About 835 international students from the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and other regions around the world attend UA. From my experience, most of these students speak English reasonably well. But most library personnel and academic faculty in other departments are not familiar with the critical foreign languages spoken by these students. During normal operations, staff talk to international students on a regular basis. The conversation is fully in English. Dialog in English is generally satisfactory for describing academic programs and services. However, communication with international students would be better and improve if our staff had some ability to reciprocate by speaking to the students in their native languages. As a way to “build bridges” to our international students Rodgers Library is offering elementary conversational Chinese, Hindi and Japanese classes for faculty and staff in our science, engineering, and nursing departments and also for faculty and staff in the University Libraries. Native language speakers will teach the classes. The classes promise to be educational and enjoyable for all.
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As a participant in the first language class (Chinese) that was held in Rodgers Library, it was truly an enjoyable and learning experience. Qiong Xu (Joan) gave a brief description of Chinese history, beginning from Ancient China through the present day. Joan then moved on to explain the building blocks of the Chinese Language. It was very interesting to learn about the differences between Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters and described the symbolism behind the characters. After the basics of the Chinese language were laid out then the real fun began. We started learning and individually reciting a few basic conversational phrases in Chinese. After only one class, I ‘m able to say a few words in Chinese, Ni Hao (Hello), Zao Shang Hao (Good Morning) and a few others. The class was very informative and enjoyable. I am looking forward to the next session.
Annette