The Confucius Institute at Hanyang University(HYU) will hold Chinese classes starting this June 2016. HYU is the first university in Korea that designated Chinese as a graduation requirement. The Confucius Institute, one of the affiliated organizations of the International Education Institute of HYU, was opened in November 2015 with the support of the Chinese Education Ministry. It is the 476th Confucius Institute in the world and jointly operated with Jilin University in China.

Prior to the regular course this summer, the Confucius Institute opened a special shortterm course for 4 weeks on May 9th. This course was divided into two classes by the students’ level or goals. The entry level class was for novice Chinese learners and aimed to teach accurate pronunciation and the word order. In addition, the beginner’s class aimed to practice basic conversations used in daily life.

“Student application rates of both classes has been very high, proving that there are a lot of students who want to learn Chinese at HYU. This high rate was greatly influenced by the social atmosphere of wanting talented people who are fluent in Chinese and the academic tradition of our school emphasizing the importance of Chinese education,ˮ said Seo Won-nam, the President of the Confucius Institute at HYU.

The Confucius Institute is in charge of various activities to increase students’ interests in Chinese culture. It expects to organize cultural exploration or short language training courses in China. Furthermore, it plans to recruit scholarship students to an affiliated organization in the Chinese Education Ministry. Recipients will also be able to study in China while receiving scholarships in the forms of school tuition and living expenses. The scholarship selection process for the Confucius Scholarship takes place every March or April.