This report is by two Chinese exchange students who took part in the Language Campus school visit programme.
On October 4th we took part in the International Day at Lyseon lukio upper secondary school. Jyväskylän Lyseo (founded in 1858) is the oldest Finnish-speaking upper secondary school in Finland with old national traditions.
Mrs Liu, our contacter, told us that on the following day they will celebrate their 155-year anniversary. After a brief instruction of the activity’s process, we started to greet several groups of students most of whom had never studied Chinese before. At the beginning, we taught them Chinese phonetic alphabet and let them read aloud follow us. Then we went on with the most common and practical Chinese phrases, such as “你好”, “我叫””””, “好朋友”. What surprised us is there is no stated uniform for sometimes girls waste plenty of time on deciding Today’s Dress-Up. As we had brought Chinese writing brush and particular writing paper with me from China, we used them to teach Finnish students how to write the Chinese numbers. Meanwhile, we would tell them something about Chinese handwriting and the writing brush. Eventually, we tried to show them some Chinese characters which are evolved from ancient pictograph in order to arouse their interests about mysterious and changeful Chinese characters.
Here came a lunch break and we had lunch with pupils in the school refectory. Then I learnt in the school of Finland they offer free lunch to all the students. How great it is! The meal is delicious, and nutritious as well. Pupils can know each other and spend a cool time together.
Besides, some teachers had a lively interest in Chinese so they learned Chinese from us exchange student. It is going to be tough,but these teachers learn quickly. After a while, we saw the headmaster, who is kind and handsome. We talked and laughed a lot.
In our previous college years, we have built up a solid foundation for professional knowledge. But as a foreign language learner, we aspire to enlarge our outlook and raise the cultural awareness. And we hold the view that there’s no better way to connect with and truly understand the diverse experience and culture of western countries than to be a visible member of their community. So we sincerely appreciate this school visit experience.