CLIC Conversation Sessions Continue Online

Like the University of Minnesota (UMN) and Minnesota K-12 schools, the Culture and Language Integration in Chinese and English (CLIC) program is not able to meet in person, but it is continuing to serve UMN international students and high school Chinese language learners in a new way. CLIC, a partnership between the TandemPlus program in the Language Center and the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies department, is now in its third year of offering weekly academic year conversation sessions in two languages.

CLIC sessions, like many university classes, have moved to Zoom. Last Thursday, March 26, 2020, Zhen Zou, the coordinator and instructor, led the first remote session, which included an equal number of Chinese and English learners. Zhen used the Zoom Breakout Room feature to pair the students, with one English learner and one Chinese learner in each pair. As all sports games are suspended right now, he chose “Sports” as the topic for that session, and all the students participated in “virtual sports,” talking about the sports they enjoy playing, describing the exciting games they watched, and admiring the superstars they love. Both the Chinese and English conversation sessions were very lively even though participants were miles apart. The program will continue through the semester to keep Chinese and English students engaged and practicing their language.