Hou Sai Lei (You are awesome) | First Cantonese Workshop

‘Lei Hou Ya, hou gao heng yin sik nei! Ngo giu Sunny, nei lei?’ Mrs. Sunny broke the ice by briefly introducing herself to the students, in Cantonese. Most students are novices in terms of speaking Cantonese, thus, they were a bit perplexed at the very beginning of the course.

The professor of this workshop was Pro.Guo Xin, Sunny, a lecturer of Academic English from HSS.

Academic Background : Bachelor in Literature, University of Guangzhou; Master in Science, University of Edinburgh, UK; Doctor of Philosophy, CUHK.

Study Domain: Children Literacy; Reading; Information Technology Education; Teaching Training; Student Mobility.

Without further ado, Sunny started teaching from the daily conversation. The first step was, of course, greeting and self-introduction. By repetitively speaking to the teaching assistants on-site, Sunny fostered the impression of Cantonese pronunciation subconsciously to the learners. In order to let the student get to know the dialogue quicker, the teaching assistants noted to teach students with simple models.

Thanks to Sunny, many of the students adopted their names in Cantonese. What’s more, after relentless effort on practicing, some students were invited to present what they had learnt during the workshop in front of the others. Meanwhile, the audiences were keenly guessing their names in Mandarin according to their Cantonese pronunciation, which somehow improved their comprehension.

Level up! In terms of ‘hometown’, students got confused on the bewildering array of names which sounds quite different in Mandarin but really identical in Cantonese such as Chung King and Chang Sha, He Bei and Hu Bei.

To use Cantonese in campus, it is better to be aware of the exact pronunciation of the colleges in CUHK(SZ) besides your name and hometown. Apart from that, Sunny invited Dr. Matthew Book from HSS to guide students, and it vivified the workshop. 

What a fulfilling night! One hour sneaked quietly without being noticed. Most students were eagerly looking forward to the next workshop. However, Sunny had left a take-home exercise for all—— Rehearsing a Cantonese song within the group and she would invite some of the groups to sing in class by lucky draw. Many groups had already decided their song instantaneously. Let us look forward to their exceptional performances!