One night in mid-October, after I came out of the library, I went for a walk in the north playground of the campus. At night, there is only one headlight on the playground, which shines the light on the huge playground. On the runway, groups of college students from fun run ran past me one after another. I turned around and tried to recognize their faces.

Just then, an international student sitting on the grass came into my sight: he was sitting in the dark night with black skin and hair, black shirt and black slippers. If you hadn't greeted me with a row of big white teeth, you would have hardly noticed that there was a person there.

When I was walking on campus, I met many foreigners. I want to talk to them, but I'm always worried about my poor English! Stage fright all the time.

Since I met him this time, I simply dared to ask, "Hello! Can you speak in Chinese? " I can see from the first sentence that I dare not PK English with him.

"I'm sorry, I can't speak Chinese, except for a thank you." He spread out his hands and sincerely admitted his shortcomings, while not forgetting to make up a knife: "What about you? Can you speak English? "

"My English is poor." I also frankly replied: "Just ... a little!"

Ha, ha, ha, the moment I heard that he could only say "thank you", my confidence was bursting after I didn't speak English for more than a year! After all, I know more than just "thank you" in English! So I sat on the grass beside me and talked with him about some extremely simple topics.

His name is Mike and he comes from a country in Africa: Zimbabwe. He has just come to China to study abroad, and his formal classes will begin in a week. There are no textbooks or even school cards.

Coincidentally, Mac is also a mechanical major, so we have another topic. From that day on, Mike became my first foreign friend and the first foreign student.

With two years of tutoring experience, one-on-one teaching is familiar to me. After simple negotiation that night, we reached an agreement on the language learning plan. I help him learn Chinese, and he helps me improve my spoken English.

In order to facilitate study, I took him to the stationery store that night to buy a notebook and a pen, and paid voluntarily. When he asked, "How much is it?" At that time, I replied without thinking, "as a gift for you." He smiled happily and said, "Thank you ~"

I am also glad to have a foreign friend. We made an appointment to have a class under the headlights of the playground at 10 the next night, left each other's phone numbers and went back to the dormitory.

02

At noon the next day, I went to the library and picked out three books to improve my oral English. In the evening, I happened to catch an English study lecture. After listening carefully and taking notes, I can't wait to go to the library to learn oral English so as to communicate with Mac as much as possible.

At about 2 1:30, I whistled all the way from the library to the playground in the north district. When I got there, Mike was already waiting for me. This time, I greeted him loudly when I saw him from a distance! I didn't have such courage before

After a brief greeting, we sat in a well-lit place and began to study. He brought a notebook. I took out the draft paper and started with the simplest pinyin, and taught in groups according to the order of initials, finals and whole syllables.

In the evening, I learned the pronunciation of 1 1 initials and the pronunciation and writing of1/common Chinese characters.

I found that we should try to choose Chinese characters with simple strokes, preferably commonly used Chinese characters, so that he can apply what he has learned. At the same time, it is convenient for him to draw a gourd ladle.

Of course, the key is to correct pronunciation. When foreigners who have not systematically studied Pinyin speak Chinese, their voices are floating.

That night, I studied for about 40 minutes, and the rest of the time was spent chatting. He opened the photo album of his mobile phone and showed their life scenes and his hobby-dancing. I also played a dance video recorded at home, hahaha.

Mac shared their national anthem "Our Zimbabwe". I found this song from Xiami Music and was attracted by the beautiful melody. I told him happily, "I like it!" Then he pointed to the cover and told me happily, "This is our national flag!" "

He also asked me about the employment salary of mechanical design, and I told him that this is a very useful major, especially for Africa. But this major is also very difficult. Advise him to study hard. He said he would work hard.

I'm very happy about that.

Later, Mac asked me which countries I had been to, and I was embarrassed because I had never been abroad. Mike said that he had been to several countries, including three Asian countries.

At that moment, I sincerely envy this China student from Africa! There are six brothers and one sister in his family, three of whom are studying in China.

So I also told myself in my heart that I would learn English well and travel abroad in the future.

03

After returning to the dormitory to chat with my classmates, I realized that Zimbabwe in Africa is a poor country and their currency is worthless. Later, I learned from Baidu that Zimbabwe was colonized by Britain, and its currency depreciated sharply. They lost their own currency and switched to dollars.

But they seem to live a happier life.

From the recorded video shared by Mac, I saw their houses with white walls and black tiles and empty villages. Even in this background, children happily play golf with tree forks at school or at home and dance to the music! Their happiness is not only engraved on their faces, but also from their hearts.

From that moment on, I asked myself: Is it good to help Mac learn Chinese? Of course not. I will not curry favor with a man just because he was born rich, nor will I dislike him just because he comes from a poor country. To learn English? But the vocabulary or grammar I can learn from the dialogue is far less than what I can get by teaching myself English for a few minutes.

