TAG-Confucius Newsletter | Issue 50 - July 2020

TAG-Confucius Institute: IN THIS ISSUE: The Institute was established in September TAG-Confucius Institute is holding a new 2008 to introduce the Chinese language and course to teach the basics of the Chinese culture, as well as achieving a greater mutual language for beginners: understanding between the Arab and Chinese TAG-Confucius Institute Received the Anti- cultures. This unique initiative is based on the Pandemic Drugs from the Center for Language Education and Cooperation cooperation agreement between TAG-Org and Confucius Institute in China. The Institute has TAG-Confucius Institute Successfully Launches Online Chinese Teaching During been named after the great intellectual, mentor COVID-19 Pandemic and philosopher, Confucius, whose ideas had TAG-Confucius Institute Holds Chinese Hard- influenced China and other regions around the Tipped Calligraphy Competition world for over 2,000 years. Ten Famous Bridges of China

For inquiries please contact us Tel: +962 - 6 5100600 | Fax: +962 - 6 5100606 website: www.tagconfucius.com | Email: [email protected] TAG-Confucius Newsletter Issue 50 - July 2020

TAG-Confucius Institute is the first institute accredited by the Chinese Government to teach Chinese language in Jordan.

TAG-Confucius Institute is holding a new course to teach the basics of the Chinese language for beginners:

A. Threshold Level for Adults: starting 09/08/2020 Schedule: Sunday - Tuesday from 6:00 – 8:00 pm

B. Threshold Level for Kids : starting 08\08\2020 Schedule: Sunday - Tuesday from 6:00 – 8:00 pm

*All Chinese language teachers are from China specialized in teaching Chinese language for foreigners and accredited by the Confucius Institute in China.

TAG-Confucius Institute Received the Anti-Pandemic Drugs from the Center for Language Education and Cooperation On July 7, TAG-Confucius Institute (TAG-CI) received Lianhua Qingwen Capsules, the anti-pandemic drugs, from the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC), which is the second batch of anti-pandemic items TAG-CI received after the medical face masks from Chinese embassy in Jordan. Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan in March, CLEC has been concerned about the health, safety and pandemic prevention and control of the teachers at TAG-CI. For this purpose, CLEC specially sent Lianhua Qingwen Capsules to TAG-CI staff. Although it took two and a half months on the way and two days for customs clearance, when the staff got the medicines, they felt very warm in their hearts at the moment, expressing gratitude to the leaders and teachers of CLEC for their care and love from thousands of miles away. With the great help of all parties, all the teachers and students of TAG-CI are safe and sound, and Chinese teaching is carried out in an orderly manner. The teachers will continue to stick to their posts, strengthen pandemic prevention and self-protection, and continue to do a good job in international Chinese education.

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TAG-Confucius Institute Successfully Launches Online Chinese Teaching During COVID-19 Pandemic During the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, some Confucius Institutes have launched online Chinese teaching and some plan to start online teaching. In order to meet the demand for online teaching, Confucius Institute Headquarters (now called Center for Language Education and Cooperation, CLEC) plans to further improve curriculum resources and provide support for CIs. For this purpose, CLEC selected TAG-Confucius Institute (TAG-CI) and a few others that have successfully launched online teaching to learn about the following aspects of online teaching. 1. What’s the platform for online teaching? 2. What’s the way of online teaching? Is it live streaming or will the course be recorded in advance and uploaded to the internet for students to choose freely? 3. What courses are mainly taught online currently? 4. Does online teaching have attendance management for students? Are there examinations and assessments? 5. Does the Confucius Institute or the student need to pay for the use of the platform or software? 6. What are the problems and difficulties in online teaching? 7. Other problems and suggestions for online teaching. After we fed back the online teaching status of TAG-CI to CLEC, TAG-CI was highly praised and recognized by Director and Project Officer of the Division of Asian and African CIs, who expressed that they would refer to and learn from TAG-CI’s practice. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, Jordanian government announced that universities, secondary schools, primary schools, kindergartens and training institutions had to suspend offline teaching from March 15 and all employees should work from home. TAG-CI observed the government’s pandemic prevention measures and launched online teaching to ensure that the students can continue to learn Chinese without suspension. As early as December last year, during the International Chinese Language Education Conference, TAG-CI established friendly cooperative relationship with the Great Wall Chinese Center and started online and offline mixed teaching using the Great Wall Chinese Smart Cloud Platform. The teacher-in-charge of the Great Wall Chinese

