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[Jizzo T. Clown]

In my uni, my Chinese students have no desire to hear an American perspective on their "motherland." They constantly argue when I bring up anything China-related. Don't get me wrong, a well-thought-out argument is excellent, but a knee-jerk reaction with no justification is not.

For example, when we were talking about the world's biggest countries, China is fourth behind America because we do not include Taiwan and other disputed territories. They said that Taiwan is and will always be part of China, and that I can't understand this because I'm not Chinese.

They also refuse to believe that China has done any wrong regarding Tibet, and when we discussed it, one girl even covered her ears!

I haven't even mentioned Tiananmen because most of them won't have heard of it, and what's the point anyway??

This is America and they need to realize that their ethnocentric views aren't necessarily the truth.

Neither are our views, however. My point isn't to say that America is "right," rather, that students need to be exposed to other versions of "the truth."

*rant over*

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

As a Canadian, I would also have no desire to hear the American perspective on my country. I would actually listen to it, though, and then quietly mock it with other Canadians at a later time (if it were actually different than my own).

A good idea is to not bring up disputed/sensitive information. The Chinese hear through their entire schooling that Taiwan is part of their country, because there is only one master Chinese race. It's like mentioning that the reason Japan had nuclear bombs dropped on it was because they attacked the US first. Most Japanese people don't know that, and it takes away part of the 'we Japanese are victims' philosophy that is taught to them from a young age.

Canadians learn that Canada is the second largest country (behind Russia). Antartica is bigger, but it isn't considered a country in the way that other countries are when Canadians learn about them.

[viovio]

Why would you talk about that in an English class?
I can't imagine myself talking to my Bolivian friends about the sea, much less if they were my students. I'm sorry, but I must disagree with that approach of teaching.

[gaijinalways]

Depends on the type of class and the level. Certainly, some cultures have a lot of taboo subjects, though I would think Chinese students will have to learn if they plan to study and work abroad that not everyone follows the CCP line.

[viovio]

[Chancellor]

[furiousmilksheikali]

[spiral78]

Uh, people (Chancellor), I believe Jizzo's Chinese students are in the US at the time (because his avatar indicates he teaches in a U.S. uni). It's not like trying to import 'the truth' into someone else's country -

it's a matter of the Chinese (I assume probably international students, not immigrants?) students IN the US working hard to preserve the ideas about the country that they were sent there with,

rather than opening their minds to the land they are currently living in and using their experiences to examine those ideas and possibly modifying them, as they find personally appropriate. International students and immigrants to any country have implicitly agreed to expose themselves (at least to some extent) to the thinking of that country, simply by being there.

I sometimes teach immigrants and international students to Canada in a university there (when I'm not abroad on international projects). There is an acceptable forum for some level of cultural/historical/societal discussion. Sure, there are limits. I have found myself (an American) seated between an Afghani and a Vietnamese student and feeling pretty small about my country. And I wouldn't try to import my ideas about history into someone else's country.

Not to say that 'culture' should be force fed. But it's a legitimate component of teaching materials and focuses in that situation. The Canadian government agrees with me....I think the U.S. one does as well, as reflected in the curriculum focuses for state-sponsored universities.

[spiral78]

Sorry I couldn't get it all in one post! I agree with viovio as well - she is IN Chile, and it's not her place to bring up controversial issues belonging to Chile. That would be like me initiating discussions of communism and corruption in Moscow with my Russian students. Not my place or my role!!

[Chancellor]

[rusmeister]

Even if you are an American abroad you will still find views that denigrate your country to be highly annoying.

A good example in Russia is America's role in the 2nd world war. To put it (very) simply, our history books and classes tend to teach us something along the lines that America was pretty much 100% responsible for victory against Japan, and 50/50 with the Brits and Russians for victory against Germany. A base line of measurement of the price of America's role was righteousness - that we were going and fighting a real bad guy and dying, more to help other nations and peoples than our own. The threats against America (particularly from Germany) were of a long term strategic nature (V-2 rockets etc). (Serious historians know that it was much more complex than that, but I'm speaking of the general view brought out by the average Joe based on what is taught, and you can see the philosophy in our movies and stories, the way we celebrate victory (how important ARE V-E day and V-J day today?).

But come to Russia and you get a different (hi)story.
(Again simplifying) The Soviet Union was 98% responsible for victory against Germany. Japan is a minor footnote in their histories, so America's war against it was no big whoop - a few islands and whatnot. Therefore, there was no justification at all for the A-Bombs. The film "Pearl Harbor" brought a recent awareness that there WAS a conflict in the Pacific, but on the whole, the war was against Germany. America waited until less than a year before the war ended to get involved. (D-Day). The measure of the price of the war is suffering (No one can deny that Russia suffered more than any other country from the war). Victory Day (May 9th - V-E day only) is STILL a BIG deal. A majority of families can still say that they lost somebody in the Great Fatherland War (as it is called here, rather than the 2nd World War).

To me it is annoying because I know that vets who fought in Africa, the Pacific, Normandy or wherever would be just as offended to hear of the unimportance of and lack of suffering in their role as the Russians are when they hear our version. I mainly encourage my students to get curious and explore the issue for themselves.

