I come from a family without East Asian heritage and no Mandarin-speaking background. With the desire to learn Mandarin, I began coming to Rainbow Garden as a high school volunteer back in 2017. Now, in 2023, I will be departing Rainbow Garden to study toward my PhD in Linguistics (language) at Harvard University, with a specialization in East Asian languages like Mandarin. This is all thanks to the teachers, and students, at Rainbow.
When I first started in 2017, I couldn't speak Mandarin at all. Helping teach English and also listening in to the Mandarin classes, I began learning how to speak and even write. I spent the most time with Teacher Debbie and Teacher Amy, who both patiently and kindly would teach me new words and grammar points. Both teachers excel at teaching the language and managing the classroom, and I find that their explanations of words, phrases, and grammar points to be extremely clear and comprehensible to students of all backgrounds. The most helpful part for me was the consistent Mandarin-speaking environment, where I was able to listen to and practice the language.
In 2018 and 2019, after a year of spending a lot of my time at Rainbow Garden, Teacher Debbie and Teacher Amy encouraged me to travel to Taiwan. This was my first time leaving country, and after a year of intense study at Rainbow Garden, I was able to get around just fine by myself in Taiwan. Now, I am proud to say I can watch dramas and conduct research in Mandarin, all thanks to what I learned at Rainbow.
Now going off to Harvard, I look back and say that the most significant part of my time growing up was spending time at Rainbow. I give my thanks to Teacher Amy and Teacher Debbie, as well as all the other teachers, for their support, care, guidance, and most of all, for welcoming me to their lovely school.
Thank you, Rainbow Garden, for giving me a place not only to learn Mandarin, but to grow up and thrive. read more