Most Saint Louis U. High students can recall seeing Chinese exchange students in the halls in the last few years. Some students can even remember classes they shared. This year, though, Chinese exchange students could not come to SLUH physically, attending virtually instead. 

The week before Thanksgiving break, the Chinese IV class, led by Chinese teacher Yude Huang, went on a virtual tour of the Missouri History Museum with a group of students from SLUH’s partner school in Taiwan. Even though it was not an in-person meeting, many students enjoyed the experience. Even the principal from the school in Taiwan joined along with the ten students from their school. 

For the Taiwanese students, it was their first time using Zoom because they go to school in person every day; as a result, there was a small delay in getting everyone on the call.

“The difficult part was the connection, because in Taiwan they live a totally normal life. They don't use Zoom. The students still go to school every single day with no problems at all, and the difficult part was that it was their first time to use Zoom,” said Huang. 

Because of the 14-hour time difference between St. Louis and Taiwan, the only Chinese class that could actively participate in the tour was the first hour Chinese IV class.  The students from Taiwan logged onto the tour at 10:30 p.m. their time; some stayed on the Zoom until midnight their time talking with SLUH students. 

“This was our first time to meet with our partner school.” said Huang.

Through Zoom, the Chinese IV class and students from Taiwan joined a virtual tour of the Missouri History Museum, which consisted of a tour guide presenting a multitude of artifacts, and answering questions from the audience. 

Huang enjoyed the tour and encouraged others to take advantage of the opportunity.

“Even though I have been here for a long, long time, I have not gotten the chance to go to the history museum,” said Huang. “So I found it quite eye-opening to know, ‘Wow, they have so many cool things in the museum.’ I would definitely bring my family over there when this is all over.”

The SLUH students also enjoyed the tour and enjoyed getting a chance to meet the students from Taiwan. Although the tour was very laid back and didn’t have a lot of conversation, some daring students jumped at the opportunity to cross the language barrier, since most of the students from Taiwan spoke very little English. 

“They mentioned to me that it was the best Chinese class ever because they got to see someone from very far away, and they could share the experience during the tour and get to know each other. They really enjoyed it. They cannot wait to do it again,” said Huang. “Some students were uncomfortable with the language. Some of them might be hesitant because they might be nervous to speak up or speak Chinese in front of the native speakers. This time was not really about the conversation between us, I didn’t want them to feel obligated to use Chinese. Maybe next time when we meet again I may create a topic for them to talk to each other in Chinese.”

“They mentioned to me that it was the best Chinese class ever because they got to see someone from very far away, and they could share the experience during the tour and get to know each other. They really enjoyed it. They cannot wait to do it again. Some students were uncomfortable with the language. Some of them might be hesitant because they might be nervous to speak up or speak Chinese in front of the native speakers. This time was not really about the conversation between us, I didn’t want them to feel obligated to use Chinese. Maybe next time when we meet again I may create a topic for them to talk to each other in Chinese.”

Yude Huang

Huang wants to do the same thing again next year. It was very easy for the Taiwanese students to join the Zoom rather than fly all the way over to America. Huang was also very thankful for Russian teacher and Director of Global Education Robert Chura to set up the whole tour for his class. 

“I would totally want to do it again, even if we go back to a normal life and we don't use Zoom. I still would want to do it by Zoom. It shortens the distance between us, so we can see each other very quickly,” said Huang.

With the Chinese IV exchange being deemed a success, the Foreign Language Department as a whole is looking to have similar exchanges in the future. Virtually all of the exchange programs that would typically occur between SLUH and its various partner schools across the world have been cancelled, leaving foreign language teachers scrambling for an alternate method to connect with their counterparts overseas. Arabic, Spanish, and Russian classes have done smaller exchanges in class so far this year, and there is hope that these will continue for the remainder of the school year.

“There’s a lot of disappointment with all the things we can’t do. There’s all kinds of stuff that isn’t happening right now. We had to cancel all of our summer programs. We just wanted to put the word out there for the things that we are transitioning to, which are in a lot of ways creating more capacity for kids to be involved in global ed than has typically been the case,” said Chura.

Though there are no official plans as of now, Chura stated that there would likely be more exchanges of a similar nature throughout the school year.  

“This wasn’t just a one-off,” said Chura, “This was just the latest step in a program that we are looking to do.”