UH Mānoa hosts Chinese language immersion sports camp

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
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Posted: May 17, 2010

The STARTALK/Confucius Institute Chinese language immersion sports camp is now accepting applications for its three-week residential program on the UH Mānoa campus. Thirty motivated middle and high school students, ages 12-17, with no or little experience in Chinese, will be selected to participate. Half will be from Hawai‘i and the rest from the U.S. mainland. Participants will acquire basic communication skills in Chinese, and use these skills to make friends with each other during the camp, as well as getting to know contemporary China and its culture. For physical activity, they will practice table tennis and martial arts daily, under the tutelage of championship level instructors from the People’s Republic of China. Alumni of the camp are invited to travel to China in subsequent summers. The camp will begin on July 5 and end on July 23.

In the same program, twenty Chinese language teachers who seek to make language learning fun and effective will be focusing on innovative, meaningful activities for students, including technology driven ones. A teacher-training institute will begin July 1, and continue throughout the camp.

On the last day of the camp and institute, students will stage performances to entertain and demonstrate their skills in Mandarin Chinese and understanding of Chinese culture. These performances will be video-recorded and shared with a national audience.

This highly successful Chinese language camp is supported by the STARTALK program (funded by four U.S. government agencies) and the Confucius Institute at UH Mānoa, for its fourth consecutive summer. Past camps have gained enough of an international reputation that China will be sending 10 faculty members to observe this year.

The Chinese language camp is also the testing ground of Encounters: Global Chinese Language and Culture, a multi-million dollar collaborative project between Yale University and the China International Publishing Group, which consists of cutting edge materials for language learning. The suite includes a feature film, text materials, and web-based portals to support teaching and learning.

For details and application information, visit: http://confuciusinstitutehawaii.org/programs/summer-programs/.