Job Discussion Forums

[golsa]

How do you deal with Chinese students and their limited world view? This is the most frustrating part of working with Chinese students.

One of my classes is a weekly culture class, which I've taught successfully in the past. The problems I'm running into are things like students not knowing what Islam is when I attempt to talk about culture and body language. I mentioned Islam because I wanted to use an example from the Arab countries and assumed they would make a connection between Islam and Arabs. Naming the countries didn't help, nor did anything short of showing them a map on my phone.

Other things I'm stumbling on include students not knowing about basic recent world history. A popular recent US president is from my home state, but very few people here know who he is. This makes it very difficult to explain where I'm from to students who can't even name one US state.

The types of students I'm dealing with include school students, university students, and working adults.

What are your suggestions on how to deal with this? Does any have suggestions about what students may and may not know about? I'm really starting to see why the TEFL field is more entertainment than education in China.

[Javelin of Radiance]

Here's what I think, although I'm no expert. Keep it simple and relevant. Students, I'm talking about English majors primarily, are genuinely interested in the culture of western countries. Give them weekly background lessons on education, recreation, holidays, food and drink, customs and traditions, and arts and culture. Try to make it interactive if you can, use multimedia if you have it, or handouts if you don't. Forget about history and geography and other such topics, they won't find that interesting at all, and honestly most students back home aren't crazy about it either.

As for the example you used that failed, I wouldn't bother attempting to teach them about Islam as it isn't very relevant and it sounds boring as hell. There just isn't much interest in the Muslim world. But you could give them a short brief on Christianity (which is widely misunderstood in China) since it's central to Christmas, which is our biggest holiday and if you're a Christian you can probably relate personal experience as well. Explain the origins, the timeline, the splits in the church, and how Christianity is practiced in various places. Some of your students are probably practicing Christians and you might even get a bit of debate going.

Discussing these topics really can be educational as opposed to just entertainment but it depends on how much effort you put into it and how you pull it off.

[golsa]

Do you find that many students are really interested in Christanity? I have some old lesson plans about that talking about different branches of Christanity that I made for an Orthodox country.

Regarding Islam, I brought up Islamic countries because a student asked about culture shock. One of my examples of the causes of culture shock involved showing students examples of a behavior they would find offensive and a behavior that foreign cultures would find offensive. For the foreign behavior, I chose a behavior that is very offensive in Arabic culture. This is why I tried to clarify the situation by bringing up Islam, but it didn't work as intended.

[Javelin of Radiance]

[kungfuman]

I remember my first teaching gig in China. teaching marketing.

Questions that came up from ther textbook:

Teacher, I don't understand what a KMart is. Whats FedEx and UPS? Who is JC Penny? etc etc.

It was pointless using a US textbook.

[ymmv]

[Denim-Maniac]

I doubt the average American could name the current Chinese premier and prime minister. I doubt they could name the previous pairing either. Added to that Id be absolutely amazed if a Chinese student could name the current British prime minister! And I think thats perfectly OK ... I dont think it is fair to blame their asia-centric knowledge as being the reason for a failing 'culture' class.

Its absolutely nothing to do with entertainment Vs education IMHO.

Its hard to comment without knowing the exact content of the lesson and the learning goals and outcomes, but I think the name 'culture class' is a bit of a misnomer really. Students (in my limited experience) just want to learn / improve practice English. The 'culture' is the medium, or backdrop in which they get a platform to do that, the 'culture' isnt the learning goal itself.

For just a very short post I get the impression the issue is they havent learnt and understood Islam...but really that isnt important. What I firmly believe you should be trying to do is get them to use a specific language point or practising a skill when discussing Islam (or another subject).

For example ... I couldnt give a fig if they didnt understand the four pillars of Islam correctly .. but Id like to see them use comparative structures both fluently and accurately to compare Islam to Christianity.

[Non Sequitur]

Many contracts forbid talking about politics and religion.
I've found a good topic is to contrast the Chinese birth year tradition with the Western Zodiac.
Put the names and dates of the Zodiac on the board and have the students put their names under theirs.
The word Zodiac means circle of animals so there is a similarity to Horse Rabbit etc.
Remember your students will likely be identical birth years but evenly spread over Zodiac signs (allowing for New Years Eve!).
Good and bad characteristics and romantic possibilities are of interest to uni age students.
Don't be in any way derogatory to the birth year tradition as it is connected to Buddhism.
Good way to inform Chinese about Western civilisation in that the Greeks were in to this. Not quite the 5000 year Chinese civilisation, but close.
If you can access an online Western newspaper with daily 'Stars' comments, you could come back to it several times in a semester.

[Javelin of Radiance]

In the context of western culture and civilization discussing religion is fine. Preaching to people and trying to convert them is another story.

[roadwalker]

I find it hard to believe that students have no idea about Islam when there is a size able number of Chinese Muslims. Mention Hui people or Xinjiang people if they don't catch on right away. Of course it doesn't have to be too important whether they have a deep understanding of Islam in order to explain a cultural difference.

[Simon in Suzhou]

[Simon in Suzhou]

[NoBillyNO]

above: Word

[xiguagua]

Comparing American knowledge about China is not the same about Chinese knowledge of America. Most Americans regard 'Merica as NUMBER 1!!!!!! Americans simply DON"T CARE about China or other countries. Do. not. care.

Compared that to the Chinese perception of America as a "great country" which is looked up to (for the most part). Fact is, most people in the world know more about America than Americans do. Go ask the average American what THEY know about Arkansas and prepare to be disappointed.

Keep in mind that China is still very much a sheltered country and ESPECIALLY for students, they haven't had much opportunity or need to learn about outside countries and cultures because it's not required on gaokao other than maybe general geography. I think you expect too much from them. Were you a teacher in America? How many students in America are completely clueless about the world? I agree students here are generally clueless, but I think we kind of forget how dumb people are back home.

[LarssonCrew]

This behavior drives me round the bend.

You try and mention anything culturally relevant and it goes down like a lead balloon.

To study a language you have to KNOW some of the culture/history, except they skip that part.

It's ridiculous the huge gaps in knowledge Chinese student's have.

How can you not name one city in India? Or more than Paris and London in Europe? It's shocking.

I've had fans of Barcelona who don't even know Barcelona is a Spanish [Catalonian] city!

The world geography is scary. I think they aren't aware that half of Africa is either white [SA/Zimbabwe, Kenyans] or Arabian, they assume all are black. I think between China and Europe they have a huge black spot.

History too, in my class I asked who Christopher Columbus was, they didn't know. They don't know Aztecs, a lot do not even know the Romans, and most didn't know there were Red Indians in America before the white European's got there.

Most don't know Vikings, and only some know about slavery.

I guess one difference is, I realized from an early age I enjoyed learning on a computer more than a book, even now I can check something out 'Oh that soccer player was born where?' and wikipedia him, then right click open new tab on an underlined link on wikipedia and keep on reading.

Part of the reason is also because they just learn what they need to for the exam, and think having any real world knowledge isn't worth it for them right there.

If you showed me a world map I could probably name more than 100 countries, and can name probably 48 or 49 US states.

Another shocker was my most open minded Chinese friend[who's English is amazing and who has traveled alot] could name fewer countries in Chinese than I could in Chinese.