On 4 December, Warwick Law School held its first Chinese language and culture workshop. It was led by seven of our current PhD students, Panpan Sun, Xiaoshui Zhai, Shengzhe Huang, Kunxiu Chen, Rui Ye, Siyu Dong and Xiaoxi Nie.

The aim of the workshop was to improve intercultural communication, learn a little Chinese and understand how to improve our Chinese students' learning experiences. Our PhD student teachers covered basic pinyin (pronunciation) and the four tones, taking us through some pronunciation exercises. They then taught us some key phrases, including greetings, festivals and, of course, food! Following this, they moved on to cover the Chinese educational experience from school through to university and the learning culture in China.

The class was then broken down into small groups led by one of the team of teachers so that everyone could try some pronunciation and ask questions.

At the end of the workshop, everyone had the opportunity to taste a range of authentic dishes from across China.

Teachers and staff alike really enjoyed the experience. It was a great way to get to know each other better and relax towards the end of term. And hopefully WLS staff can now pronounce the teachers'/PhD students' names (more or less) correctly!

Director of Postgraduate Studies, Dr Kathryn McMahon said:

"Thank you so much for a fabulous event. The presentation was so engaging. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a great deal. It will make a real difference to our LLM teaching."

Assistant Professor Dr Luminita Olteanu added:

"The lovely Chinese students community at Warwick Law with the help of Andrew J put together a fantastic event that truly immersed us into Chinese culture, history and language. I learned many useful and fascinating things about our students and how to better support their academic journey at Warwick."

And finally Associate Professor Dr Stephen Connelly shared:

"这是一次非常有趣的活动" :-)

We're already looking forward to the next event - we will keep you posted!

Have a look at some of the photos from the event below.

Thanks again to our PhD student teachers for their time and the amazing food.