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Center held online training especially for TAG-CI teachers and introduced how to conduct live streaming and how to use the teaching resources on the platform. For online teaching, TAG-CI is fully prepared from technical training and curriculum Design, laying a solid foundation for seamless connection and smooth progress from offline teaching to online teaching. During online teaching period, the teaching plan and curriculum arrangement of TAG- CI are the same as those of offline teaching, and the management mode is also the same, with students’ attendance records, assessment and examinations. Before class, the teacher upload the teaching PPT，audio, video and other relevant contents to the platform for sharing with the students. At the same time, the classroom activities suitable for online teaching are designed. In class, the teacher uses the uploaded materials and online “whiteboard” writing function, pictures, gestures, awarding trophies and other forms to fully mobilize students’ interest in learning Chinese. Students can use the “whiteboard” function to write answers to questions or to practice. Meanwhile, the teacher can interact with the students to know about their mastery of content in this class and their feedback, etc. In addition to using the platform for live streaming, the teachers also communicate with students through e-mail, WeChat, WhatsApp and other ways to complete personalized teaching operations such as teaching homework assignment, assessment, examination, document sharing and announcement publishing. Students can log in to the platform anytime and anywhere to participate in various learning activities. At the same time, the platform will record the students’ learning track, which is helpful for the teacher to monitor and analyze students’ learning situation. The teacher and the students can also use ZOOM or Tencent Meeting software to conduct online discussion or consultation. During the pandemic, how to use the online platform to complete language teaching and provide students with a lively, rich and interesting Chinese learning environment has always been a concern of TAG-CI. H.E. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh，Chairman of TAG.Global， has been advocating distance education and giving strong support to online teaching of TAG-CI. Shenyang Normal University, the partner university of TAG-CI, also attaches importance to online teaching of TAG-CI. TAG-CI will continue to make efforts to actively promote its development in the direction of informatization, diversification and digitization, and further promote language and cultural exchange and cooperation.

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TAG-Confucius Institute Holds Chinese Hard-Tipped Calligraphy Competition

During COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese teaching events at TAG-Confucius Institute (TAG-CI) are still conducted online. In order to inspire students’ enthusiasm for learning Chinese, enrich daily teaching content, standardize Chinese characters writing, and display the charm of Chinese calligraphy, TAG-CI held an online Chinese hard-tipped calligraphy competition on July 19. The competition was divided into adult group and children group, and dozens of students participated in the competition. After more than two weeks of preparation, under the careful guidance of the teachers of TAG- CI, with the active cooperation and careful preparation of the students, the students submitted fascinating calligraphy works to TAG-CI with positive and delightful content, including Chinese classical poetry, modern poetry, prose, children’s rhymes, idiom stories, philosophical essays, classic articles in the textbooks, etc. Their writing is standard and pleasing to the eye; the paper looks neat and the layout is reasonable. After evaluation and scoring by the teachers, the final result of the calligraphy competition is that Rand Albakri won the first place of adult group; Emran Albaba and Yazan Mussa won the second and third place of adult group respectively. Abdallah Aldirini won the first place of children group; Reema Khashashneh and Esra Albaba won the second and third place of children’s group respectively. Chinese characters are an indispensable part of Chinese teaching. This calligraphy competition, from the selection of writing content to writing practice, on the one hand, has trained students’ ability of text appreciation and writing skills; on the other hand, let the students see the achievements of their Chinese learning and experience the beauty of Chinese characters. The competition will promote Chinese language teaching and learning. 4 TAG-Confucius Newsletter Issue 50 - July 2020

