Confucius Classroom at Riga Secondary School No.34 successfully launched Chinese online courses

At 14:20 pm on September 18, the first face-to-face online Chinese class in Riga Secondary School 34 was successfully launched on the ZOOM platform. Due to the impact of the epidemic, volunteer Chinese teachers cannot go to Latvia on time. In order to ensure the normal progress of Chinese classes, Riga Secondary School 34 actively communicated with the Confucius Institute to ensure the smooth progress of Chinese online classes.
The Riga 34 Middle School is the main teaching site for volunteer teacher Niu Shuang. Before the start of school, communicating with the principal of Riga 34 Middle School in Latvia, Marina and Chinese teacher Evita , with everyone’s efforts, many difficulties encountered in online classes have been resolved. Last two weeks , in order to prevent the network connection, the inability to see or hear the students’ voices, after consulting with the local teacher Evita, we decided to use Chinese volunteers to record the class in advance for the Chinese class and maintain ZOOM during class time .The online method determines how to attend the class according to the classroom situation. This will not only ensure that students in 34 Middle School can hear standard Chinese pronunciation, but also can practice oral English with volunteer Chinese teachers in the classroom.
After solving these problems step by step, on the afternoon of September 18th, Riga Secondary School 34 can finally start the first real-time online class. When communicating with Evita, a local Chinese teacher at 34 Middle School, Evita said in fluent Chinese, “It’s not easy for Chinese class to proceed smoothly!”. Evita is an experienced, caring, and highly proficient Chinese teacher. She said: “Although I am over 40 years old,as the Chinese saying ,’live and learn’,  The skills of online lessons must be learned, in order to keep up with the changes of the times.” Indeed, the good result is everyone’s effort including Riga Secondary School 34, the Confucius Institute, local teachers and volunteers.It is the actively communication with each other and solve the problems in time made our Chinese class successfully launched. Without the efforts of one of them, it is impossible to talk to the 6th grade middle school students sitting in a classroom in Riga today so that they can understand Chinese and continue to like learning Chinese.
Whenever talked with Evita by emails or other chat apps to prepare lessons, we always encourage each other that “It will be okay!” Finally, today, our Chinese online class is getting better! The smooth use of ZOOM and the active speeches of my classmates quickly shortened the distance between me and my classmates. The students in the class showed great enthusiasm for Chinese online lessons. They used teacher Evita’s mobile phone to record me a video of self-introduction. They were very happy to introduce their names, their favorite things and so on. Although we are thousands of miles apart, we have had a special friendship in this special period.

当地时间9月18日下午14点20分，里加34中学第一堂面对面的线上汉语课在ZOOM平台顺利开展。由于受疫情影响，汉语教师志愿者无法按时赴拉，为了保证汉语课的正常进行，里加34中学积极与孔院沟通，决定采取线上教学的形式进行授课。

里加34中学是志愿者老师牛爽主要负责的教学点，开学前通过和拉脱维亚里加34中学校长Marina以及中文教师Evita的交流，在大家的努力下，解决了很多上网课遇到的困难。刚开始前两周的汉语课，为了防止网络连接不上、看不到或者听不见学生声音的情况出现，与当地老师Evita协商之后，我们决定采用汉语志愿者提前录课并在上课时间保持ZOOM在线的方式，根据课堂情况决定如何上课。这样既能保证34中的学生可以听到标准的汉语发音，又能在课堂上和汉语教师志愿者练习口语。

在这些问题逐一解决以后，终于，于9月18日下午使用ZOOM平台开始了第一节实时网课。在跟34中学当地的汉语老师Evita交流时，Evita用流利的汉语说“汉语课顺利进行太不容易了！”。Evita是一位经验丰富，有爱心，中文水平很高的拉脱维亚本土汉语老师，她说：“虽然自己已经40多岁了，但是用中国的一句话就是‘活到老，学到老’，上网课的技能必须要学会，才能跟上时代的变化。”确实，每一堂汉语课顺利进行的前提是34中学校方、孔子学院、当地老师以及志愿者之间的相互理解、互相沟通，此外，还要能够及时解决出现的问题。缺少了其中一方的努力，都不可能在今天与坐在里加教室里的6年级中学生对话，让他们了解汉语、喜欢汉语、学习汉语。

每当我跟Evita用邮件或者其他聊天APP进行备课的时候，我们都会互相鼓励“会好起来的！”，终于在今天，我们的汉语网课好起来了！ZOOM的顺利使用，同学们的积极发言，迅速拉近了我与他们的距离。班里的同学对汉语网课产生了极大的热情，他们用Evita老师的手机给我录了自我介绍的视频，非常高兴地介绍自己的名字、自己喜欢的事物等等。虽然我们相距千万里，但是我们在这一特殊的时期，产生了特殊的友谊。