About this time last year, my husband and I were asked to teach summ= er school during May and June 2006 at Changsha University in Changsha, capita= l of the Hunan Province in The People’s Republic of China

Profiles: Teaching English Composition in China

“Where you are dropped is who= you are”

--- Shirley

Donna Slone

donna.slone@kysu.edu=

Kentucky State University

In the sum= mer of 2006, I taught a four-week course in English Composition at Changsha University<= /st1:PlaceType> in Changsha, the capital of the Hunan Province in The People’s Republic of China. Changsha is a city the size of Chicago<= /st1:City>. In the months before I went t= o China, I received little guidance in what I could expect of the Chinese students. I wondered how good their verbal and written English skills were, on what lev= el they could read English, and what they would expect of an American teacher.= I did not want to insult their intelligence by making the course too easy. Neither did I want to overwhelm them with overly difficult assignments in a second language.

I learned soon= after arriving that I could have been a little more ambitious in my expectations.= When my husband and I arrived in Ch= angsha around midnight on May 11, after almost thirty-six hours of travel, we were greeted by university staff and students who work in the Department of Fore= ign Languages. In the van traveling from the airport to the university campus, = one of the students, Da Wei, who goes by the English name David, asked, “Would you like to hear me recite the Declaration of Independence?= 221; Without waiting for our reply, he recited the entire piece without missing a word. He then asked who of us= would be teaching the English Composition course and then said to me: “I wa= nt you to teach me to write miraculous paragraphs in English.”

We were su= rprised. First, we never expected a student in Communist China to know the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Second, in the sixteen years I have taught col= lege English and journalism, I have never had a student so eager to improve his = or her writing. As it turned out, all of my Chinese students were just as eage= r as Da Wei to improve their English skills. Over 1,000 students had applied to = take three courses to be taught by Americans: English Composition, American Literature, and Introduction to Business. From those, only 120 were selecte= d, forty for each class.

As a result, s= tudents always came to class prepared, they never complained that any assignment was too difficult, and they were eager to participate in the interactive classr= oom style, which was a new concept to them as the traditional Chinese classroom style is based on straight lecture and rote memorization. Most of the composition students were majoring in English as a means to either gaining employment in the burgeoning tourist industry or getting accepted to a grad= uate school in the United States or Canada. Each student, and most other people we met, had chosen an English name, many times because they liked the sound of the word, regardless of its English meaning. For example, a waitress with whom we became friends through a translator had chosen the name Margarine. It was the only English word she knew.

While I went t= o China to improve the students’ English skills, I also wanted to facilitate an exchange of ideas and culture. The writing assignments were designed to help students “mine” their own lives to learn more about themselves = and their own culture by sharing their experiences with me and each other. As my part of the exchange and because I could not provide texts for each student= , I introduced each writing activity by showing the students photographs via Po= wer Point and telling them stories of my own experiences and those of others growing up in the United States. For example, to begin a unit on narration = of a childhood experience, I showed photographs of my own childhood experiences = and those of others.

I expected= to find more similarities than differences in the two cultures. I believed that peo= ple are people anywhere you go, that they have the same fears, concerns and hop= es. My experiences with the Changs= ha students confirmed that premise. As one of my students said, after comparing some of my childhood photos and experiences to her own, “Teacher, we could have been the same person.”

The class = met four hours a day, four days a week. Within the four-week course, each student wr= ote six essays, which even my American students would find daunting. The assignments required the students to use a variety of rhetorical modes, inc= luding description in an essay about a favorite place, narration about a memorable childhood experience, definition to define themselves from three different points of view, classification to categorize their friends, and others. One= of the strengths I recognized immediately in the students’ writing was t= heir proficiency in comparative analysis, which I often find lacking in my Ameri= can students’ work.

I asked the st= udents to think and write in English, not to write in their own language and then translate their ideas. This was a challenge for them since it was the first time for many to write an entire essay in English. As Da Wei had indicated = upon my arrival, most of their English assignments had required only a paragraph. They also were asked to read aloud in front of the class at least one of th= eir six essays, which I recorded while also photographing the speaker. An Engli= sh professor at Changsha University who obse= rved my class could hardly believe the students would “be so brave,” as she put it. She said it never = had occurred to her to ask students to share their writing with other students.= However, my students actually begged for the opportunity, and most read more than one essay to the class. The workshop environment encouraged students to ask the= ir peers and me for help, particularly in selecting stronger verbs or synonyms= for adjectives and nouns, which, of course, increased the students’ Engli= sh vocabulary. In the six weeks we were in China, teaching and then tour= ing in three additional provinces, one thing we noticed was the focus on beautiful details – in the architecture, the art, and even the landscape. The influence of those details is evident in the students’ colorful dicti= on.

