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Exciting news! The second semester of the CNS Mandarin Proficiency Program, a free online Chinese language course valued at 2,400 yuan, is now open for registration. Click here to register and seize this opportunity.
The program recently concluded its inaugural period over the weekend with a graduation ceremony held at the Aurora Museum in Pudong New Area. The ceremony was attended by 73 Chinese teachers and students from across the globe.
The program, launched earlier this year, aims to improve the Chinese language skills of local expats alongside their understanding of Chinese culture.
During the ceremony, participants visited the museum's exhibitions and engaged in interactive Q&A sessions designed by City News Service, testing how well they had learned.
"My teacher and I were working on my pronunciation," Russian student Zhukov Egor told City News Service. "We started reading a lot and working on how to correctly pronounce sounds more like Chinese."
Indonesian student Irfan Jo said he learned more about Chinese language and knew a lot about Chinese culture.
His teacher also taught him about some Chinese business culture which he thought would be very useful for him.
Mexican student Alfonso Torres said that from his teacher's feedback, he was happy to find that his pronunciation is not as bad as he thought. "I've been practicing on my own for a couple of years and it has not been in vain," he said.
Sha Jingjing, a teacher working in Shanghai who participated in the program, said she felt that as long as the teachers used their professional knowledge to teach the foreign students with love and patience, they could always get good responses.
Shi Xingliang, director of TEFL at the China test center, said during the training, Chinese teachers and foreign students had good interactions and international cultural exchanges in a warm and kind way.
He believed such programs could help promote Chinese culture to the world.
Guided by the Shanghai International Academic Exchange Association, the program offers free online lessons with licensed Chinese teachers, in partnership with the TEFL Testing Center and Shanghai Yudian Education Ltd.
The courses consist of online AI learning and online real-person teaching. Each training period lasts around three months. The program's next three periods are scheduled to start later this year.
For more information about the Mandarin Proficiency Program, click here to learn more.
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