Auburn Global begins Mandarin-English exchange program
Dec. 1, 2017 - Auburn, Ala.
Yi Wang and Eric Davis of Auburn Global started the Mandarin-English exchange program this semester, which met weekly and encouranged Chinese and American students to learn about eachother's languages and cultures.
Everyone was welcome to join the program, not just students in Mandarin or English classes. Each meeting had a theme, such as trivia, charades, food, and more. During the hour that they met together, they typically spent 30 minutes focusing on English and 30 minutes focusing on Mandarin.
Davis, an ESL teacher at Auburn, said his favorite memory from the semester was during the scavenger hunt on Nov. 11. He said he looked over and noticed the Chinese and American students were working together and teaching eachother. "The students spend all day in classes with their techers, so they don't want to be taught more," he said. "I think it's better when they learn from one of their peers." This learning structure was reflected in each meeting.
Contributed by Yi Wang
Contributed by Yi Wang
Contributed by Yi Wang
Contributed by Yi Wang
Based off a survey, Wang said the participants really liked the activities. One challenge the program faced was consistent numbers throughout the semester. "Numbers went down after midterms," said Wang. "Seems like it’s not the content, it’s the members themselves getting too busy." They hope to combat this issue in the future by changing the day of the week or the time.
"We definitely want to do it long term," said Wang. "With language, you can't just do it once and get it."
Wang and Davis both hope that this program will help get international students integrated into the Auburn community. "We both feel that our international students live in their little bubble," said Wang. "The first thing you hear them say is 'My English is not good, so I don’t want to do that,'"
A Chinese student who participated in this program agrees. Zhiliang Zhang, a freshman at Auburn, said he was shy in the program because he thinks his English is not very good. However, he said he liked the program overall because it gave him a chance to practice English and make friends from a country different from his home country.
Students Sydney Held and Raxia Bailey completed Intermediate Chinese I during the Fall 2017 semester, and they both participated in the Mandarin-English exchange program. They both have visited China before.
Held said she liked how the program was an easy was to engage with the Chinese students on Auburn's campus. Her favorite meeting was the trivia night. "It was really funny to rely on Chinese students to translate trivia about Auburn into English for us to figure out," she said. "One of the Chinese students on my team knew more about Auburn than I did!"
Wang said she enjoyed watching the students play the games because the friendly competition sparked their interests in the different cultures. She said she loved seeing them have fun.
"I think our expectations were pretty wide open. We didn’t really have expectations," Davis said about the program. Wang said they knew they wanted the first program to be between English and Chinese students because although there are many other different international students, most of them are Chinese. She has big plans for the future though.
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Raxia Bailey (left) and Sydney Held (right) sing a Chinese song about a jasmine flower.
"If this works out great, then we can go to the Korean language, to the Saudi Arabian language," Wang said. She said she wanted a good frame from this program before branching out to other languages.
Wang also says she hopes this program grows outside of the campus and spreads into the Auburn community. She wants to get younger kids from Auburn's elementary and middle schools interested in Chinese so they can grow up in bilingual situations.
Overall, Wang said she hopes people can get to know China in a fun way. "If they do get some taste of it, they might fall in love with it."
Yi Wang and Eric Davis smile in Foy Hall on Friday, Dec. 1, in Auburn, Ala.