Mid-Autumn Festival Cultural Lesson for Children’s Class of Confucius Institute at University of Latvia

From September 20 to 24, local time, the teachers and students from Children’s Class of Confucius Institute at University of Latvia had their first online lesson. Due to the epidemic, Chinese classes could only be held online. After a brief self-introduction, we ushered in the first cultural lesson ——Mid-Autumn Festival.

At the beginning of the class, students began to talk about the Mid-Autumn Festival in their mind. Some students said “moon cake”, some students introduced the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival in English, and other students were very surprised about that. The students spoke freely, and Tu Jingying, the Volunteer Chinese teacher, appreciated the students very much. In this cultural class, we learned the words related to the Mid-Autumn Festival, and participated in making moon cakes through situational games. At last, Mr. Tu showed the lanterns she has made. Due to the limited time, the students could not make lanterns together, so we hope to have the opportunity to experience the Mid-Autumn Festival in class. In this class, students not only reviewed what they had learned before, but also learned more about Mid-Autumn Festival culture.

In general, this was a successful Chinese class with a warm atmosphere. The cultural class deepened students’ understanding of Chinese traditional culture and its cultural connotation.

当地时间2021.9月20日至24日，拉脱维亚大学孔子学院少儿班师生迎来了第一次线上课，受疫情影响，汉语课只能在线上举行。在进行了简短的自我介绍后，我们迎来了第一堂文化课——中秋节。

课堂开始学生谈起了自己印象的中秋节，有学生说“月饼”，有学生用英文介绍了中秋节的来历，其他同学表示非常惊喜，学生们畅所欲言，汉语教师志愿者涂菁滢对学生表示非常赞赏。在这次文化课上，学习了与中秋节有关的词语，并通过情景式游戏参与了月饼的制作，最后涂老师展示了制作的花灯，由于时间有限，学生们没有能够一起制作花灯，希望有机会可以共聚课堂亲身体验中秋节。这堂课上学生不仅重温了之前学习的知识，还了解了更多中秋节文化。

总体而言，这是一节比较圆满的汉语课，课堂气氛较为热烈，这堂文化课加深了学生对中国传统文化的理解，感受了其文化内涵。