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“Students from Nicaragua have
many reasons to learn Chinese.
The most common reason is that
they hope this knowledge can help
them find a job in the future. Some
people are also curious about this
seemingly difficult language to learn,
while others want to know more about
the Chinese culture.” Jiang Yu-shan
joined the Overseas Professional
Mandarin Teacher Dispatching
Project and traveled to Nicaragua in
May 2014. In the one and a half years
there, she has served as a Mandarin
teacher in the National Autonomous
University of Nicaragua (UNAN-
Managua) and the National University
of Engineering (UNI), introducing the
world of the Mandarin language to a
total of 180 students in seven classes.
Yu-shan, a graduate of the
Department of Spanish Language
and Culture of Fu Jen Catholic
University, attended Mandarin
language teacher training classes
during her spare time and was
successfully certified as a Mandarin
language instructor. After graduation,
Yu-shan traveled to Spain where
she taught Mandarin for a year. With
this experience under her belt, she
felt comfortable coming to Spanish-
speaking Latin America countries
to teach Mandarin. Nevertheless,
she still encountered challenges
in adapting to a new culture and
people.
Yu-shan points out that in hot
tropical countries, the pace of life is
much slower than in Taiwan, and it
was common for students to be late
for class. Attendance became worse
especially during the midterm and
final exam period. Students gave
all sorts of excuses for being late,
including everything from falling sick,
having a water shortage or power
outage at home, to other far-fetched
reasons. “I was very surprised
when I heard these excuses for the
first time, but now I am capable of
responding to these requests without
losing my cool and simply remind
them to be punctual next time.” Since
it is difficult to demand students to
arrive on time to every class, Yu-
shan figured it would be easier to
instead adjust how the courses are
taught, and attempted to simplify the
course content to make it easier for
students to understand and learn. For
students who are punctual, Yu-shan
would revise materials from previous
lessons and have them practice
conversation.
Mandarin language class
uniform to boost morale for
learning
To make learning fun for the
students, Yu-shan created Mandarin
language class uniforms for her
students: on the front of a white
T-shirt, the three Chinese characters
for “Mandarin language class” was
depicted in Chinese calligraphy, with
a Chinese idiom in regular script
printed below: “There’s nothing hard
if you put your heart to it.” The back
of the T-shirt, on the other hand, is
printed with a line that reads: “Chinese
is fun.” For the first part of any clars,
Yu-shan would start with a video
about Chinese characters to help
students understand the evolution
of Chinese characters and related
fun anecdotes. “Although Chinese
characters remain difficult, students
were motivated to practice writing
after knowing the story behind them.
I feel extremely proud whenever I
see students practicing writing stroke
by stroke, even if they often make
mistakes.” Yu-shan also designed
teaching activities in correlation
to Chinese festivals, helping the
students to memorize key words and
phrases associated with Chinese
celebratory atmospheres.
H o w e f f e c t i v e a r e t h e s e
approaches to learning Mandarin?
The answers from students are the
best testimonies: “We are so glad
that Taiwan can provide Mandarin
language lessons. Our teacher uses
various methods to help us learn
traditional Chinese characters. In
the future when I travel to Taiwan or
Hong Kong, I will be able to read
the characters, and even easily
switch to learning simplified Chinese
characters. I know Chinese is a
difficult language to master, but I’m
interested and confident I can learn it
well!”
Jiang Yu-shan, Mandarin Language Teacher in
Nicaragua
I feel extremely accomplished when I
see students practice writing of Chinese
characters.
1
Interview