Chinese culture corner at botanic garden

[Shanghaiboy]

Hi I am from China and have experiences of teaching Chinese as a second language, I would like to start a Chinese corner at the botanic garden every saturday afternoon to help those who are interested in Chinese language and culture.

[algorrobo]

Interested to read your post as my son is teaching at a University in Guandong province and hosts an English corner there.Perhaps to get a response you could explain how a chinese corner works as it is not something people here are familiar with?

I hope you have found people here welcoming- My son has been overwhelmed by the kindness and helpfulness of people to a foreigner in China.

[Shanghaiboy]

English corner is a very popular concept among people learning Enlish in China, and actually that's how I get the idea of doing a Chinese corner here. Back in China, since English is the most important second language and a compulsory subject in high school and college, native english speakers are warmly welcomed especially at English corner, basically what we do there is that everyone would try to speak English there in small groups, and the topic could be anything interesting, and a native English speaker would often become a center of each subgroup, and it is generally regarded as an effective and efficient way to learn a different language and the culture behind it.

As I understand that Chinese is a much less popular second language than many other languages here in UK, so I think we could first start the Chinese corner by introducing Chinese language and culture in English, and also do some simple everyday oral Chinese practising there.