Well, a lot has happened since my last blog, but here are a few of the most eventful moments. We arrived in Beijing Saturday evening. From the airport we headed straight to Tsinghua.
Tsinghua is an impressive university. Some facts I think are interesting: All of its 31,000 students live on campus. The average student pays 6,000 yuan to live on campus for a year (including utilities), which is about $800 U.S. Below is a picture of the dormitory I am living in.
On Sunday we visited the Great Wall. What a beautiful day it was. If the picture looks foggy don't worry, it is only the smog.
On Monday, we started our lectures. I think these lectures are important for a couple of reasons: 1) They help us prepare a lesson plan. 2) They defined, in more detail, the goals for the trip.
When I was originally preparing for the trip my target audience was the students. Now, after attending some lectures I have shifted my focus from the students to the teachers. Many teachers in rural provinces are not certified to teach English to students. However, due to a government mandate, schools must teach students English. The best universities only accept Chinese students who are fluent in English.
The picture below was taken in one of our classrooms. Roger, our professor for this particular lecture, brought to our attention the Chinese pedagogy, "Tian Ya Shi." Which, put lightly, means "force feeding the duck." What he meant by that is that most, if not all, Chinese schools believe the best way for a student to learn is he/she must be given lots of homework and must take lots of notes. The student must not ask questions in class for that is to be considered disruptive. Now, there is nothing exactly wrong with this kind of pedagogy for we must remember that China is not like the United States. Key point, there are 300 million US citizens versus 1.4 billion Chinese citizens. However, there are 16 million people entering college in the US every year versus 4 million people entering college in China every year. What does that mean? China is very, very competitive. There are not enough Universities for all of its citizens, nor is there enough high skill jobs. And unlike the US, where students enter college based on the SAT, GPA, and extra curricular activities, Chinese students enter college based on one exam, the National College Entrance Exam.
So here are some of the challenges: To make a fun, engaging classroom environment for the students. To stay on track with the teachers goals. To not take away any respect the teacher might have over his/her students. To help the teacher feel more comfortable speaking, writing, reading, and understanding English.
This statue is located in the Tsinghua Science Park. Home of Microsoft, Google, and a Starbucks (with free Internet). The statue is the artist's depiction of ion relativity collision theory.
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