By Dudley Brown
Aidan Jenkins ’24 and Valerie Soto ’23 took their learning of the Chinese language to another level this past summer while immersing themselves in the language through renowned programs domestically and abroad.
Jenkins, a double major in Chinese and finance who is on the pre-med track, spent 10 weeks studying in Taiwan. Soto, a Chinese major, spent part of the summer at Indiana University-Bloomington before spending the fall semester studying in Taiwan.
“Learning a language through immersion is beneficial because learners can observe and practice language use in context, where meaning is created and understood,” says Dr. Yongfang Zhang, Wofford associate professor of Chinese. “Much can be learned in a classroom environment, but, ultimately, classroom learning is all scaffolding for language use in situ.”
After excelling in the classroom, both were challenged to use Chinese while traveling on their own and experiencing the culture firsthand.
“It was a little scary,” says Jenkins, who is from Rock Hill, South Carolina. “I believed my Chinese was good but I wasn’t totally fluent, and I was a little overwhelmed at times.”
Jenkins was Wofford’s first Chinese major to receive the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship to study abroad in Taiwan and it allowed him to receive a travel visa for the country while regular visas were suspended.
Jenkins says he spent four to five hours studying each evening after class, and he learned 50 to 60 new words in Chinese each day. He also embraced opportunities to repeat experiences, like returning to a restaurant the next week while being better prepared for the questions he was asked.
“I built my confidence through repetition,” Jenkins says. “There was that little period of uncomfortableness, but it paid off. That was the best immersion you can get.”
Soto had plans to study abroad in Beijing or Shanghai, but the COVID-19 pandemic interfered. Zhang and Dr. Li Qing Kinnison, professor of Chinese, told her about Indiana University-Bloomington’s Language Workshop and she applied. She’s the college’s first Chinese major to receive a $1,000 Hamilton Lugar School Scholarship to study at Indiana University-Bloomington, which is given to 8% of applicants for the entire program that includes students studying Arabic, Japanese, Korean and Russian.
After studying in Indiana, Soto went to National Taiwan University to study during the fall semester. Since few in-person programs were being offered, it was a competitive process.
“I am very fortunate to have been accepted into the program for the fall 2022 semester, and to have also successfully completed the difficult steps required of me,” says Soto, who returned home to Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, in November.
Like Jenkins, Soto also received valuable experience and opportunities outside of the classroom.
“During this time, I had the opportunity to take part in an unpaid part-time internship at the Garden of Hope Foundation, an NGO (non-governmental organization) that focuses on assisting survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse, so I could learn more about the work culture of Taiwan and utilize the Chinese skills I have built thus far at Wofford and Indiana at my workplace,” Soto says. “My internship supervisor was also eager to share more with me about Taiwanese culture, even to the extent of taking me out to lunch every week so I could try authentic Taiwanese cuisine. I also had a Taiwanese language partner who besides helping me improve my Chinese skills, also introduced me to different sites in Taiwan through traveling. By the end of the study abroad program, I had developed strong friendships with both my internship supervisor and my language partner.”
Soto also received support in Taiwan from Yen-Chiu Chu and Hsuan-Yun Lin, former Chinese Fulbright language teaching assistants at Wofford.
Jenkins’ motivation to study Chinese stemmed from a desire to bond with his maternal grandparents, who are from China. They live in the same neighborhood in Rock Hill, and his grandfather, who is from Taiwan, helped him practice the language while he participated in an online immersion program through Middlebury Language Schools during the summer of 2021.
“I called my grandpa while I was in Taiwan and he said, ‘You’re definitely better,’” Jenkins says. “I know it makes him happy that I learned.”
Soto, who took four years of Spanish and two years of French in high school, enjoys learning new languages. Her grandfather was born in Puerto Rico, and he keeps the country’s music and food as part of family gatherings.
“After learning that Chinese is classified as a critical need language, I decided that I wanted to learn it and use my abilities to preserve the national security of the United States,” says Soto, who is considering graduate school programs, including one focused on Chinese and English translation and transcription. “At Wofford, my commitment to understanding and learning through my Chinese major has not only allowed me to explore language, but also cultural topics in art history, film, history, literature and philosophy.”
Both Jenkins and Soto, have made their marks as Chinese majors at Wofford.
“I am most impressed by these two students’ innate desire to learn and excel”, Zhang says. They chose to go beyond the regular major curriculum and demonstrated unusual persistence in locating intensive and immersive Chinese programs around the world during the pandemic when most programs were canceled.”