Chinese teaching in Ventspils University of Applied Sciences 2022-2023 officially starts

On October 13 and 14, 2022 local time, the Chinese class at Ventspils University of Applied Sciences, a teaching point under the Confucius Institute at the University of Latvia, was officially launched. Mr. Xu Shen served as a Chinese teacher.

Chinese courses here are mainly divided into elective courses for college students and adult interest courses in the Lifelong Learning Institute. The first class starts with knowing China and Chinese. The teacher first introduced himself, and the students were very interested in the meaning of the teacher’s Chinese name. Then, a series of Chinese knowledge quizzes allowed students to quickly understand China and the Chinese language system. Then they entered the main topic. The students mastered the simple Chinese greetings through group activities and situational performances. Learning of tones made it difficult but challenging for them. There were bursts of laughter in the class as the tones and simple pinyin were seriously practiced. Finally, the teacher led the students to have free discussions on some topics related to Chinese culture and contemporary China. The content of this time was “Invollution VS Buddhism VS Lying Flat”. Students expressed their thoughts on these three attitudes towards life, and talked about the current situation and choices of young Latvian people.

At present, there are nearly 40 college students and people from the society coming to study Chinese at Ventspils University of Applied Sciences. In addition to the above two classes, online adult interest classes are also opened simultaneously.

当地时间2022年10月13日、14日，拉脱维亚大学孔子学院下设教学点文茨皮尔斯应用科技大学的中文课正式启动。汉教志愿者徐申担任中文教师。

中文课程主要分为在读大学生选修课班和终身学习学院成人兴趣班。第一堂课从认识中国和中文开始。老师首先进行自我介绍，学生对老师中文名的含义深感有趣。紧接着，一系列的中文知识问答让学生快速了解了中国以及汉语系统。随后进入正题，学生们通过小组活动、情景表演掌握了简单的中文问候方式，但声调的学习让他们大呼困难但很有挑战性。认真练习声调和简单的拼音时，课堂上传来阵阵笑声。最后，老师带着学生就一些中国文化、当代中国相关的话题进行自由讨论。本次讨论的内容是“内卷VS佛系VS躺平”，学生对这三种生活态度发表自己的想法，并谈论了拉脱维亚年轻人的现状和选择。

目前，文茨皮尔斯应用科技大学教学点共有近四十位大学生及社会人士前来学习中文。除了以上两个班，线上成人兴趣班也同步开启。