First and second year undergraduate students across the United States will hear about all the benefits from studying abroad; you will not only explore a new culture, but you may also have the opportunity to develop your foreign language while studying abroad. I\u2019m thankful that I was granted both these opportunities while abroad in Beijing, China; I learned to admire the unique Asian culture, and I received a myriad of opportunities that accelerated my Mandarin Chinese language learning level. The natives were so helpful to foreigners like myself; for example, when I interacted with them\u2014with a taxi driver, at a market, or any of one hundred other scenarios\u2014they would help me on my grammar or pronunciation.<\/p>\n
Their kindness allowed me to understand that the only reason I\u2019ve had the significant gains in the language is due to the fact that I took advantage of talking to foreigners whenever given the opportunity and no matter how embarrassed I was. These significant gains are the reasons why I would recommend anyone that is considering applying for a SLA Grant or preparing to start their own summer language study aboard to have an open mind and to set any fears aside, because there is a significant difference between learning a language in a classroom setting and learning a language in the country of origin.<\/p>\n
The start of this upcoming semester will mark one year since I started Mandarin. With the completion of my 2nd year Chinese class this summer, I am now in a position to complete my 3rd year of Chinese this upcoming year, and I also plan to finish two years of Arabic my junior and senior year. This summer language school placed me in a special position in which I established a strong foundation and advanced knowledge in Chinese as well as a fresh foundation of Arabic coming out of Notre Dame. I am very blessed to receive the opportunity to go abroad this last summer because now I will gain above an intermediate level in two very difficult and practical languages from Notre Dame in just four years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First and second year undergraduate students across the United States will hear about all the benefits from studying abroad; you will not only explore a new culture, but you may also have the opportunity to develop your foreign language while studying abroad. I\u2019m thankful that I was granted both these opportunities while abroad in Beijing, … Continue reading Post Program Reflection<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2532,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2532"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3752,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3751\/revisions\/3752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}