Internship at Little Panda Education

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Débora Cristina Freitas da
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/24654
• topic: International internship; Little Panda Education; Chinese culture; Mandarin; Activity book; Estágio internacional; Cultura chinesa; Livro de atividades; Mandarim; Economia

The present internship report was written within the scope of the curricular internship carried out for the conclusion of the master’s degree in Intercultural Studies for Business, at the Porto Accounting and Business School, which belongs to the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. Little Panda Education, a Mandarin private school in Luxembourg City, served as the internship site. Little Panda Education has developed its own interdisciplinary Mandarin curriculum taught by Sisi Yin, the institution's founder teacher; Dr. Gudrun Ziegler, the program's pedagogical advisor; and Professor Chaochao, a Mandarin teacher. The school prioritizes small classes, fostering language immersion to build a strong foundation in Mandarin and Chinese culture. The decision of applying in an international internship was influenced by my prior experience in learning Mandarin during my academic studies. Having studied Mandarin as part of my bachelor's degree, my exposure to this language inspired me to pursue a master’s degree in Intercultural Studies for Business. My responsibilities as a teacher assistant at Little Panda Education included a variety of tasks, such as designing class materials, managing social media accounts, handling files on Synology Drive, and—most significantly—creating a complex activity book for academic use and online publishing. Furthermore, considering that Luxembourg has others Mandarin schools, the reasons why parents choose "Little Panda Education" over other possibilities are analysed as well.