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Each One Teach One

Chinese-Russian. First Meeting on Campus.

My language partner Zichen and I met for the first time on campus to get to know each other. We discussed our study goals, teaching methods and had a small talk. Our plan for the course is to exchange our experiences and teach each other the languages that we fluently speak.

Zichen, my language partner for ‘Each One Teach One’, is studying Entrepreneurship at TAMK and it is her first year. As a second-year student myself, I believe it is important not only to learn and teach languages but also to be helpful and support each other with our studies and learning paths. We decided to arrange our first meeting on campus to get to know each other, talk about our goals and priorities for the course and plan our meetings.

It was gripping to find out Zichen’s background and her plans for this year’s studies. We both think that it is important to communicate first before starting the actual teaching and learning process. I also shared my goals and expressed interest in both learning Chinese and teaching Russian.

In our first session, we prepared some materials to give an overview of the language path. I showed Zichen the Russian alphabet, and in return, she gave me some insight into the structure of Chinese and the importance of pronunciation and accuracy of writing the symbols. She also recommended a great app called ‘HelloChinese’ to learn the Chinese language from scratch.  I already started using it and found the app a great learning source. Moreover, we discussed education and learning culture in China and Russia and noticed some similarities, which was interesting.

I am looking forward to our next meeting and I can not wait to learn the basics and start speaking this complicated but still amazing language!

1st Meeting 18.9.2023 at TAMK.

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