What I am learning about these Shanghai Normal University (SNU) Chinese students is evolving each day. They seem shy but that may be an accepted classroom behavior particularly when they are in a large group. The youngest do seem limited in English language skills yet many catch on to my ironies, a sign of comprehension. They certainly have perked up from the first week, when they were obviously both jet lagged and culture shocked.
From talking to some of you, what 's emerging is their reluctance or inability to think critically. Or at least to reveal that to the large group or to us, their American profs. This leads me to an anthropologic and political reading of their educational experience--it seems a very different learning process for them in China. We will misunderstand them if we think of them as fresh new kids from a far off rapidly changing capitalist land--their society has been under communist control for three generations, and I've learned from someone who was recently at SNU that there is a communist overseer in each department. Authoritarian practices die hard. Perhaps our efforts at getting them to think critically (about literature or anything else) is what we are really being asked to do. (Our own students of course are often not much more critically reflective.) Remember their university mentors facilitated this unique process--to bring Chinese English majors to the US and CSUN, not in business nor engineering, but in language and literature. In itself this seems remarkable to me.
And yes, it's mainly language and lingusitcs study with little literature at the SNU English program, but we've been requested by their dean to focus on literature and I'm to offer literature courses to them when I'm there Sept 13-Oct 31. And last year when I had planned to go, it was stressed by another SNU prof who was here at CSUN that I teach critical reasoning skills. So, at least the dean and profs who came to CSUN seemed to have a clear idea of what their students need.
I've gotten fascinating emails from some of you and had revealing conversations as well. I've set up this blog to have a dialogue about your workshop experience and your reflections on what you saw and learned. We are invited to attend a farewell lunch on Tuesday Aug 7, then their performance for us of a scene (?) from a Shakespeare play in Room 107 of Nordhoff Hall that same day at 2 and a reception following in that same room. I hope you'll make an effort to attend, and maybe we can share ideas at that time, but we really need a session to talk together about our workshop experience. Since that seems tough to set up at this point, let's try to have a blog conversation to see what we discovered.
Bob
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4 comments:
I spent a week at Shanghai Normal University this June. I taught two creative writing workshops using image texts to inspire and motivate the students into another kind of writing...and what I showed them was quite a new concept for them.
Teaching 30 graduate students and ...what I found among the students (all English majors) was a strong desire and motivation to learn American English, culture, jargon, idioms and to embrace new kinds of literature.
These students very much wanted also to understand and embrace critical theory. One of the grad students asked me to help her with researching Donald Barthleme...she was mispronouncing his name and was happy that I taught her the correct pronunciation, but the important thing was is that she knew of him and wanted to use him as one of her sources in her thesis.
I later sent her some articles I had found that she could not. The university library at SNU is NOT hooked up to the worldwide web ( I think all of you can understand why considering the intense level of censorship that exists in China)...their internet access is limited...but many of the students find places on campus where there is wireless and then go crazy surfing the web.
I do believe, as Bob says, that these students would soak up any lit crit that Bob and the rest of us can teach them. They still are sheltered from much of the global discourse that lit crit engenders within classroom discussion...so this a way to open that door for them. And I am encouraged that Bob can continue this process in the fall at SNU that you have all begun here at CSUN.
SNU students are very shy about speaking out in class. They are not taught to challenge a professor openly in the classroom either through query or anything else. It is simply not their protocol. What I witnessed and heard from my interaction with grad students (I did not necessarily interact with undergrad mind you) was you do not interrupt nor openly speak out during class time. It would be considered rude and impolite.
So understanding that about these students...they need encouragement from us to be individual thinkers and feel free to engage in discourse through our prompting of such behaviors. Overall these students are under intense pressure there at SNU, and those who come here even more so...their success reflects not just on them and their culture, but their families and the very towns and provinces they come from...some are extemely poor and are priviliged to be at SNU or any university. So their actions reflect their entire community...if they fail they fail their entire community, village, town, etc., and lose face. These are very serious consequences. So there is a lot more to consider here than just teaching literature as a new means of independent thought.
From Stephanie (posted by Bob ):
I found that while they were quiet, they were absolutely present. If I asked a question or for volunteers, I got nothing, but when i put them in 3 groups of 3 to read the short play, they quickly formed their own groups and read the play aloud. When I asked for volunteers to read it in front of the class, no one volunteered, but when I called up 3 people, they readily got up and did a great job. In discussing the play and the earlier discussion/lecture on Dramatic literature, about 2 or 3 continually answered and they exhibited critical skills. Most of all, it was exceedingly clear that they were well-read, especially on English novels, but Shakespeare and Faulkner as well.
