At my 50th birthday party yesterday, I received a card, which was sent to me by my former overseas student xiao jiang.The card said, "Mr. Xin, thank you for teaching me about Chinese architecture, cooking, art and other interesting cultures when I was studying in China. I'm an ambassador now."
This card brought back memories of my thirty years of teaching.At that time, China's "One Belt And One Road" policy was in full swing, attracting a large number of foreign students like xiao jiang to study in China.China's ministry of education has released statistics on Chinese students studying in China in 2018. According to statistics, in 2018, there were 492,185 foreign students from 196 countries and regions studying in 1,004 institutions of higher learning in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities.According to the People's Daily report, there are two main reasons for foreign students to come to China. First, the quality of education in Chinese universities is good and the tuition is low.Second, In recent years, the "Chinese language craze" has aroused foreigners' interest in Chinese culture.
As more and more foreign students come to China, I also assumed the responsibility of being a teacher of Chinese as a foreign language. I often told the students the myths and folk stories of ancient China in class and taught them to read poems.I took them to climb mount tai, to visit the Great Wall, to see the Yellow River. During the Spring Festival, I will take the overseas students home, make dumplings for them, watch the Spring Festival gala with them, set off fireworks and paste Spring Festival couplets.I know very well that only when overseas students feel the charm of Chinese culture, they are willing to stay in China and introduce more friends to China.
The book in my hand is a textbook I wrote for foreign students to learn Chinese. The textbook contains the evolution of Chinese characters from oracle bone inscriptions to block characters, as well as Chinese idioms and folk customs.At that time, foreigners had to prepare their own textbooks for learning Chinese, such as "Chinese listening, speaking, reading and writing" and "Chinese 301 sentences".Now that Chinese has become the lingua franca of the world, there is a need for more textbooks that are suitable for classroom learning.So, for 30 years, I've been writing textbooks like this.A couple of days ago, one of my colleagues who teaches Chinese in Italy told me that the textbooks I wrote are very popular in Chinese classes in Italy, students learn easily, and they plan to continue to order such textbooks in the future.
Thirty years ago, the "One Belt And One Road" policy brought foreign students into China. According to huaxia daily, the number of students studying in China remained at 490,000 by 2019, making China the largest destination for Asian students at that time. Looking back over the past 30 years of teaching, I am reminded of the prediction of Chen baosheng, former minister of education, who said: "by 2049, China will become the most desirable country for international students in the world, and Chinese will become the standard language in the world."I have witnessed the realization of this prophecy in my own position, and I am very proud of the contribution of our Chinese teacher as a foreign language. This is my big story in 2049: a foreign Chinese teacher's journey.
