A shared moon——The“first-meeting gift”for teacher and students, Confucius Institute at University of Latvia
Golden autumn is the most beautiful season in the world, and owns the most round moon in the Mid-autumn festival. Local time 20th to 21st, September, 2021, the advanced Chinese class(HSK5) of Confucius Institute at University of Latvia had their first Chinese class,meanwhile,HSK4 class has begun the second-week Chinese learning.The Mid-autumn Festival is coming. Teacher Tang Heng decided to give a unique “first-meeting gift”to HSK5 and HSK4 students——Celebrating Mid-autumn Festival Online.
There are three parts of the activity，“How much do you know about Mid-Autumn Festival”, “The poetry conference under the moon” and “Cultural Q&A”.
During the first part, the teacher interacted with students by “oracle”(the ancient Chinese character), which led to the origin story of the festival. The class were interested in the festival customs and took notes of the “祭月(pray to the moon)“, “团圆(family reunion)” and “桂花糕（osmanthus cake）”. Next,the whole class watched the《嫦娥奔月（a classic legend about Mid-Autumn Festival）》video vividly performed by some younger actors, which made students immerse in the beautiful and mysterious festival culture. As for the second part,Tang Laoshi showed a famous Mid-autumn Festival poetry of ancient China——《水调歌头·明月几时有（节段）》,which not only offer students a prefect artistic conception,but also let them feel the charm of Chinese characters and literature.The class played a positive role in the last part, and Tang Laoshi found students had a deep impression on what teacher presented to them in former section and could answer the most of questions correctly. Among questions, the class were asked to guess the Chinese characters through the oracle. After teacher giving clues, some of students recognized characters“车”and“安”quickly.
The bright moon may be shared with people from long distance,the blessings also could be sent far away. Although HSK5’s first class was ended by teacher’s and students’ wishes, the Chinese learning in the new academic year has just begun. In the end of the class, Tang Laoshi played a little video “Flying the Kongming Lantern（Chinese people make wishes when the lantern rise up to the air.It’s also the symbol of the harvest and happy year）” that she had recorded for her HSK5 and HSK4 classes in advance, and wished students all the best and a great progress in the future Chinese learning！
人间最美是金秋，一年最圆中秋月。当地时间2021年9月20日到21日，拉脱维亚大学孔子学院总部成人高高级班（HSK5）迎来了今年秋季学期首次线上中文课，成人高级班（HSK4）也开始了第二周的中文学习。临近中秋佳节，中文教师汤老师决定为同学们准备一份别开生面的见面礼——“云上中秋”。
本次“云上中秋”主题活动分为三个环节，“中秋知多少”、“月下诗会”和“后羿射日——文化问答”。在“中秋知多少”环节，教师用“秋”的甲骨文与学生互动，由此引出中秋节的来源。学生们对中秋节的习俗很感兴趣，颇为认真地用笔记本记下“祭月”、“团圆”、“桂花糕”等几个习俗名称。接着，汤老师和学生们共同观看了一段《小戏骨庆中秋——嫦娥奔月》的视频，小演员们把这个经典的神话传说演绎得惟妙惟肖，学生们都沉浸在美好而又神秘的节日文化里。到了“月下诗会”环节，汤老师给同学们深情朗诵了《水调歌头·明月几时有（节选）》，不仅让学生们体会了中秋在古诗中的意境，也感受到了汉字和中华诗歌的魅力。“后羿射日——文化问答“环节里，学生们积极地说出自己的答案，汤老师发现学生们对老师所介绍的文化知识印象很深，并能够正确回答出大部分的问题。在辨认“秋”字甲骨文一题中，教师还让学生猜一猜其它选项的汉字，学生们根据图片及老师的提示，很快认出了“车”、“安”的甲骨文。
明月千里共，祝福遥相送。HSK5班的第一节课在同学们声声祝福里告一段落，同时，HSK4班的学生也写下了属于自己的中秋节祝福。但新学期的中文学习才刚开始，汤老师播放了一段自己提前录制的“放飞孔明灯”的小视频，给两个班的同学们送上美好的祝愿：月圆人圆事事圆，希望同学们的中文更上一层楼！
