Classroom with a difference: learning Chinese in Denmark

English.news.cn 2010-11-26 17:55:02

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by Devapriyo Das

 

Students from the 6th to 9th grades of Niels Steensens Gymnasium perform Chinese folk dance “Yanhe Wu”, in Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, on Nov. 25, 2010, during the inauguration ceremony of Gymnasium’s new Confucius Class. The establishment ceremony of Denmark’s second Confucius class was held on Thursday in Copenhagen. (Xinhua/Devapriyo Das)

COPENHAGEN, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) — Red-and-gold Chinese lanterns hang from the classroom ceiling, while boldly-painted masks, often seen in Chinese operas, lie on tables at the back.

But a simple, green board along the front wall seems most eye-catching: it is covered with Chinese characters, neatly written in white chalk. And the students reading the characters are all Danish teenagers.

“Our students are becoming very aware that Chinese offers them possibilities that could benefit their future lives,” said Dorthe Enger, principal of the prestigious Niels Steensens Gymnasium in Copenhagen.

On Thursday, it launched a “Confucius Classroom,” the second in Denmark.

INTEREST

Enger believed that Denmark’s small territory and limited number of Danish speakers (about 5.5 million) have made it imperative for Danes to learn foreign languages.

As Chinese teaching at her school is combined with the learning of China’s art, culture and history, the study of the language, despite its complex characters and unfamiliar sounds, has turned into a pleasant experience.

Leopold Petersen, a 14-year-old eighth grader at Niels Steensens, has been studying Chinese for about six months. “It’s a bit hard to remember all the signs,” he said, “but it’s an easy language to speak!”

He said he hopes to go to China one day and “to communicate normally with people.”

His classmate Kristina said Chinese is “a special language and we have a lot of fun in Chinese classes.”

Asked why she thinks its a useful language, she said, “I think it’s a growing language, and it’s very important we learn it. Other schools should be doing it as well.”

An initiative of China’s world-famous Confucius Institute, the Confucius Classroom concept is already turning heads in Denmark.

Stoevring Gymnasium, in Aalborg, northern Denmark, was the first Danish school to set up the classroom in collaboration with the Confucius Institute at Aalborg University.

OPPORTUNITY

The Confucius classrooms have, so far, been hosted in independently-run Danish schools. They receive some financial and human resource support from partner Confucius institutes.

“It’s not that we are given a project. We ourselves are working very competently and in a very focused manner with the Chinese language,” Enger said.

The assessment process to find a suitable host school is lengthy and can take up to two years.

The Confucius partnership will mean further opportunities for improving Chinese teaching skills, new educational materials for Chinese language classes, and a chance to work in partnership with the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China (RDFZ), one of China’s finest high schools.

It also means exciting study tours and student exchange visits, and access to partner universities’ academic resources.

“What we will see in next couple of years is that lots of Danish schoolchildren will learn Chinese,” said Prof. Verner Worm, director of the Confucius Institute at Copenhagen Business School.

“This is about the fact that China is the world’s second-largest economy. Young people who are 15 years old today will live in a world where they will have to deal with China. And its good to start by learning the language.”

Niels Steensens has three Chinese teachers, and has offered students Chinese lessons over the past five years, with the language now a compulsory third language after Danish and English.

To date, over 485 of its students have taken officially certified Chinese language exams. The new partnership will mean more funding to directly improve Chinese teaching and closer academic links between universities.

Over time, through stronger relations with the RDFZ and by visiting China and living with Chinese families, Enger hoped her students would “learn about China in a deep and existential way.”

JOBS

Denmark’s Minister of Education Tina Nedergaard thinks “it is crucial for Danish students to compete globally,” and to that end, they need “knowledge about China because it plays an important part on the global scene.”

“When pupils get this acknowledgment and learn about China, they have something to provide Danish companies,” she said.

A few leading Danish multinational companies have already had a strong presence in China.

Nedergaard dismisses the fear held by some that China’s rise as a global economic power is a threat to Western jobs. “I believe that growth in any country helps in pulling up the rest of us,” she said.

“China’s impressive development has helped Europe to overcome a time of crisis,” she said, referring to China’s efforts to stabilize the world economy during the panic of the latest financial crisis which originated from the Wall Street.

“I know there are some forces around who may want to see it as a zero-sum game, but it’s not.”

Prof. Worm, who studied Chinese, philosophy and economy at Peking University in the mid-1970s, and has watched China’s remarkable transformation in the past decades, agrees it is important to resist stereotyping the country.

INNOVATION

While it is clear that Danish students are benefiting, the impact on China is also palpable.

Wang Minzhu, a senior administrator of RDFZ, believes the Confucius Classrooms are helping Chinese students think differently about the world.

“Chinese students do feel very happy about the Confucius Classroom idea,” she said, adding that “they are eager to learn about the world. We already have many partner schools all over the world, and now, we have the chance to learn about Denmark.”

“Chinese culture has a long history but it is undergoing change,” Du Xiangyun, director of the Confucius Institute at Aalborg University. “Many people from China have mentioned that Danish innovation and design are very unique. The Chinese could learn from that.”

The links between elite educational institutions in Denmark and China have led to new knowledge about “education in the Chinese context,” she said.

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