They are rehearsing I think 2 scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream, one where Oberon summons Puck to go into the forest and place the potion in the eyes of the lovers, and the other with Hermia and Helena afterwards. This should be interesting, esp. as the guy who read the father in Wendy Waserstein's play is playing Oberon. he's very funny, quirky and brave.
Actually, I'd like to add that these young Chinese are all only children [the one child China policy] unless they were twins and that produces a different dynamic. Many of their parents were not only children. They are extremely motivated and are referred to by their parents, esp sons, as the Emperor. Also, only children don't make such good Communists. So let's see.
Scott Andrews writes:
I anticipated them to be quiet and reluctant to share, since, from what I know, China has a passive-learning classroom environment. I started off by telling them that they were in America at the moment, and in the United States we run our classrooms differently. I expected them to volunteer answers and to interact with me. It was mildly effective. I think four of them spoke up on a regular basis.
I think in hindsight, I would have simply called upon individuals to respond to my questions, as Stephanie found it to be effective.
I found them rather un-read in American literature -- I started by quizzing them about what they had read. They explained that they had not studied American literature much. This would come next semester, they said. They did know several British authors and texts, though. They did not seem eager in the classroom to learn more about American literature, which is different from loverman's experience with graduate students. But, again, this could have been their classroom demeanor and not their true feelings.
Such exercises are good for instructors because it makes one examine and explain all of one's assumptions. We read a poem, "Dear John Wayne" by Louise Erdrich, in class, and I wound up explaining what a drive-in movie was, that Americans put butter on their popcorn, what cowboys are, what Indians are, who John Wayne was, etc.
We discussed archetypes in literature, especially archetypes that reflect a national identity or character. They seemed reluctant at first to draw connections between the character discussed and their sense of national identity. I asked to identify some famous Chinese characters for me, and the only one they gave me was The Monkey King. So we worked with that. Once we described his personality, I asked if the same adjectives could be used to describe themselves or how they would like to be -- dutiful, powerful, clever, loyal, persistent, etc. At first, they said no, but then they agreed. I think mostly this was the result of them not being familiar with thinking about stories in this way. So, another difference between these students and the grad students loverman encountered is the level of sophistication in terms of thinking critically about literature and culture.
Well my 2 cents...My presentation was with Bob Gustafson in the CTVA dept...we were invited to present at the first annual International TV Symposium ever held at the University. My portion focused on the present state of US television (a broad subject) more specifically television ratings (system) and demographic trends in the US.
A second part was devoted to preparation of NBC in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Bob focused more on the academia of the medium.
After our initial meeting with the dean of the Media College, we wanted to insure we had prepped the right material and visual displays, we were assigned two grad student translators. Prior to our arrival we mailed our presentations to the dean and one of the young ladies spent hours translating my power point presentations into Mandarin (a huge task because a lot of the terms are technical in nature). Bob and I were both very impressed by her taking the initiative.
While we were in the lecture hall rehearsing our presentations a group of undergrad students began transforming the hall into a theatrical stage complete with rear projection equipment, while the audio visual students insured that our computers and visuals were compatible with their systems. All this with little or no direction from any of the faculty. They all knew what to do and how to do it and they were all business. We were quite impressed and this set the tone for the lectures and presenters and panels over the next few days.
I tried to be very careful not to use slang or idioms normally used in my business. However at one point when I was showing a slide about how many choices we, in the US, have for television channels I asked the audience how many channels do they have in "this market" meaning in Shanghai. The question created quite a stir then one of the professors responded that the government controls all the TV channels, I said yes I was well aware of that and posed the question again..again creating buzz, but no response..so I moved on...Later that evening over dinner Bob had a thought I might have used the wrong word.."Market." I didn't realize the translation came out something like "How many TV stations do you have in your Super market" and of course it was a stupid question...So I tried again the next day and this time got it right I asked how many TV stations in this city...whew...
After each lecture we hosted Q/A's with both faculty and undergrad students. I can safely say that we were asked the most thoughtful and intelligent questions. The level of energy and engagement was high. They seem to hunger for information about the US and our culture.
The only low point was when my translator was having difficulty with the Olympic presentation and the chair to the TV department took over for her (she was a Human Culture major not a TV major) For this she felt that she had "lost face." Both Linda and I tried all we could to boost her moral. She was so depressed that she felt she let me down and had to excuse herself from staying with us at dinner. I told her not to worry about it that she did the best she could and probably I was talking too fast...none of that worked. So I made a suggestion that maybe she could be a translator for our news dept during the Olympics (and let it go at that).
After we got back to the US, she wrote us an e-mail saying she had gone to Beijing (on her own)to become familiar with the city so she could not only translate during the Olympics, but be a guide as well.
Hopefully it works out, she deserves it.
My major impression is one of how engaged these students ALL are and what a pleasure it was to work with them.
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