Even though we are home from China and getting settled into our former way of life, I've been thinking about our China experience, and found that there are some things that I would still like to write about in regard to our China experience. At the risk of coming up with more somewhat boring travelogue episodes, I will continue to write about my observations of our time in China.
This blog is about Teachers in China. I had the opportunity to get acquainted with several Chinese teachers at Shandong Normal University. One of them was Professor Zhang Shansheng, an English teacher. I spent a lot of time on a bus traveling the 20 some km to the new campus. During that time, I started a conversation with Mr Zhang (In China the first name is the family name). We talked about differences in our teaching methods, classroom management, etc. He was quite interested in how we teach in American universities, and more specifically, how I teach in my classes. So he asked me if he could attend one or two of my classes and make some observations. I told him that that would be fine, so a few days later, he came to my Government Officials class. In my classes, I invite my students to participate by giving presentations, role plays, debates and interviews, etc. I observed Chinese teachers in their classrooms on several occasions, and found that they spend about 99% of their time lecturing with almost no student interaction. I also observed the students with bored looks on their faces, and probably just trying to memorize the contents of the lectures. 
He seemed to like how I taught, and also came to one of my junior writing classes. 
We became friends and had some good discussions about the differences in the Chinese and American universities. I was walking through the campus one day and saw Mr Zhang along with some other Chinese teachers, so we took a few photos. The girl in the red shirt is Adella, who was also an English teacher, who I also knew quite well. I was acquainted with the two other teachers in the photo, but don't remember their names. In summary, I thought it was interesting how our cultures are so different in Chinese and American education systems, yet the objectives are the same.
Did Mr. Zhang change his teaching style?
Posted by: Dean | July 31, 2007 at 08:58 PM