In both India and China, NSLI-Y students from the U.S. are quickly building new friendships with local youth through community service activities and language partnerships. Both groups are excited to make new friends to further their language and cultural exchange.
NSLI-Y China Students Meet with Language Partners in Zhuhai
After their first day of rigorous Chinese language classes, the NSLI-Y students met their Chinese language partners, university students from the Beijing Normal University Zhuhai. Nearly all language partners are studying to teach Chinese as a foreign language. Their first interaction was during the lunch hour when the language partners came to bring each NSLI-Y student to the school canteen and showed them how to buy lunch.
By the afternoon, they were already conversing like old friends with a mix of Chinese and English. NSLI-Y students recently received their Chinese names from their teachers and had been practicing introducing themselves and their classmates the whole day. Soon they were teaching each other schoolyard games from their different cultures. The American students taught their language partners how to play “Duck, duck, goose”, but instead of playing in English, the language partners taught them how to say “duck, duck, goose” in Chinese.
NSLI-Y India Students Aid Young English Learners through Community Service Activity
NSLI-Y Inda students visited a local school run by the Pune Municipal Corporation. This school, like all other government schools in India, includes English language from 1st standard onward. NSLI-Y students helped these young English learners to both practice conversation and broaden their vocabularies.
NSLI-Y students devised their own lesson plans, often using games and songs like the Hokey Pokey and Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes to teach the children parts of the body. NSLI-Y students’ recent Hindi learning also came in handy as they repeated a recent vocabulary building exercise; each student made a card depicting his or her favorite flowers, foods, animals and activities. Both the local students and their NSLI-Y tutors were enthusiastic to take part in this shared learning experience.
