The Confucius Institute in Sofia Have Conducted the ‘Youth Is a Boat Sailing Across an Ocean Of Words’ – a Hundred Chinese Words Competition

On 18th October 2024, the Confucius Institute in Sofia have conducted the ‘Youth Is a Boat Sailing Across an Ocean Of Words’ - a Hundred Chinese Words Competition. The contest has also been the first ever linguistic challenge initiated and hosted by the Confucius Institute in Sofia. The event has attracted approximately 90 participants - all of them being Chinese language enthusiasts from the CIS headquarters teaching center in Sofia and from the Confucius Classrooms and the Teaching Centres across the country.
Prior to the competion, the Confucius Institute in Sofia have announced the wordpool for the forthcoming ‘Youth Is a Boat Sailing Across an Ocean Of Words’ – a Hundred Chinese Words Competition in advance. All the participants have diligently prepared for the contest under of the guidance of their teachers – both local and Chinese ones. The competition has been a pen-and-paper written test in which 100 Chinese words have been tested within 60 minutes. The vocabulary topics have been related to three aspects: social life, traditional culture and contemporary China.

Considering the cognitive characteristics of students of different age groups, the competition has been divided into three groups: students from grades 1-6, students from grades 7-12, and university students and adults. The test questions for primary school students have been designed differently, mainly examining cultural knowledge, word recognition, pinyin and Chinese characters writing, etc.
This competition is one of the series of activities organised by the Confucius Institute in Sofia to celebrate the Global Confucius Institute Day 2024 and the 20th Anniversary Of the Confucius Institute. The competition will continue to be organised in the future with the aim of measuring the linguistic level of the Chinese students at the main test center of CIS, and of those students at the Confucius Classrooms and at the teaching centers under CIS. Moreover, the competition has aimed to examine the results of the Chinese language teaching of the Confucius Institute in Sofia through the years.
At the same time, the Confucius Institute in Sofia will use the competitions to promote teaching and learning and to provide Bulgarian students with a platform to demonstrate their Chinese language abilities, to assess their learning results, and to create a medium for communication between each other, as well as to strengthen the horizontal exchange of teachers and to promote reforms and innovations in the teaching methods.

Confucius Institute in Sofia
Text: Chen Chen
Photos: Pan Xixi, Liu Min, Chen Chen, Liu Xiaolin, Wang Ying
Editors: Prof. Chen Ying, Aksiniya Koleva
English translation: Maya Kostadinova

Picture 1. Students from the Confucius Classroom at the Maxim Gorky Secondary School in Stara Zagora participating in the competition.

Picture 2. Students from the Confucius Classroom at the prof. Vassil Zlatarski 138th Secondary School in Sofia participating in the competition.

Picture 3. Students from the Confucius Classroom at the Geo Milev English Language School in Burgas focused on answering the test questions.

Picture 4. Confucius Classroom students from the University of Ruse participating in the competition.

Picture 5. Students from the Confucius Classroom at the University of Plovdiv participating in the competition.