24 Jahre Erfahrung mit Chinesisch-AGs und Kontakte zu einer chinesischen Mittelschule

Abstract

About 24 years ago I started teaching Chinese at the local “Gymnasium” in Schorndorf. As I had been brought up in Meixian. Guangzhou Province, until my family left China in 1947. I could speak the Hakka dialect. And after having studied in Hongkong from 1965 to 1967 I could write the characters and speak Kantonese fairly well. – But when in 1968 my 16 year old pupils asked me to teach them Chinese. I had to learn the Mandarin and later on the Pinyin-transcription by myself. I even had to work out a teaching program for them.

During the 24 years I had sometimes 6, 8 or 12 students: once there were more than one hundred, who were interested in learning Chinese. But most of them felt they had to give up this extra-curricular activity, because they had to struggle hard keeping up with their compulsory subjects at school.

Since 1986, when I had the chance to visit Meixian again several times, we have been able to build up a school friendship between our Max-Planck-Gymnasium and the Le Yü Middleschool there, in which my father had been a teacher until 1947.