On 22nd March 2025, Chinese teachers of the Confucius Institute in Artois Xu Meng and Qiu Shuzhen were invited to the Pierre de Coubertin High School in Calais to carry out a series of cultural activities to support the enrollment of the school’s Chinese language course. The event lasted three hours and was attended by around 100 students and parents.
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Ms. Qiu Shuzhen brought Chinese paper-cutting and ink-blowing painting activities to the Open Day. Ms. Qiu invited students to the steps of creating the art works and introduced relevant language knowledge as well as cultural points in the process. For example, the Chinese character ‘春’ (spring) in the paper-cutting works echoed the current season, while the ancient poems in the ink-blowing paintings demonstrated the characteristics of Chinese rhymes, etc. Many students and parents came to the booth to have fun with the Chinese paper-cutting and ink-blowing paintings. They also experienced and expressed their interest and enthusiasm in Chinese language. In the end, the students completed a three-dimensional ‘spring’ character, a cute panda or a unique ink-blowing plum blossom picture, and left the booth with a sense of enjoyment. |
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Mr. Xu Meng demonstrated Tai Chi at the Open Day. Firstly, Mr. Xu demonstrated some Taijiquan movements, which attracted the attention and curiosity of students and parents. Afterwards, Mr. Xu led the students to experience the movements and taught them to say the Chinese numbers ‘one, two, three, four ......’, making body movements while saying it, so that the students could start to feel the rhythm of the Chinese language while doing the movements. The students were eager to try and expressed their interest in Taijiquan after following Mr. Xu to do the movements.
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Students, parents and local Chinese teachers who attended the Open Day expressed their fondness for the above cultural activities. The activities aroused the curiosity of local secondary school graduates about Chinese language and culture, and promoted the recruitment of the high school's Chinese language program.
