The Confucius Institute of TSU arranged a workshop for teachers of the Chinese language from the Siberian Federal District. The event was organized with the support of the Embassy of China in Moscow. Lectures and practical classes are conducted by representatives of Heilongjiang University in Harbin, known for the “pure” Pǔtōnghuà, which is considered the standard of the Chinese language.
Teachers from different Siberian cities participated in the workshop, including Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Leninsk Kuznetsk, Irkutsk, Ulan Ude, Kyzyl, Abakan and others.
– Chinese is very difficult not only in terms of grammar. It includes several large groups – Mandarin/Putonghua, Min, Jin and others, within which there are hundreds of local dialects, – explains Irina Shvedova, director of the Confucius Institute. – There is often no mutual understanding between large groups: the speaker of Putonghua does not always understand Cantonese or Min. Differences relate to phonetics (different numbers of tones), syllabic structure, vocabulary and some syntactic constructions, and only writing (hieroglyphs) remains common.
Heilongjiang Province (Harbin Center) belongs to the northern Mandarin area: dialects are close to standard Putonghua, with pure phonetics, so Harbin teachers are often considered the standard of pronunciation. A three-day training course at TSU is taught by professors of Heilongjiang University who specialize in teaching Chinese as a foreign language.
Particular attention is paid to the preparation of Russian teachers for the mandatory exam, which confirms the methodological and linguistic training in the field of teaching the Chinese language. In China, it is now considered mandatory. A certificate is often required for employment and serves as a confirmation of readiness to teach according to modern standards.
The workshop participants analyzed the requirements for the examinees, the specifics of the exam and practical recommendations. The program also included round tables and sessions on the use of artificial intelligence for the preparation of materials and classes, methods of teaching children of preschool and primary school age (TSU Confucius Institute is a leader in this area), the use of game materials in learning.
We shall add that the Confucius Institute is one of the leading educational sites in Russia, which teaches the Chinese language. So, in the fall of 2025, Yan Pei, an employee of the Confucius Institute of Tomsk State University, took first and second places in the two most prestigious competitions in China for teachers of the Chinese language. In particular, her course, created for TSU students, got the silver award in the “Best Practices” according to the estimates of the Global Network of Confucius Institutes.