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UIC teams of foreign staff members shone brilliantly at the Second Chinese Contest in Zhuhai on 15 October 2016. One team captured the first-place prize, and the two others won third-place prizes. The participants, who came from over eight countries, showed off their knowledge and skills of Chinese language and culture at the competition. They were even challenged to read tongue twisters.
Jenna Otto and Jacob Algrim were two of the UIC participants. Jenna was among the third place winners and Jacob’s team scooped up the first place. What is behind their success of learning Chinese language and culture?
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Jenna Otto: Immersed in Chinese culture
Jenna Otto graduated from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, USA, and is currently working as a foreign intern/teaching assistant in the Statistics Programme at UIC. She has two Chinese names: 明金 (Ming Jin) given by her teacher in the USA, and 嵇纳 (Ji Na), given by Mandy Li the guqin teacher at UIC. Here is her story.
Jenna Otto (right) and her teacher Mandy Li present a guqin performance.
I started learning the language a little bit in high school because I like a good challenge, but then I didn't have much access to Chinese classes for a couple years. When it came time for me to choose my language requirement in college, Chinese was an option.
I ended up selecting Chinese as one of my minors in college and studying abroad for a semester in China, actually at UIC during spring semester 2015. My professor in the USA even arranged a short time for me to spend with a host family in Nanning, Guangxi, where we celebrated the Chinese New Year together. This was the most direct way I felt like I got to experience Chinese culture, and I am grateful to have had such a glimpse into a culture that feels so different from my own.
I continue to pursue knowledge of Chinese culture by learning guqin (or qin) with Mandy Li at UIC. She and the other students have kindly guided me through learning this instrument, including welcoming me into the qin club on campus.
As well as trying to understand some of Chinese culture through qin, I try and attend intermediate classes with Candy Cai, Lecturer of the Chinese Language and Culture Centre. It has been fun to have her as a teacher when I was an exchange student and now again as an intern, and I'm thankful for her patience and good attitude – especially when asking desperate questions on WeChat when I need a little extra help translating. My Mandarin abilities still have a long way to go; I am definitely in the right hands to learn.
One way the Chinese culture has influenced me is that it has made me better at relaxed focus. When a student learns qin, he or she must also learn the qin path (琴道), based on Daoist thought. The most basic thing to learn is to relax and be at peace while playing qin. The more I practice qin, the easier it is for me to relax, meditate, and focus on other tasks I need to do.
Jacob Algrim: Stumbling across China
Jacob Algrim, an English Language Centre Lecturer, has an elegant Chinese name “欧阳乐士,” which literally means “Ouyang (family name) music scholar or soldier.” He tells how he came to China and what helps him improve his Chinese skills.
I’m from Kansas, USA, and I’ve been studying Mandarin Chinese for two years now, but prior to a few months before I moved to China, I actually had no interest in living here or studying this language. I studied Applied Linguistics in university, but my hobby in those years had been studying Hindi and Indian culture. To make a long story short, not long after graduation, I found a job in New Delhi, but was refused a work visa. Disheartened, I decided that I was willing to go anywhere for the sake of having an opportunity for immersion into another language and culture, and found that opportunities in China were plentiful.
Motivation is often a difficult aspect of language study, but is also the most important one contributing to a learner’s success. With this in mind, since arriving in China, I have tried to adopt as many motivating factors as I can in my study and life. On top of being immersed in the culture, I have set goals for HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) preparation, made daily schedules, spent money on lessons and books, found many great Chinese friends, and more, in an effort to keep my level of motivation high and to keep me studying regularly every day.
Working at UIC is not only a great job in terms of the actual teaching, but it also puts me in an environment where I have lots of both local and foreign colleagues, as well as many opportunities for language study.
Through UIC’s Chinese courses, I have been introduced to teachers whose concern for my learning goes beyond the classroom, and I have learned alongside students from a number of different countries. Having great teachers and hardworking classmates from all over the world has been very encouraging, thus contributing several more factors to my motivational scheme and enhancing my learning experience.
(UIC magazine New Dimensions presents the college‘s latest achievements in the areas of teaching, learning, research, and its engagement with society. To view Issue 2 in full, please click here.)
