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Young students attend a summer training course of Shanghai dialect in Jiading district of Shanghai on July 20. [Photo/ jiading.gov.cn] |
Shanghai's Jiading district began this year's summer training course on Shanghai dialect with renewed enthusiasm in a quest to garner more interest and usage among young students for the fast declining dialect.
This year's course started on July 20, targeting local children in a bid to improve their basic pronunciation. The dialect course, an annual event aimed at promoting the inheritance of Shanghai dialect was first launched in 2013 in Jiading, and has since grown in popularity among local residents.
The course consists of 10 lessons, which are given by Huang Zhenliang, inheritor of Shanghai dialect-based storytelling which originated from Jiading's Huangdu town (now known as Anting town), a district-level intangible cultural heritage.
The first lesson was given by Huang's protege, You Qi, who shared her experience in learning the cultural heritage and then taught the young students basic pronunciation of Shanghai dialect through stories to arouse the kids' interest.
Although young, the kids showed keen interest to learn from their reaction during the class. They listened to the teacher and repeated after her carefully.
The event is expected to change the current situation where the number of natives fluent in the Shanghai dialect is fast declining.
In China, a dialect, generally passed down from generation to generation for centuries, is considered a unique culture of a particular area. Its inheritance forms a significant part of the preservation of traditional Chinese culture.
The unique cultural connotation of a dialect, an aspect that Chinese mandarin cannot compete with, makes it invaluable and worthy of inheriting.
Shanghai's education authorities noticed that the city's dialect was endangered and made efforts to promote the inheritance of Shanghai dialect in 2013 by advocating dialect education in the city's kindergartens.