As a longtime student of foreign languages, I have noticed occasional gaps in what has been offered in terms of intercultural competence in foreign language instruction. Connecting with the culture of the language being studied if often students’ favorite part, but textbooks can limit cultural connections to a single paragraph and due to limited classroom time it can be hard to integrate cultural studies in lessons. Sometimes, especially with less commonly taught languages, students simply might not know where to look or where to start to find what interests them and keeps them lifelong learners of foreign languages.
Through the creation of this website, I hope to help fill those gaps and provide a resource not only for students studying Chinese to engage and connect with Chinese culture, but also for teachers and instructors to easily integrate quality and appropriate authentic materials in their classroom. Across this site, I have included posts from different topics and sources to provide a jumping off point for students learning Chinese, or those who are just curious about contemporary Chinese culture and just want to learn more. Currently, we have added visual teaching materials in our teaching materials section, which will also continue to be developed and added to, and we are planning to add short activities for the classroom that use some of the other resources found on the website, ready-made for integrating into the Chinese Language classroom. As the site grows, more resources will be added to create a comprehensive and dynamic location for students and teachers alike to return to and discover something new!
文化，加油！
石汉娜
Hannah Steiner
Linguistics BA and Chinese Minor, Boise State University
大家好！ Hello everyone!
My name is Sata Vanasouk and I’m a media arts major at Boise State University, minoring in Chinese studies and global studies. My project, Visualizing Chinese, aims to intersect storytelling and language learning through colorful illustrations and unique little stories.
My aim was to start a vocabulary-based project that prioritized visual associations of words and images. I created my main character, Junie, in the hopes that she will act as a fun and memorable caricature for learners in their process of vocabulary memorization. In addition to creating unique little situations for her, I illustrated the stories like a visual dictionary. This project was a new challenge for me because illustration is a skill I’ve learned along the way of creating this dictionary, so the process is coming together slowly but surely. I hope to create more hands-on materials in the future!
苏雅希
Satavone Vanasouk
Media Arts BA, Chinese Studies Minor, Global Studies Minor at Boise State University
Thank you Ryan Young for assistance for web development
Chinese Culture Journey 文化,加油！ 