Q&A with former student: Evonne Kong
What drew you to Vancouver and Langara College?
Vancouver is a multicultural city suitable for different types of people to live and study. This city has community centres and health care for locals and newcomers. Most residents are friendly and respectful of each other. When you chat with them, they are willing to listen and share their life experience, food, culture, etc. Vancouver is also a green environment and Canadian societies have always encouraged people to stay green and tackle the world's pollution.
Diverse and reflective of different cultures in society, Langara College offers admission to domestic and international students. Courses include non-English languages, like Chinese and Japanese, for Canadian and non-Canadian students.
How did you decide to take language courses?
After I completed a first-level Chinese course, I was inspired by instructors who specialize in Chinese language teaching. They helped me with grammar skills, writing and speaking in Chinese. When I signed up for the introductory course, my instructor promised to provide students with regular practice before tests and exams. This made me decide to enroll in the course and I am now following tailored guidance from my instructor to help me achieve my exam goals.
How was your learning experience at Langara?
I am glad I had the opportunity to learn Chinese from an experienced and supportive Chinese instructor, Huimin Lin. Learning spoken Chinese skills in a face-to-face class was particularly helpful. Students often stayed after class to ask the instructor for suggestions on how to improve their pronunciation. Additionally, classrooms and laboratories at the College are designed with modern features for comfort and efficiency, and to enhance the learning experience. If I want to clarify or understand anything more in-depth, the materials are published on Brightspace for extra study support.
How did this experience help you academically, professionally and/or personally? How will the skills you gained help you in the future or how are they helping you now?
This Chinese course not only helped me get the credits I needed to complete the diploma program, but also to strengthen my Chinese language learning ability, giving me a good foundation to volunteer at a community centre teaching simple Chinese (such as pinyin). Meanwhile, I should take the time to follow my instructor’s useful guidelines to practice and become familiar with Chinese pronunciation and expand my Chinese vocabulary and sentence structure. After the final exam, I will progress to the third level of this course at Langara College.
What are your goals for the future? How do you want to grow professionally?
I want to teach my children and neighbours Chinese. As far as I understand, learning Chinese is not easy because this complex language is more than 3500 years old. Learning Chinese at Langara College is a great way for me to master daily usage of Chinese.
What advice would you give students who are interested in taking language courses?
Learning Chinese at Langara is not only fun, but also opens your eyes to China's long history, unique culture and wisdom.