Student from Taiwan becomes a teacher in Odessa

In Taiwan, Grace Peng wants to graduate and work in the business world, but for one month in Odessa she is teaching a beginners class of Mandarin Chinese.

The University of Texas of the Permian Basin is offering beginners and intermediate courses of Mandarin Chinese for $35, which includes class materials. The two-hour classes started on Jan. 17 and will end on Feb. 9. The class was open to college students as well as the community. UTPB offered this course last year as well.

Peng said it was her professor, Ai-Hwa Chen, who told her about the “wonderful opportunity” of teaching Chinese to English speaking students for one month in America. Mey Wu, a classmate with Peng, is teaching the intermediate courses at UTPB. Together the girls are teaching 18 students Chinese.

“It’s my pleasure,” she said, of the experience she has had in coming to America.

The 21-year-old said she is a senior in at Hsiuping University of Science and Technology in Dali District, Taichung City in Taiwan and has never taught Chinese before. UTPB officials said Peng and Wu are English majors.

“First time abroad,” Peng said. “I feel very excited and nervous.”

Peng said some of the pronunciations from Chinese to English are difficult, but her two classes of eight students have made the transition easier.

“Americans very friendly and they have response to me,” she said. “In Taiwan, they don’t.”

Mayra Venegas, a junior at UTPB, said she took the course because it seemed interesting.

“They’ve made it really easy,” she said. “I can memorize the numbers easily. It’s fun.”

Venegas said the class also has been doing a lot of interacting learning.

During a class on Wednesday, Peng put all of the months of the year on the board written in Chinese. One by one, the students arranged the words to the correct order in the year and practiced pronouncing the words as a class. On Friday, students participate in Chinese cultural activities and games or learning to write calligraphy.

Blair Roberts, economics professor at Odessa College, also took the course. He said in the business world, China is extremely important, and when he heard a class was being offered he was interested in taking it.

“It’s really a fascinating culture,” Roberts said, noting the pronunciations have been his biggest challenge. “I would like to go to China. I’d like to be able to speak conversational Chinese.”

@OAschools