Dundalk IT hosts Chinese Summer Camp

Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) recently hosted a closing ceremony for all the students who took part in the Institutes first ever Chinese Summer Camp.

This completely booked out camp was open to local secondary school students from the region and focused on introducing the students to the Chinese Mandarin language and Chinese culture.

This summer camp was coordinated by Ping Cao a lecturer in DkIT who was supported by the facilitators Ms Vicky Shuai (UCD) and Ms Ling Hensey (Castleknock Chinese School, Dublin). 

At the closing Ceremony DkIT welcomed Ms Zhu who is the Secretary for Education in the Chinese Embassy, Ireland. Ms Zhu presented the certificates to the students and was also pleased to give them all a gift of a book which was donated by the Chinese Ambassador.

Also, in attendance at the event was DkIT President Dr Diarmuid O’Callaghan and the Institute’s Vice President for Academic Affairs and Registrar Dr Sheila Flanagan.

DkIT President Dr O’Callaghan said: “This Chinese Summer Camp was an extremely significant piece of work around introducing students to a new language, and the energy and interaction from the participants was really obvious this afternoon.” 

Dr Sheila Flanagan added: “The closing ceremony was a fantastic day and obviously this camp was a really rich cultural experience for potential students from our region who participated. I was so impressed with the standard achieved in such a short period of time and the obvious engagement of the learners in the process." 

This Chinese Summer Camp initiative for DkIT was part of the Institute’s strategy to encourage more students to investigate learning another language. Ireland currently has very low rates of student participation in languages at third level and nationally we are behind other European counterparts.

It was also an opportunity for post-primary students to explore the Chinese language, a less-taught language in school. The camp allowed participants to discover a new language and culture by inspiring students through a combination of fun, creativity, and learning.

Ping Cao DkIT said: “I've received overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents and students who thoroughly enjoyed the camp, and they are looking forward to next year. It's a wonderful opportunity for secondary school students to immerse themselves in Chinese language and culture in a fun and creative manner, completely free of charge for two weeks”.

She added: “this Chinese Summer Camp wouldn’t have been possible without Patricia Moriarty, Brian Boyd and Shane Hill’s support and their encouragement.”

This camp was supported by Post-Primary Languages Ireland (PPLI) and Language Connect who offer funding for organising two-week activity-based language learning summer camps for post-primary level students. Funding is provided from the Department of Education under Ireland’s Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education 2017-26.