯米尔提恩中心学校的汉语课程刚刚起步，学生对中国文化充满了好奇。当地的汉语志愿者教师陈凤凰也抓住“春节”这个契机点，举办了春节文化体验活动。

在春节期间，陈凤凰陆续在各个班级开展了以“春节习俗知多少”为主题的春节文化课。课程中，她结合视频图片等方式，向学生一一介绍了春节的由来、习俗以及一些春节祝福语。在文化教学的最后环节，在不同班级相应开展了制作红包、制作小狗新年贺卡、制作灯笼、剪“春”字等文化体验活动。

通过此次春节主题文化活动，学生们了解了中国春节的传统习俗，体验了中国剪纸等文化形式，并对中华文化产生了极大的兴致，个个都乐在其中。学生表示，很喜欢这种语言课程和文化相结合的形式，不仅掌握了实用的语言表达，也更加深刻地体会到中国春节文化的内涵。

“Welcome Dog Year, celebrate the Spring Festival.” In recent days, Confucius Institutes around the world have held various forms of Chinese New Year celebrations. In a small town in northeastern of Latvia, the Chinese course at Smiltene Secondary School has become more and more popular and students are curious about Chinese culture. Local Chinese volunteer teacher Chen Fenghuang also seized the “Spring Festival” as a turning point and organized a Spring Festival cultural theme activities.

During the Spring Festival, Chen Fenghuang successively carried out the Spring Festival Culture Class with the theme of “How Many Chinese New Year’s Customs Is Known” in all classes. Through video, pictures and New Year songs,she introduced to students the origin of the Spring Festival, customs and some Spring Festival greetings language. The last part of cultural teaching, Chen Fenghuang teached the students to make red envelopes, the New Year’s greeting cards, making lanterns and make some paper-cutting ，such as the Chinese character “春” （which means spring）.

Through the theme of the Spring Festival cultural experience activities, students learned about the traditional Chinese New Year customs, experience the Chinese paper-cut and other forms of culture.They had a great interest in Chinese culture, all of them are happy. Students said they really like the combination of language courses and cultures. They not only have mastered practical language expressions, but also have a deeper understanding of the connotation of Chinese Spring Festival culture.