Overview of the Course
        This course is designed by SNAI for non-native speakers of Chinese, with approximately 75% weighting towards language and 25% towards culture. It includes basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), grammatical forms, vocabulary and pronunciation (including tones). It helps us develop communication skills, intercultural and language awareness, and competence in digital literacy. This course adopts an activity and task-based approach to study language and culture. With the guidance of our teachers, the activities and tasks encourage us to achieve the learning outcomes.

Why should we learn?
        Learning Chinese as a second language is a hot issue all over the world. China has over 5000 years’ history and has a rich culture of art, music and poetry. Mandarin Chinese is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. It is one of the five official languages of the United Nations. There are so many Chinese speakers all over the world. We can use the language almost anywhere and it’s quite easy to communicate. Additional benefit is that most companies around the world are hiring employees who can speak Chinese. So Chinese speakers are in high demand among employers. This course gives us an opportunity to learn about new language and culture, perspectives, and different ways of life.

Learning in the Course
        First, we had learnt to understand pinyin and basic characters and then, to write simple phrases and passages using the characters. We have been exploring Chinese culture and language with activities, cultural events and tasks, through face-to-face contact and use of digital media. We make oral presentation on some interesting topics. We make further improvements of our communication skills with Chinese people. We also participate in learning and singing Chinese songs, poems, studying Chinese history. Moreover, we are able to better appreciate many aspects of Chinese culture, such as traditional celebrations like Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival, Literature, Poetry, Art, Calligraphy and Architecture. We create and organize activities like Fun with Chinese Contest, showing and sharing our understanding of Chinese with the colleagues and the SNAI family. We happily involve in some activities like dumpling-making party, paper-cutting and dance. It has always been an amazing experience for us.

Learning Outcomes
        By taking this course, we now can make more meaningful connections with the Chinese people and we know fundamental aspects of the Chinese language and culture and acquire proficiency in the four basic language skills. The Chinese characters themselves are works of art. Apart from reading them, it can be a great enjoyment just learning to write them with our own hands.

Benefits and Opportunities
        Generally speaking, we may face some difficulties when we learn a new language and culture. However, there are more benefits than difficulties for studying Chinese language. Learning Chinese requires a lot of hard work, but if we make effort and practice regularly, we can get amazing improvement and that will become an invaluable part of our life. What’s more, we can appreciate China much more authentically when we understand the language and culture.
        Learning a new language and culture gives us a key to open the door of a new world, which enhances our ability to communicate in a globalized world. The precious opportunity is that we can study and use it immediately, so it more memorizes for us. It has also been extremely useful for our career learning Chinese language and culture. Especially, we can use it to make more meaningful connections with Chinese people anywhere because it is used globally. Moreover, Chinese language skills and cultural competency are valued in government ministries and trade associations of many countries throughout the world. As far as I am concerned, due to China-Myanmar relations and increasingly wide use of Chinese language in my country Myanmar, this course is a great, value-added course for me.