So what's this for? Chinese teaching is very large, so you have to give yourself a reason to stick to it. I immediately saw in my mind the scene when our country sent overseas students to the Soviet Union to study science and technology and build the motherland when New China was founded.

Then there is the answer: Chinese can help him learn more science and technology from China to build his motherland.

Thought of here, a sense of pride arises spontaneously.

The next night, in Chinese class, I told him that he should study Chinese hard, and then he could read a lot of Chinese books and learn more about China's science and technology in order to build their country.

04

After a night study, Mac said that his iPhone screen was broken and needed to be replaced. So we agreed to go to Chengguan mobile phone repair shop the next afternoon.

The next day, I listened to English all morning and looked up some words related to mobile phone maintenance, trying to avoid some embarrassing scenes.

I got a call from Mac this afternoon. After a brief greeting, he asked, "Where are you?" I don't know what the word "dormitory" is, and I don't think it's appropriate to use "home" or "house", so I asked him, "Where are you now?" He replied, "I'm in my building." So I smiled and replied, "I'm in my building, too."

Then tell him in a sentence translated before: "See you at the gate of the playground."

So, we went to the mobile phone repair shop by car.

Unexpectedly, when I brought my Mac into the mobile phone repair shop, the boss actually communicated with him directly in English! Completely ignoring my existence! ! !

But later, the boss encountered difficulties in describing the restart of the mobile phone and the parts of the mobile phone, so he asked me to translate, and my poor English finally played a role.

It took half an hour to change the screen, and then we went out for a walk.

When I was walking in the street, others found a black man next to me, and everyone looked at me with surprised eyes, just as I once envied my classmates at the Foreign Languages Institute! I was so happy at that moment. Although I know in my heart that I am fake, hahaha!

When walking, I will test the learned Chinese characters on the shop signs along the way, or I will teach him to read when I meet some relatively simple ones that have not been taught. He will also read it carefully and repeat it over and over again.

That kind of feeling is like shopping with a babbling child, hahaha!

In communication, we often encounter situations where we want to express a sentence but know English words. Then tell him to wait for me to check, and then take out his mobile phone and translate it with a dictionary on the spot. Sometimes I make mistakes in pronunciation, and he will help me correct them in time.

After returning to the dormitory, I will put the accumulated words or sentences into my English notebook for review.

After returning to school, Mike said, "I want to invite you to dinner." I just had a happy meal.

05

Gradually, I face my study and life more actively.

The study time is very tight every day. In order to spare an hour for Chinese class every night, I have to finish the study task of the day during the day and prepare lessons before the library closes.

Later, I began to listen to English and imitate in the morning, began to write bilingual notes, and prepared a more systematic Chinese teaching course. Although I feel very tired after class every night, everyone is very happy.

Later, Mac took Tino to class! So I have a second foreign friend and student!

Tino is darker and taller than Mac, but they all learn Chinese like children! Unlike a quiet Mac, Tino is more like a curious child!

Usually, after teaching Pinyin, he will ask me: Why is the tone marked on this letter and not on another letter? After teaching the stroke order of Chinese characters, he did not write notes first, but imitated calligraphy and painting first, and then pointed to the scattered Chinese characters and asked me, "Is that so?"

Mike is very studious. Every time he writes notes, he will go back to review the Chinese characters he has learned every five or six lines. Later, when the space in the notebook was full, I suggested that he write it in another notebook.

Some time ago, due to participating in the sports meeting, Mac and Tino took time out to train on the sports ground every day. When he was very tired at night, he called me and told me that he couldn't come to class because he was busy with games, so he had to go to bed early, but they would keep reviewing.

Scenes like this will make me feel that Chinese courses are very meaningful. At the same time, I am constantly optimizing my methods of learning English. For example:

At first, I studied hard to use it. Every time I met, I used my new English as much as possible. But the fact is that many sentences are useless without a specific context, hahaha!

Then I switched to system learning.

Chinese courses will also bring me a lot of fun.

For example, I am very happy when I teach Mac to say "I love China" in standard Chinese!

Once he learned the correct pronunciation of "Fujian" and suddenly smiled and told me that all his partners read "Fuqian". Hahaha! We laughed at the same time. I also lost no time in telling him to help his friends learn correct pronunciation.

Ps:

Our students majoring in mechanical engineering teach college English in their freshman year and professional English in their junior year, and English is basically neglected at other times.

So for me, it is a big leap from being afraid to talk to foreigners to teaching foreigners to learn Chinese in pure English.

At the same time, I also suggest that you study foreign languages with your heart. This is very important in the era of economic globalization and tourism globalization!

Learning a language, I believe that applying what you have learned is the highest level. It doesn't matter even if you have a poor foundation, as long as you study hard and dare to speak.