2021 Online Mid-Autumn Festival—the first lesson of the elementary class of Confucius Instiute at University of Latvia

From September 20 to 23, 2021 local time, Guangzhou, Mid-Autumn Festival full moon; Latvia, full of autumn. The teacher and students of the elementary class of Confucius Institute at University of Latvia ushered in the first online Chinese class.

At the beginning of the class, volunteer teacher Wang Kaixin played the song “Hope for a Long Time” to the students, introduced Mid-Autumn Festival to the students, and invited everyone to learn about Mid-Autumn Festival activities. The students found it very interesting and learned the blessing of “Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!”

After the formal start of the class, volunteer teacher Wang Kaixin welcomed everyone to come to the Chinese class. Afterwards, She made a simple self-introduction and introduced her hobbies and majors to the students. Then the students introduced themselves to each other. Some students introduced themselves as college students at University of Latvia, who chose Chinese because they were interested in Chinese; some students had already worked and came to learn Chinese because of work needs; Some student introduced herself from a small city in Latvia, whose neighbors were Chinese, and she wanted to learn Chinese to communicate with her Chinese neighbors. Another student was a middle school student who was just in the seventh grade because she liked Chinese culture and writing Chinese characters.

After everyone made a brief self-introduction, the teacher introduced the content and arrangement of the Chinese class for the new semester, including the language knowledge to be mastered, the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, and the content about Chinese culture. Then the teacher proposed two classroom rules to the students and encouraged everyone to jointly formulate class management rules, and the students agreed.

Finally, everyone started the first Chinese lesson “Hello!”. The students learned the initials, finals, and tones. After correcting the sounds one by one, the Chinese teacher added the tunes to the initials and finals and sang them. When teaching Chinese tones, gestures were used to let students understand the rise and fall of the tones. The students said that learning Chinese is fun and crazy. After class, the teacher asked the students if they wanted to have their own Chinese name. The students actively expressed that they wanted to have their own Chinese name. The teacher asked the students to send emails about the meaning of their names and what they were interested in Chinese culture. And the teacher will give everyone a Chinese name in the next class. So the first online Chinese class ended in a happy atmosphere.

当地时间2021年9月20日至23日，广州，中秋月圆，拉脱维亚，秋意浓。拉脱维亚大学孔子学院本部初级班的师生们一起迎来了第一次线上汉语课堂。

上课伊始，志愿者教师王凯欣给学生们放了《但愿人长久》的歌曲，并向学生们介绍了我们的中秋节，邀请大家一起了解了关于中秋节的活动。学生们纷纷表示这很有趣，并且学会了“中秋节快乐！”的祝福语。

正式开课后，志愿者教师王凯欣表示欢迎大家来上汉语课。并且在之后做了简单的自我介绍，向学生介绍了自己的爱好和专业。然后学生们互相做了自我介绍，有的学生介绍自己是拉脱维亚大学在读的大学生，因为对汉语感兴趣所以选择了汉语这门课；有的学生已经工作了，因为工作的需要所以来学习汉语；有的学生介绍自己在拉脱维亚一个小的城市，她的邻居是中国人，她表示想要学习汉语跟自己的中国邻居交流；还有个学生是刚读七年级的中学生，因为喜欢中国文化和写汉字而来到汉语课堂。

大家做了简单的自我介绍后，教师向大家介绍了新学期汉语课的内容和安排，包括将要掌握的语言知识、听说读写的技能以及关于中国文化的内容。接着教师给学生们提出了两个课堂规则，并且鼓励大家共同制定班级管理规则，学生们纷纷表示同意。

最后，大家就正式开始了第一堂汉语课内容“你好！”，学生们学习了声母、韵母以及声调，在一个一个纠音之后，汉语教师把声母和韵母加上了曲调，唱给了学生。在教汉语声调时，利用了手势让学生明白了声调的升降。学生们表示学汉语有趣又疯狂。下课后，教师询问学生是否想要有自己的中文名字，学生们都很积极地表示想要有自己的中文名字，教师就让学生们把自己名字的意义以及对中国文化感兴趣的内容发邮件给教师，下节课教师将会给大家一个中文名字。于是第一次线上汉语课在欢乐的氛围里结束了。