HSE Students Support Phonetics Competition for Chinese Students

From students' personal archive

The Glinka State Conservatory in Nizhny Novgorod has held a phonetics competition in Russian as a foreign language for Chinese students of the preparatory department. The spectators, jury members, and support team of the competition included HSE University-Nizhny Novgorod students of the Bachelor’s in Foreign Languages and Intercultural Business Communication, Academic Supervisor of the programme Marianna Korenkova, and Chinese language teacher Elena Ammosova. The Chinese students opened the event with performances of famous solo works in Russian.

The phonetics competition included a reading of short excerpts of Russian prose and Valery Brusov's poem ‘To the Young Poet’. Varvara Golubeva and Alina Tychuk, students of the Bachelor’s in Foreign Languages and Intercultural Business Communication, served as jury members to assess the phonetic abilities of the Chinese students. HSE students honoured the participants with a thank-you speech in Chinese.

At the end of the competition, Chinese and Russian students and their professors took part in an intercultural communication business game called ‘Let's Get to Know Each Other’. Each Russian-speaking player had to partner with a Chinese student, learn as much interesting information about this person as possible, and introduce them to the audience.

The main rule of the game was that each Chinese student had to demonstrate knowledge of the Russian language, while each Russian student had to introduce his or her new friend in Chinese. Each pair of students completed the task successfully. HSE students said the game helped them make new friends and that they would like to keep in touch with their Chinese peers and improve their language skills. The climax of the event was a game in which teams had to figure out a scrambled New Year's wish.

Marianna Korenkova, Academic Supervisor of the Bachelor’s in Foreign Languages and Intercultural Business Communication, praised the students' foreign language skills and willingness to improve their intercultural knowledge.

Marianna Korenkova

Chinese students need to be able to speak Russian to study at the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory, as courses are taught in Russian there. Correct pronunciation appears to be one of the most difficult and important tasks. Good pronunciation gives students confidence when speaking and understanding other people.

Although the assignments were quite challenging, the contestants were able to understand informative texts about everyday life situations, which demonstrated their conscious immersion in language situations and ability to derive accurate meanings.

As Academic Supervisor, I was happy for the students of our programme—they had the honour of being members of the jury and deciding on the awards. And most importantly, our students were able to address the Chinese students with a welcome and closing speech in Chinese, despite the fact that they have been studying Chinese for less than five months. We would like to thank our Chinese teachers, and we admire the talent and hard work of our students. We look forward to more meetings and joint activities!