A Harvest Beyond Expectation - A Journal of learning Chinese Language at the Confucius Classroom at the Kyunggi East Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The ancients said "things are learned, human development arose from that knowledge". Two years ago, when Kyunggi East Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized a Chinese language workshop, hosted by Confucius Classroom Chinese Language Education Academy, to be honest, I didn’t have much confidence in my ability to learn Chinese well. Generally, Korean people have an inexplicable fear towards studying Chinese. As time went on, we accumulated a lot of knowledge and we not only got rid of the “fear”, but we also gained a new understanding about the Chinese language and China itself. My personal experiences are as following.

1.They had a unique way of teaching Chinese with varied content that allowed us to drop the idea that “Chinese is difficult”. Due to this unique teaching method, we immediately stopped being afraid of Chinese, and began to become fond of it instead. Thanks to the teacher's lively and humorous style of teaching, all of our difficulties were easily overcome. More importantly, the learning continued outside of the classroom due to the practical teaching content that was easy to use in day to day life.

2.Our ideas about China began to change via our visit to China, our skills in the Chinese language also greatly improved due to communicating with the entrepreneurs there, and we also had the chance to experience the wonder of Chinese culture. We had the chance to visit Shijiazhuang, which is the capital city of Hebei Province, as well as its surroundings. All of this was organized by the Confucius Institute at the Chinese Language Education Academy. During the exchange conference, overall, we gave a great performance, even though we were not entirely fluent. Due to the Chinese communication environment, we made progress that we could not have made if we only had lessons in a classroom. Additionally, we were able to witness the prosperity of the city, and the level of economic development of the local entrepreneurs, all of which greatly enhanced our determination to learn Chinese, and establish cooperative relationships with Chinese companies.

3.We had studied Chinese for two years, but what we had achieved was much more than we had expected. With the guidance and assistance of the Confucius Institute's assistance, every single student's level of Chinese ability had improved dramatically. Some entrepreneurs had even passed the New HSK exam, and received the third level of the degree.

Chinese, as a foreign language, was like a wall to us, and hard to pass, but we after two years of striving, we managed to climb over that “great wall”. Thanks to the unique teaching methods of the Confucius Institute at the Chinese Language Education Academy, we discovered a colorful new world, full of new opportunities. In addition, we had become confident in our ability to learn Chinese. This opportunity built a bridge for us, and the Chinese-Korean friendship.

By Kim Jin-Hee, President of Women Entrepreneurs Association at the Kyunggi East Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in late Autumn, 2010