The international Russian-Chinese Summer School continues its work in SSEU. For a week students from the urban district of Shaoxing, the Chinese province of Zhejiang, study the basics of the Russian language, get acquainted with our city and its history.
According to Svetlana S. Komarova, the head of the department for work with foreign students, one of the organizers of this project, such a school is being held on the site of Samara State University of Economics for the first time and the more valuable experience is the overcoming of language and cultural barriers. All training is in English, and it is the main language when teachers and students of the project communicate. The students-volunteers of SSEU actively help to build intercultural communications.
"We are breaking templates in each other's perceptions," said Nailya F. Tagirova, the ideological inspirer and executor of the project, director of Institute of Theoretical Economics and International Economic Relations of SSEU. "We have different cultures, everyday habits, but at the same time, we have something to learn from each other."
The training program is very rich and extensive - lectures, games, trainings, presentations. As noted Julia A. Zherdeva, associate professor of the Department of Institutional Economics and Economic History of Institute of Theoretical Economics and International Economic Relations of SSEU, the classes are aimed at building skills of intercultural communication, so there are minimum traditional lectures, more communication in a game form, dialogues, and exchange of knowledge.
So during one of the classes Julia A. Zherdeva acquainted the students with the cultural traditions of the multinational Samara province. A day before, the students of the Summer School tried to understand the difference between the life of a Russian student and a Chinese student? They found out, first of all, that the student from China goes to bed until midnight, gets up at 7 am and prepares for studies, and his student's schedule includes a day's sleep, after which he continues the training process until the evening. In turn, the students of the school were interested in how often Samara students argue with their teachers?
Future engineers, technicians, designers, teachers, managers from China study at the Summer School. They prepare their own video reports about the lessons at SSEU.
In addition to training sessions, the students of the Summer School went on many excursions around the city and beyond - guests had time to visit the Art Museum, the village of Shiryaevo, the museum-exhibition center "Samara Space", the bunker of Stalin and other cultural sites of Samara.
Hu Deifei, English teacher:
"I was impressed by the variety of architecture styles in Samara. You walk around such interesting buildings every day and probably do not notice it, and those who are here for the first time see their beauty. I also noticed that people in your city like sports very much - they are very beautiful, fit, athletic people."
Volunteer students working in the Summer School help the guests cope with everyday difficulties, spend their free time together.
Anastasia Svetlova, 3rd year student of Institute of Theoretical Economics and International Economic Relations of SSEU, volunteer of the Summer School:
Students from China are disciplined. They all do everything in the group, without independent initiative, routes and decisions are not discussed. In general, this is an interesting experience, to find out how your peers live in the country with a completely different culture and customs. With all the differences in the daily routine, habits, nutrition, we have something in common. Brilliant students take the first desks in classrooms, and those who are not very interested in studies sit far from the teacher - in general, students, probably, are the same everywhere.
Lera Osnovina, 3rd year student of Institute of Theoretical Economics and International Economic Relations of SSEU, volunteer of the Summer School:
As volunteers we help Chinese students navigate in everyday matters. For example, in their free time girls like to go shopping. They ask us about prices, about the banks with the best exchange rate, what stores it is better to go to. They are not very familiar with our food, and it is unusual for us that they are so happy to buy instant noodles. Sometimes the questions, of course, pose a dead end - for example, whether it is necessary to boil cooked sausages? Or what is a dumpling in a borsch? They do not have the usual mobile applications such as Viber, WhatsApp, so we had to add the chat, which they use on their smartphones and talk there.
