The new Mandarin class this year is allowing students such as freshmen Sami Qian and Colby Heimburger to explore Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture. Not in the classroom, however, but online.
“It’s a little weird,” freshmen Colby Heimburger said. “You have to have online discussions and you don’t really know who you’re talking to.”
An online class comes with many different responsibilities. Unlike the classes provided at school, this class is completely reliant on the student’s ability to complete their work in their spare time.
Freshman Sami Qian described the online class as “a lot more responsibility,” adding that the student in the class must be prepared for “more independent research and solving problems on their own.”
There are many upsides to this system, however. The added independence allows for students to work on their own time with a certain level of comfort.
“There’s less pressure.” Heimburger said. “The teacher can’t yell at you or anything and you can kind of do it on your own time.”
The class only became available in Parkway this year, after last year’s Japanese course. Much like Japanese, Mandarin Chinese is a very complex language, comprised of many different tones that combine to form different words and phrases.
“It is just like playing Lego,” Mandarin teacher Xuan Chen said. “If you know 100 characters, you can mix and match to get up to 500 words…”