Submitted by CIO on
Confucius Institute at University of Dubai hosted a special Chinese Corner activity on the theme of celebrating Dragon Boat Festival at 7PM on Jun. 2nd, 2014. The activity attracted a lot of people including students of Confucius Institute, UD staff and Chinese lovers. Together with CIUD staff and students, they celebrated Dragon Boat Festival and experienced Chinese culture. The activity aims at meeting the local Chinese learners' demand of experiencing Chinese culture, fully exerting the role of CI as a platform to communicate Chinese language and culture, expanding CI influence, attracting more students to learn Chinese and promoting Chinese culture.
The classroom decorated with Chinese culture items by CIUD teachers was full of festival atmosphere. CIUD teachers also prepared some traditional food eaten on this day like Zongzi and some desserts. Besides, Chinese culture items were displayed and one Game Zone was set for playing Chinese games.
The activity consists of Dragon Boat Festival culture introduction, Chinese poetry recitation competition, interesting games, Chinese learning experience exchange and free talk. At the very beginning, Teacher Zhang Jichao, gave a wonderful speech about Dragon Boat Festival highlighted origin and customs. Chinese poetry recitation competition was right after the speech. Though the students' Chinese levels are different, all of them prepared well and showed their love to Chinese poetry. We were affected by the beauty of Chinese poetry and the rich and profound Chinese culture from their recitation. 6 competitors got first, second and third prize separately and Director Ma Jun awarded them one by one. All the students actively participated in the game, which was another climax of the activity. Teacher Yang Xiaoli, gave an detailed introduction to all the Chinese culture items like Chinese fans, Chinese chess and spice bag which all the people showed great interest in.
At last, CIUD teachers and all the participants had free talk, ate Zongzi and desserts, exchanged Chinese learning experience, talked about Chinese culture and took photos.
The Chinese Corner activity stimulated students' interest in Chinese language study and Chinese culture, highlighted the brand effect of Confucius Institute on Chinese culture communication, was warmly welcome by UD students and reached the goal of attracting more people to know about China and to learn Chinese.