Ten Famous Bridges of China China is an ancient civilization country with a long history. With the hardworking, intelligent and brave, Chinese nation had created many inventions in the history of more than five thousand years and also left countless cultural heritages, which make a great contribution to the progress of mankind. The 10 famous bridges of China is a part of the splendid culture of the Chinese nation, which shows the intelligent of Chinese people. The following is a brief listing of the most widely known 10 bridges in China, which you can have a good knowledge of them. Marco Polo Bridge The Marco Polo Bridge or Lugou Bridge is one of the earliest segmented stone arch bridges located 15 km southwest of the city center in the Fengtai District. First built in 1189, it spans the banks of the Yongding River-a major tributary of Hai River. The bridge is about 265 meters long and has 250 marble balustrades supporting 485 carved stone lions. The bridge became known in the West when Marco Polo talked it up in his writings, and hence called the Marco Polo Bridge in the Western countries. It’s also known for a battle that took place here in 1937 and marked the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war. Guangji Bridge Guangji Bridge, also known as Xiangzi Bridge, is an ancient bridge that crosses the Han River in Chaozhou, Guangdong province, China. First built in AD 1170 during the Southern as a pontoon bridge, it has a total length of 518 meters. Guangji Bridge is the only way through east part of Guangdong to , Jiangxi, and Han River is the artery of east Yue transportation, therefore, Guangji Bridge become important hinge of goods gather and transshipment. Guangji Bridge is an integrated bridge in ancient China with the function of transportation and commercial and also is the first movable stone bridge in the world. Five Pavilion Bridge The Five Pavilion Bridge, also known as Lotus Bridge, located in the West Lake of Yangzhou City of Jiangsu Province, China. First built in 1757 during the Qing Dynasty, it has five pavilions on its 55-metre-long floor. The body of the stone Bridge is formed on 15 arches of varying sizes, all large enough to allow the passage of boats. The Five Pavilion Bridge likes a belt worn on the narrow waist of Shouxihu, it is one of the signs of the slender West Lake. Anping Bridge Anping Bridge, located in the west of Town, Jinjiang County, in City of Fujian Province. First built in the eighth year of the Shaoxing reign in Southern Song Dynasty (1138), Anping Bridge is the largest ancient stone beam bridge in China which spans the bay between Jinjiang County and Nan’an County. It is also known as Five Li Bridge, because its length is 2,255 meters, about 5 li, where a li is about 500 meters or 0.3 miles. Anping Bridge consists of 361 spans of granite beams resting on top of stone piers and the largest beam weighing 25 tons and the width of the bridge varies from 3 to 3.8 meters. Anji Bridge The Anji Bridge, also known as Zhaozhou Bridge or Dashi Bridge, located on the Xiaohe River in Zhaozhou County, Hebei Province. Built in the Kaihuang Period (595-605 AD) of the Sui Dynasty by craftsman Li Chun some 1400 years ago, Anji Bridge is about 50 meters long with a central span of 37.37 meter, stands 7.3 meters tall and has a width of 9 meters, it is the world’s largest and oldest open-spandrel stone segmental arch bridge.

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Cross Bridge The Cross Bridge also known as Yuzhaofeiliang (Flying Bridge over Fish Pond), located in front of the Hall of the Goddess in the Jinci Temple of Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province. Built in the Chongning Period (1102) of Northern Song Dynasty, the whole bridge surface is a cross style, hence the name. Nearly a thousand years old, the Cross Bridge is generally regarded as a treasure among ancient Chinese bridges. Chengyang Wind-Rain Bridge Chengyang Wind-Rain Bridge, also known as Yongji Bridge or Panlong Bridge, located in Sanjiang County of Liuzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and China. Built in 1916, with 64.4 meters long, 3.4 meters wide and 10.6 meters high, it is the crystal of Dong people’s wisdom and the largest Wind and Rain Bridge in China. Luding Bridge Luding Bridge is a bridge over the Dadu River in Luding County, about 80 kilometers west of the city of Ya’an, Sichuan Province, China. Built in the 45th year (1706) of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911), the whole bridge has 13 iron chains, with its total length of 103 meters and width of 3 meters. Besides, the stele with the bridge’s name written by Emperor Kangxi is still hung at one end of the bridge. Luding Bridge is regarded as a historical landmark, because of the soldiers of the Fourth Regiment of the Chinese Workers and Peasants’ Army secured the bridge as a river crossing vital to the Red Army during the Long March. Five Tone Bridge Five Tone Bridge, located in the sacred way of xiaoling mausoleum of Emperor Shunzhi, in Zunhua County of Hebei Province, China. The bridge is 110.60 meters long and 9.10 meters wide, with 128 stone columns and 4 drum stones on it. It is a special stone bridge which can send out the sound. Jade Belt Bridge The Jade Belt Bridge, located on the grounds of the Summer Palace in Beijing, China, is the most well- known of the six bridges on the western shore of Kunming Lake. Built in the year 1751-1764 of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and made from marble and other white stone, it is a beautiful pedestrian Moon bridge and was praised as “Sea Fairy Island”. https://www.zhangjiajietourguide.com/article-p149-10-famous-bridges-of-china.html

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OUR SHOWROOMS: TAG.Global Building 46 Abdel Rahim Al-Waked Street, Shmeisani, Amman, Jordan TAGUCI Building104 Mecca Street, Um-Uthaina, Amman, Jordan +962 65100 909 [email protected]

For More Information: www.tagtech.global *VAT Included