As to the whole 'relevancy' to teaching English, any subject can be relevant. The problem comes when you present a point of view essentially as the Truth and force it down your students' throats. (There are some things that can and should be presented as Truth, but political differences by and large are not. I believe in Truth but try to encourage my students to think about the issues rather than merely sell them that Truth. For example, I'm a Christian, but firmly believe that people need to get there on there own. Nothing I say or do will be directly convincing of much. The only thing I stand against are beliefs that denigrate that Truth. The only thing I can do is offer my students info and thoughts for their consideration.

[spiral78]

Ok, back to Chancellor. When teaching in a Canadian classroom, I often have students from as many as 12 different home countries (usually groups of 18-21 students total). There have very commonly been conflicts throughout these home countries, historically and currently. I've got Taiwanese students working in teams with Chinese ones, for example. Japanese and Korean students don't always mix well. Muslim students don't always feel comfortable working with others. And etc.

Our courses are pre-university, meaning that the students are not yet taking any core subjects. They are all ages, from early 20s to 60s, and most are university grads in their home countries. They are thinking, aware people who want to succeed in their new country.

While our classes focus on English for Academic Purposes, we would be doing our students a disservice if we did not also prepare them for the culture of Canadian classrooms - where it's not considered acceptable to refuse to work with a 'dirty Korean,' for example.

Language is culturally bound to a very large extent. In speaking, things like turn-taking and encouraging the speaker are differently handled in some cultures. Language for dealing with people whose 'status' is different than yours is culturally bound. In writing, we organize things differently in English than in Asia or the Middle East, for example. I present these kinds of items as belonging to 'our' culture, not as being 'the right way' to accomplish a conversation or to write an academic paper.

Most of my students are immigrants, and those who are international students (usually Chinese) almost all hope to qualify to immigrate. Understanding and fitting into a culture is a vital element of succeeding in a new country. And I still think that by traveling to a country and entering its school system, one has implicitly agreed to be confronted with the history/culture/belief systems of that country. Just as rusmeister has a new appreciation (?) for the Russian contribution to WWII.

We don't present lessons focused on our version of historical events, or current events either. But newspapers and magazines and current news are an extensive part of our curriculum, and clearly the day's events can raise such issues. It's not to approach such things as 'we're right' 'someone else is wrong' - it's a matter of saying "Canadians think/do/act in this way."

Quite honestly, I don't know how you can teach anything other than pure beginners without involving the culture of the language, unless you're never moving above sentence level and are focused on grammar alone...even grammatical constructions are culturally bound!

Rusmeister, I'm not sure why you find the Russian view of WWII to be denigrating to the U.S. It seems to me that they are entitled to view the war and its events from their own perspective, as are Americans.

My father is a WWII vet who fought through Western Europe and shook hands with Russian soldiers in the German border lands. When I was a child, and he told some stories of the war, I always picked up on his respect for the Russians.

Maybe the way U.S. teaches history doesn't always tell the story from every perspective. Maybe Russian schools have the same problem, if it is a problem. I think people are entiled to their perspectives....of course, any event is of more import as it touches you personally. It's not a fault of history or historical reporting.

You could relate this to your views about Christianity - it's not real to you unless you've experienced it personally. History may be perceived in the same way.

[rusmeister]

[spiral78]

My own experience in Moscow VE-Day 2006 (or days in the plural - you're right, it's a significant holiday) don't match yours. While my own Russian's very basic, I took the holiday with two Russian friends and a Canadian. It happened that the Canadian's father was also a vet from the European theater, and we asked Russian vets several times if we could take photos with them, explaining that our fathers also fought. We were warmly welcomed every time, and ended up spending quite a lot more time than we'd expected answering questions about our fathers and where they'd fought.
I did this later on on my own as well, in the giant park near my flat.
So I obviously can't speak for any official or pervasive Russian sense of the role of North American troops in the conflict, but I can say that, on a personal level, there was certainly respect.
On the other hand, as I said, my Russian's very basic, so maybe they were being entirely denigrating without my understanding, or after I walked away, but I don't think so.

On the other issue, I don't know that I'd say students should be 'required' to examine their beliefs, but I do think that current events which are very often related to historical ones, and cultural and societal issues would be very difficult to excise from a classroom (ESL classroom, I mean, not EFL, obviously). And I think it would be doing learners a disservice to exclude such issues from materials. However, the focus should be on language development, not whatever we may believe 'the truth' to be. Just like grammatical structures, learners will pick up what they are ready for and have need for. It's impossible for us to determine that.

Perhaps that reflects the fact that my personal philosophy/faith is very much bound up in self-determination. However, the idea as it relates to language learning is supported by extensive research in the field, so I suppose I could believe that my personal philosophy/faith is probably relatively useful as it shapes my approach to teaching and learning language.

[rusmeister]

That experience doesn't surprise me.

The offense will come if you try to suggest that America's (or the Western powers') role in the war comes anywhere near Russia's, particularly in terms of prices paid or suffering.

I'm not saying they will be rude to or disrespect Western veterans, but they certainly believe that THEY won the war, and the only war that really mattered, that made a difference was their war with Germany.

Like I said, the philosophy that actually shapes our teaching is a very interesting, and I believe relevant, topic, but we are evidently not allowed to discuss it here.