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Chinese Language and Culture Come Alive at Hunter
From Hunter News, 2007
Zachary
Strein unraveled a large scroll bearing an ancient
Chinese aphorism. “Walk 10,000 miles, read 10,000 books.”
This
summer, Strein and 23 other students were
enrolled in the Hunter College Chinese Immersion Program, an eight-week
intensive elementary language course for high school students. At the program’s
Achievement Ceremony, held on August 17 in the Lang Recital Hall,
students displayed skills ranging from oral presentations in Mandarin to
traditional dance performances—a reflection of the full spectrum of
Chinese lingual and cultural knowledge they had acquired.
The
Chinese Immersion Program was developed by Professor Der-lin
Chao of the Classical and Oriental Studies
Department, and launched for the first time this summer. Students
of diverse backgrounds came from high schools all over the New York area to
participate, attending the 6-credit class four days a week and speaking
only Chinese on-campus. They regularly received group and one-on-one
instruction, engaged in cultural activities, and took field trips to Chinatown.
Chao funded the program through a $104,000 grant from
the Startalk project of the National Foreign
Language Center
of the University
of Maryland, which
seeks to expand foreign language instruction in
“under-taught” critical languages.
Chinese—widely
recognized as a major language in the arenas of business and
international affairs—has had a home at Hunter for over 40 years.
The College has the largest Chinese program in the City University of New
York, and according to Dr. Tamara Green, Chair of the Classics
Department, “By far the best.”
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