Throughout February, students in Dr. Weirong Yan-Schaefer’s Chinese language courses had their artwork displayed at the Schweitzer Brentwood branch of the Springfield-Greene County library in Springfield, Missouri.

Faith Sheridan, Audrey Roney, Lauren Bleau, Ella Hemingway and Ally Vestal had their works on view in the exhibit. They are enrolled in Schaefer’s Chinese Reading and Composition (CHI 312) and Intermediate Chinese (CHI 202) courses.

Schaefer is a senior instructor of Chinese and Japanese languages in the Department of Languages, Cultures and Religions (LCR).

Project blends language and art

Blending language learning with personal creativity, the students designed artwork incorporating Chinese language and Chinese New Year elements. The artwork ranged from Chinese characters to lotus flowers and New Year’s zodiac signs.

Junior modern languages major Lauren Bleau is in Schaefer’s CHI 312 class. Her project, “The Year of the Horse with Chinese characters,” helped her learn more about the Chinese New Year.

“I loved getting to use art as a way to learn. It made me more interested in learning,” she said.

Students must learn a significant number of Chinese characters in these classes, Schaefer said. They also gain a deeper understanding of Chinese culture through immersive assignments like the Chinese New Year art project.

Schaefer got the idea for the project from her Fun with Kanji (JPN 311) course. In that class, students created artwork entirely from kanji characters.

“Their creativity was impressive,” she said. “Some created kanji maps, some designed flowers made of characters, and some formed complex images using only kanji.”

This inspired her to try the same approach in her Chinese language classes.

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