The Student News Site of The Morgan School

The Morgan PawPrint

The Student News Site of The Morgan School

The Morgan PawPrint

The Student News Site of The Morgan School

The Morgan PawPrint

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Chinese Students Attend College

Chinese Students Attend College

Written by Chou Pan |

Connecticut College was found in 1911 as a liberal arts college in New London. This is a private college and the average class size is 19.  On May 7th, students from Chinese 2 and 3 classes visited Connecticut College. This trip was organized by Jie Gao, the Chinese intern. She teaches Chinese at Morgan and at the college. Therefore, she’s constantly traveling back and forth between the two schools. The intention of this trip was to visit Professor King’s college-level Chinese class and to listen to his teachings. Professor King, also known as Tek Wah King, is a lecturer in Chinese and East Asian language and cultures at Connecticut College. The college itself includes 1,900 students. We received a campus tour from two student guides who were freshmen this year at Conn College. Along the way, we toured the, library, dining halls, and dorms. Many of their buildings, including dorms were very classical. The place we had our lunch was very offbeat in comparison to other dining halls on campus. It’s a buffet, and students must pay at the door before walking through the entrance. If you were to stand at the door, you will see multiple wooden tables around the room with a card placed in the center of the table. On the card, it tells you the required dialect that students speak if they sit at the table. For example, if the word “Chinese” was written on that card, then anyone who sits at that table must speak to each other using Chinese. Aside from Chinese, there were French, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, German and Arabic. Of course, as a group, we sat at the table displaying Chinese. After the tour, Gao lao shi led us to tour the Eastern Asian Department of Professor King. We ended the day by visiting Professor King’s class. The class lasted a little over an hour. The class room could fit approximately forty to fifty students, but there were only twenty students in that class. Since college exams are right around the corner, Professor King was preparing his class for finals. Unlike Chinese courses here at Morgan, students in Professor King’s class were only allowed to speak Chinese.
Students who went on this trip believe it was a meaningful experience. I believe we have completed our objective on this trip. We’ve always been here at Morgan learning Chinese, and it’s rare having the opportunity to sit down with a college class to exchange knowledge and thoughts speaking with a different dialect.