Passion for Chinese Language Teaching - Entering the Chinese Language Classroom of a Local Teacher in Slovakia

With her passion for the Chinese language, Ivana became a local Chinese language teacher at Comenius University in Slovakia in October 2022.

During her time studying and living in China, Ivana developed her love for the Chinese language and was fascinated by Chinese culture. After returning to Slovakia, she chose to become a local Chinese language teacher, teaching Chinese language knowledge and introducing Chinese culture to local students. "I studied international relations at Fudan University, which made me realize the importance of communication. I hope my students can learn Chinese well, understand and fall in love with the language, and explore a bigger world." Ivana said.

Ivana teaches Chinese at three teaching sites of Comenius University, targeting primary, middle, and high school students. Facing learners of different ages, she is able to tailor her teaching strategies accordingly.

At Základná skola Ruzová dolina primary school, Ivana applies the bilingual version of the textbook "Learn Chinese with Me" as the teaching material for about 20 students aged 6 to 8 at the beginner level in Chinese. Considering that primary school students are in a critical period of language acquisition, she fully utilizes Chinese learning resources to create a language learning environment and designs interesting classroom activities to stimulate their interest in learning. "I am currently studying psychology, and I want to understand the psychological characteristics of these children in order to develop more suitable teaching strategies and methods for them." Ivana said.

Pre-class interaction

In the face of primary school students with varying levels of Chinese proficiency and different learning styles, Ivana arranges different teaching activities in the limited class time to increase classroom participation. "Some students love to write Chinese characters, while others love to answer questions. I give each student a chance, and they are very pleasant." she said.

Student actively write Chinese characters on the stage

Ivana said, "Since this year is the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese lunar calendar, well-known Chinese nursery rhymes like 'Little White Rabbit' and 'Happy New Year' are good classroom resources. Singing nursery rhymes is an activity with high participation rate, which showcases standard Chinese pronunciation, and brings a strong interest in learning, achieving good teaching results." Ivana is trying different teaching activities to stimulate students' interest in learning.

Learning to sing nursery rhymes

At United School Tilgnerova, an international school, Ivana teaches middle school students aged 10 to 14. Due to the tight schedule of local middle school students, they attend classes based on their own schedules and learning needs. Therefore, they have strong intrinsic motivation and mostly take the class out of interest and love for the Chinese language. When teaching middle school students, Ivana pays more attention to cultivating their ability to express themselves in Chinese and their awareness of using Chinese for communication. Through routine exercises such as translation and sentence making, as well as communicative exercises like role-playing, she encourages each student to speak Chinese confidently and provides timely feedback on their classroom performance.

Student-teacher interaction exercises

"They take their homework seriously and especially enjoy writing Chinese characters. Although it's difficult, they still write them very well." said Ivana. Students display their homework in class, from pinyin to Chinese characters and their meanings, revealing their enthusiasm for Chinese language. "Chinese characters are the foundation of learning Chinese, and they are very interested in them, which is great." Ivana plans to print Chinese character copybooks to distribute to students, allowing them to practice according to their own interests.

At Albert Einstein Grammar School, Ivana teaches high school students aged 14 to 16. The content of her teaching adjusts according to the students' proficiency and learning abilities. She incorporates more cultural teaching into the curriculum and provides explanations of stroke order when teaching Chinese characters, and leads students to recognize the form of characters, like distinguishing similar Chinese characters by utilizing word meanings. When teaching the character "那" (nà), Ivana applies associative teaching by introducing similar characters like "哪" (nǎ) and "娜" (nà), which is the last character of her name. Students quickly recognize and memorize them, which also brings the teacher and students closer. In higher-grade Chinese language classes, Ivana allocates more time for students to practice dialogues, cultivating their ability to creatively communicate using the knowledge they have learned. "Although there are only two classes per week, these high school students are very serious and committed, and they make progress in every class." Ivana said.

Teaching Chinese characters

For international Chinese language education, local Chinese language teachers have inherent advantages. The advantage of being a native speaker allows Ivana to better understand the difficulties students may encounter while learning Chinese. Based on her understanding of local customs and the research on students' physical and mental development, she implements tailored teaching methods, emphasizes joyful learning, constantly updates teaching strategies, and achieves good teaching results, gaining the love of her students. Ivana expressed her hope to further improve her Chinese language skills, strengthen her professional knowledge, and continue contributing to the thriving development of Chinese language education in Slovakia.

(Author: Shi Chaofan)