CVHS adds new Mandarin classes

Due to the expansion of Chinese culture, CVHS started its first year of Mandarin and AP Mandarin classes during the 2019-2020 school year. 

As the first Mandarin teacher on campus, Joy Sun feels a real responsibility to teach the students the language.

“It is usually not easy to teach the students who don’t have any foundation on Chinese, but luckily all of my students are extremely motivated,” Sun said. “Facing the importance of Mandarin, I decided to give them all the knowledge I have.”

There are three Mandarin and one AP Mandarin classes in total and the average number of students in each class is around 30. Sun was not surprised that 40 percent of her students are not Asian.  “Chinese classes are always diverse, ” she said.

“All the students did so well on their first unit exam,” Sun said. She later showed the projects that her students made for the mid-autumn festival and she believes that they are masterpieces. 

However, there are still some hardships. Sun’s fifth period class is a combination of Mandarin 1 and AP Mandarin students. “It’s difficult to switch from one side of teaching to the other side of teaching because students might sometimes get confused – even I did!” She laughed and stated she will eventually find a way to improve the condition.

“I expected that the first year of teaching Mandarin at CVHS would be exciting, but I was wrong. It was much more exciting than I had ever thought before,” Sun lastly stated.

“You have to work really hard in that class! The teacher is strict, but really nice and I already had an F because I turned in my homework late,” senior Lydia Wu said, an AP Mandarin student. 

“The homework that Ms. Sun gives is difficult, but they are worth working,” junior Timothy Liu claimed, another AP Mandarin student.

With such a good teacher, students will not easily give up learning Chinese because what motivates them is not only the teacher, but also the brilliant culture.