A two-month cycle of lectures on Chinese language pedagogy held at St Petersburg University

Nine lectures were offered to students. During the lectures, Sinologists spoke about methods and principles of teaching Chinese characters, spoken language, literary and specialised translation. 

The organiser of the lecture series was Dmitrii Maiatskii, Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese Philology at St Petersburg University. According to him, such initiatives are useful not only for students and teachers, but also for everyone who is interested in learning Chinese and applying it in practice.

The aim of the lecture series is to share the best practices of teaching Chinese to Russian-speaking students, and to discuss the issues in translating texts.

Dmitrii Maiatskii, Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese Philology at St Petersburg University, Director of the non-degree programme "Confucius Institute"

Dmitrii Maiatskii started the series. He devoted his lecture to the principles of teaching Old Chinese at St Petersburg University. Associate Professor Maiatskii emphasised the role of this discipline in the University’s bachelor’s and master’s programmes in Asian and African Studies. The lecturer also demonstrated teaching materials, shared teaching methods and spoke about his own teaching experience. Polina Rysakova, Associate Professor of St Petersburg University, described the peculiarities of teaching Chinese to tour guides, the challenges of mastering professional vocabulary and intercultural communication in tourism. Liu Limei, Assistant Lecturer of St Petersburg University, talked about increasing students’ interest in learning Chinese through creativity, and the importance of Chinese culture in teaching. Zhang Xunli, Director of the Confucius Academy of Education and Culture, delivered a lecture on cultural studies, analysing the differences between the cultures of our countries. The speaker identified the main principles of cultural cooperation and explored ways to develop them. Shi Zhengyu, Professor of Peking University, talked about the technology of teaching hieroglyphics.

Tatiana Prutskikh, Associate Professor of the Saint Petersburg University of Economics, turned the focus of her presentation to practical issues and drew attention to the main requirements of the modern labour market for the training of Chinese language specialists in the field of foreign trade and economics. 

Oksana Rodionova, Associate Professor of St Petersburg University, spoke about the design of training courses in literary translation. Associate Professor Evgeniia Mitkina suggested approaches to translations of socio-political texts taking into account their linguistic peculiarities. The final lecture was delivered by Associate Professor Elena Emelchenkova, Head of the Department of Theory and Methodology of Teaching Languages and Cultures of Asian and African Countries at St Petersburg University. The presentation was devoted to the translation of legal and economic texts.

Translation in the field of professional communication (especially in economics and law) seems difficult only in the beginning, while the lexical and methodological bases are being developed. The algorithms and processes in these fields are quite routine and follow a certain logic. Very soon, you will therefore become well versed in the relevant topic and gradually learn to cope with translations of any level of complexity.

Elena Emelchenkova, Associate Professor at St Petersburg University, Head of the Department of Theory and Methodology of Teaching Languages and Cultures of Asian and African Countries

The experts agreed unanimously that the Chinese language should be studied in a comprehensive way, inseparable from the history and culture of the country. The lecturers also noted the need to develop up-to-date language teaching methods that will meet modern pedagogical challenges and can be used in all educational institutions.