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Let's Study Chinese at PetrSU!

10 September 2024

The Institute of Philology announced another admission for the new Bachelor's degree program "Russian as a Foreign Language, Chinese Language", which had launched in 2022. This time, 19 first-year students came to the university, who over the next 4 years will study Russian, Chinese and English in depth, as well as special linguistic disciplines and methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language (RFL).

One of the distinctive features of the program is that Chinese is taught by a native Chinese speaker - professional philologist Wang Shichu, who came to Petrozavodsk to not only teach the students Chinese, but also to introduce them to Chinese culture and the life of modern China.

Wang Shichu graduated from Liaoning University in the field of "Russian Language and Russian Literature", a Master's degree in "Russian Language and Russian Culture in the Aspect of Russian as a Foreign Language" from St. Petersburg State University, then a postgraduate course in "Linguistics" from St. Petersburg State University. Her experience in teaching Chinese as a foreign language is 10 years.

A meeting of first-year students with guests from the Petrozavodsk State Conservatory named after A.K. Glazunov - Teacher of Russian as a foreign language, Associate Professor Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Velikanova and Master's degree student Peng Haoran has already taken place. Ekaterina Aleksandrovna spoke about the relevance of teaching Russian as a foreign language in the modern world, in turn, the students shared their plans to master this profession. Important issues of language teaching were discussed, such as whether foreigners should read unadapted fiction in Russian, what unexpected difficulties are associated with learning verbs of motion, whether the requirement to write by hand is outdated, what are the features of Russian intonation, and many others. Peng Haoran spoke about his studies in Russia and wished the students of the "Russian Language, Chinese Language" program success in learning his native language. Peng Haoran shared his impressions:

“This meeting was very interesting, and the students were very energetic! As a Chinese, I was very happy to see that more and more Russians are learning Chinese! I hope that such events will be held more often, and I wish the students success in their studies!

Another feature of the 2024-2025 academic year will be additional online Chinese language classes with the support of the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC), a non-profit educational institute supervised by the Ministry of Education of China, whose goal is to support the study of Chinese language and culture outside of China. This is the result of fruitful cooperation between the Institute of Philology and the Consulate General of China in St. Petersburg after the Consulate General's delegation visited PetrSU in 2023.

The application submitted by PetrSU was approved, and now students studying in the program "Russian as a Foreign Language, Chinese Language" will have a unique opportunity to additionally study Chinese free of charge with highly professional teachers from leading universities in China.