The Tourism Confucius Institute’s First Visit to a Chinese Class at Trinity Lutheran College
The Tourism Confucius Institute (TCI) at Griffith University’s Gold Coast campus was invited by Trinity Lutheran
College (TLC) to launch a one-semester Chinese language course. This was the first time that the TCI was asked to a
initiate a Chinese language course in a local college. Trinity Lutheran College is a well-known private school with a
population of 1173 students. Chinese is one of three foreign languages, including German and Japanese, taught at
TLC. Prior to the first Chinese lesson several TCI staff members were involved in discussions related to teaching
materials and activities that would arouse the students’ interest in Chinese language and culture.
The TCI teachers arrived for the first Chinese language class on the second day of new semester, and introduced the
coming Chinese Spring Festival (Year of the Sheep) and Chinese zodiac animals. The students found their own zodiac
animal and used the sentence model “我属羊”, “我属猴” to express their own zodiac animal in Chinese. Some
students found their families’ zodiac animals on the Chinese zodiac animal list. The second activity was to paint their
Chinese zodiac Chinese character and animal. The most popular activity was the sheep mask painting, and the
students painted fantastic sheep masks with many selfies taken afterwards!
The first Chinese culture class ended on a happy note. The principal, Madam Wong, expressed special thanks to the
Tourism Confucius Institute for this interesting Chinese culture lesson. She said that this kind of activity inspired the
students’ interest in learning Chinese, and we believe the new semester’s Chinese language teaching will be a
success.
Students answering questions
My Chinese zodiac animal is the Monkey
Students taking selfies with sheep masks
Class photo with teachers from the Tourism Confucius Institute