Source: Overseas Network
Fu Wenwu works at the Zhongyi School.
Students of the School of Choice participate in cultural activities organized by the school.
In the nearly 20 years since he went abroad, Fu Wenwu, the principal of the Italian-Italian school in Italy, has been focusing on one thing - teaching the second generation of overseas Chinese and the second generation of Chinese to speak Chinese well and write good square characters. Because in his view, no matter where overseas Chinese and Ethnic Chinese go, Chinese is always their "root language".
Here's his self-description.
Get Chinese classroom on track
In 2002, my wife and I went to Naples, the largest city in southern Italy, and took over the two-year Sino-Italian school from my father-in-law.
Initially, Sino-Italian schools mainly taught Italian to local expatriates. After many overseas Chinese come to Italy to develop, due to the language barrier, they cannot integrate well into the local society and face many difficulties in work and life. My father-in-law started the school with the hope that it would help the overseas Chinese to learn Italian. My father-in-law tried to open Chinese classes on weekends to teach the second generation of overseas Chinese to learn Chinese. However, around 2000, the number of overseas Chinese in Naples was not very large. Due to the small number of students and insufficient teachers, the Chinese class did not last long before it stopped.
After I came to Italy, I found that many overseas Chinese were busy making a living in the early days of going abroad, and had no time to take care of their children, so they had to foster their children in Italian homes. Over time, many second-generation overseas Chinese, although they have Chinese faces, can only speak Italian, which makes their parents very helpless and feels the need to teach their children to learn Chinese. So, my wife and I decided to reopen Chinese class after taking over the school.
At the beginning, we also encountered various problems in terms of student sources, teachers, and teaching materials. The overseas Chinese in Naples live in a relatively scattered area, and many parents do not have cars, which is inconvenient to pick up and drop off their children. I drove myself and picked up the kids from house to school. Chinese teachers in Italy were scarce, so I went to a Chinese teacher who taught Chinese at the University of the East of Naples and asked her to teach the children. In order to find suitable Chinese teaching materials, I asked the Chinese Embassy in Italy for help, and the staff quickly helped me contact the domestic overseas Chinese affairs department and sent Chinese study materials compiled by Jinan University.
In this way, we overcame the challenge step by step and gradually brought the school's Chinese classroom onto the right track. The number of students has grown from more than 20 in the early days to hundreds of people now, and the teaching team also has dozens of people.
Chinese are becoming more and more frequently used
In the nearly 20 years of school development, the domestic overseas Chinese affairs department has been giving us help in all aspects, which not only gives us the motivation to persevere, but also makes us more clear about the direction of moving forward.
In 2014, my wife went to Beijing to attend the 3rd World Congress on Chinese Education. At that time, nearly 600 representatives of chinese education from more than 50 countries and regions around the world were invited to participate in the meeting to discuss how to promote the development and transformation and upgrading of Chinese education overseas. At the meeting, the wife listened to the heads of many schools in other countries Chinese share their experience and achievements in running schools, and had a better understanding of how to select teaching materials and how to integrate with domestic Chinese education. Back in Italy, my wife excitedly said to me, "We're too late to attend!" If we go a few more years earlier, we will be able to run the Chinese education of the school faster and better. ”
It was that experience that made us see the prospects for the vigorous development of overseas Chinese education, and strengthened our determination to expand the size of the school. In 2015, we opened a second campus in Naples, covering kindergarten, primary and junior high schools, with a focus on teaching Chinese. I believe that with the continuous improvement of China's comprehensive national strength and the increasing influence of Chinese culture overseas, the use of Chinese overseas will become more and more frequent in the future.
Over the years, I have also actively organized students to participate in various cultural activities carried out by the domestic overseas Chinese affairs department, encouraging them to understand China and feel the charm of Chinese culture in more ways.
I am pleased with the growth of the children. There is a girl of mixed Italian descent, her father is Italian, and her mother is Chinese. Previously, she wasn't very interested in learning Chinese, and only attended our weekend Chinese classes with the encouragement of her mother. Later, I invited her to participate in the "Journey to Roots" summer camp organized by the overseas Chinese affairs department in China, and to take a walk and take a look at the field in China. That trip to China sparked a keen interest in China and Chinese. After returning, she not only did not leave a Chinese class, but also took the initiative to ask for a summer course. She says that learning well Chinese is her most important learning goal.
Online teaching creates new opportunities
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed new challenges to the teaching work of overseas Chinese schools, and offline classrooms were once forced to press the pause button. In order to allow students to stop learning, we opened an online micro-class for the first time. At the same time, we try our best to create a similar teaching environment online to offline, and even use class ringtones to make students feel like they are sitting in a classroom even if they are taking online classes at home.
Of course, the power of a school is limited after all. Just when we are worried about how to make the "cloud classroom" "online" for a long time, the domestic Chinese education promotion institutions and many universities have once again sent us "timely rain".
The China Chinese Education Foundation has recommended a mature online teaching platform to make it easier for students to learn online. The All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese launched the "Family Affection for China • Telling You Stories" online summer camp activity, in conjunction with the Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese at all levels, selected a number of content suitable for overseas Chinese teenagers such as idioms and fables, famous people, human geography, epidemic prevention knowledge, etc., compiled into stories, produced videos or animations, and regularly pushed them to many overseas Chinese schools. Huaqiao University also provides us with a variety of cultural online courses for free. The International College of Jiangsu Normal University has also signed an overseas online internship practice cooperation agreement with our school, which further enriches our teaching staff.
Although online classes cannot completely replace offline teaching, through the Internet, we have many channels to carry out Chinese education and Chinese culture dissemination more prominently, and students have more opportunities to enjoy high-quality teaching resources from China.
Today, we have more than 100 more students than before the pandemic. Some children who live in more remote areas are also able to learn more easily because we have opened online classes. From this, I felt the impetus of online classes on the development of Chinese schools. Therefore, after the epidemic eased slightly, I resumed offline classrooms while still retaining online teaching.
Before the pandemic, I had planned to open a new school in another city. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, this plan can only be put on hold for the time being. However, I will continue to run Chinese schools well. Now, I have a new goal, that is, to use online and offline parallel methods to enable the second generation of overseas Chinese living in remote areas to better learn Chinese. (All photos are provided by the interviewee) (Yan Yu, reporter of this newspaper)
People's Daily Overseas Edition ( December 15, 2021, Edition 06)