Where have you gone on vacation this summer? Maine? Boston? Florida?
That’s cool, but Concord High sophomore Andrew Leonard probably logged more miles than you – he just got back from spending seven weeks in Xi’an, China.
This wasn’t just a regular vacation for Leonard. He went thanks to a National Security Language Initiative for Youth Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. You could technically say this trip was a matter of national security, which sounds pretty cool.
The point of the trip was to learn and practice the language (Mandarin) in an immersive environment. Leonard was one of 23 students from across the U.S. to land a scholarship, and he was the lone representative of the Granite State.
Although he had no experience with the language before, this wouldn’t be Leonard’s first trip to China. He went with his family in 2014 for 10 days, which is when his interest really picked up.
“It was way too short,” he said of his first visit. “I wanted to go back.”
Just a few years later, he got his chance. A family friend who knew of his interest in China – and his desire to study a language abroad – heard of the scholarship program and passed the word along.
From there, he did all the research until he knew it was something he wanted to do. He easily met all the criteria – be in high school, be between the ages of 15 and 18 and have a GPA of 2.5 or higher – and earned his trip around the world.
In Xi’an, he lived with a host family that spoke some English, but not a lot. He arrived knowing no Mandarin, so it was kind of a learn-on-the-fly process, he said.
“It was up to me,” he said. “I had to practice a lot.”
Outside of the house, the days were regimented yet freely structured. On weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon, it was language classes. Then there was a two-hour lunch break, in which students were free to wander around and do some exploring. There was also a two-hour culture lesson, where the focus was more on the way the people there live than on how they speak.
“Then from 4 o’clock on, we really could do what we wanted,” he said. He spent a lot of time with his host family, who took him sight-seeing on weekends and made him feel at home. They also took him to museums and historical sites.
In the classroom, it was pretty intense work.
“We moved at a very rapid pace,” Leonard said. “I definitely improved a lot.”
The trip was about learning how to interact and make connections more than anything else, Leonard said. As opposed to more traditional language learning where students sit in a classroom and study vocabulary for an hour and then leave, these students were learning key phrases that are useful in everyday life – and using them in the real world.
And it was all speaking, no writing.
“We didn’t learn characters – we focused on speaking, making connections,” he said.
At the end of the trip, there was an oral proficiency interview. This was sort of a live test to see how well you absorbed what you learned and how well you could apply it.
Leonard and his peers not only nailed their interviews, but got rave reviews from the teaching staff to boot.
“They said we were some of the best speakers they’d heard,” he said with a smirk, trying to play it off cool.
If he goes for a full school year next year – which he’s considering – we may hear from him again, live from the field. Stay tuned.