On the fir= st day, I introduced myself through photographs of my farm and my family, to which students had strong reactions. As most people know, in an effort to reduce the population of the country, the= Chinese Communist government since 1973 has restricted most families, those of Han ancestry, to having only one child. An exception to this rule is that famil= ies of the 54 minorities in China may have two children. The impact this law has had on Chinese families is evident in the students’ reactions to the photos of my parents, three siblings, seven grandchildren and 200 cousins in the prayer circle at our annual Slone family reunion.

A student who goes by Nona = said, “It’s so incredible that you have such a large family with about 200 people. Your family gathering is such an impressive one. I like new bab= ies who can give us a sense of new life, the youth who make me feel energetic a= nd lively, the mid-age who let me be eager to be as successful as they are, at least a kind Mama. The old are very kind and elegant, who can make me feel home.”

The Slone = circle inspired one young man who goes by Paple to write: “As far as family = is concerned, especially a big family, the most important thing for every memb= er should be freedom, equality, which does not always exist in some cultures. = Some families emphasize the hierarchies so that not every member can stand in an equal line.”

A common perception in the United States is that extended families of multiple generations live together in China. = However, we found that is no longer as true as it once was. With increased opportuni= ties for higher education and careers enticing more people from the villages into the cities, Chinese families often live great distances from each other, ju= st as we do in the U.S. In fact, we learned of many couples who live apart mos= t of their married lives, either because of careers they have chosen or because = they have been selected by the government and feel it is their duty to hold positions that require the distance. As we do in the States, when people ha= ve free time, they try to find their ways home.

Student Mi= randa said the Slone family reunion photos reminded her of the Chinese Spring Festival when Chinese families travel great distances to go home and share a feast of at least 14 dishes. In fact, 2006 news reports said trains through= out China w= ere so crowded that people were wearing adult diapers for the long distances. This year, the government tried to persuade people not to travel for Spring Fest= ival because the transportation infrastructure simply cannot accommodate the lar= ge numbers. Zhang Yike, a Changsh= a student who goes by the name Equal, wrote in an email recently of the 2007 Spring Festival: “My aunts, uncles and cousins couldn’t come back home. I felt a little lonely. I remembered when I was in childhood, my cousins and I played games, such as fireworks, hide-and-seek. Besides, according to the traditio= ns, elders gave money to children as a lunar New Year gift in old days, so did = they this year. In Spring Festival every person traveling or residing in a place= far away from home will miss their family. I have never been away from my home = to have that feeling. Two days ago on Spring Festival Eve my cousin brother in= Canada = phoned me and sent best wishes to our family. It has been five years for him not to spend New Year with us. I knew how he missed family so much.”<= /strong>

Although exten= ded family may not live together in China, the grandparents’ role is still revered. Grandparents traditionally h= ave been expected to help rear the children while both parents work, though thi= s is changing as grandparents remain in the workplace longer and children someti= mes now go to daycare. More than half of the forty students in my class mentioned t= heir grandparents in at least one of their six essays:

Blue recal= led with vivid details an experience as a four-year-old left in the care of her grandfather: “My grandpa raised dozens of ducks which appeared to be timid and not formidable. . . My grandpa was busy steaming peas, so I took = off my shoes, rolled up my trousers, wore an old ‘shabby’ (synonym = the students gave her to replace ‘worn out’) hat and ‘snatche= d up’ (replaced ‘picked up’) two sticks hurriedly, then ran into the ducks. . . I saw it opening its mouth as if it was out of breath, flagging = its wings, bitterly screaming as if asking for help. Other ducks were glaring a= t me, twisting their plump bodies, forwarding and backwarding their necks.”=

Nona wrote= that her grandparents’ one-story, mud-brick home in the country is “shaped just like a big loaf that makes my mouth water.” She sa= id, “Everything there is country-flavored.” = &nb= sp; = &nb= sp; = &nb= sp; = &nb= sp; = &nb= sp; =

Another theme = that ran through many of the students’ essays was that of rural versus urban l= ife. Several students wrote of how they miss farming with their parents and gran= dparents who remain in the country. Some acknowledged that they had longed to leave their small, provincial villages, but now that they are in the large city, = they long to go “home.”

In a self-= definition essay later in the course, Nona wrote that writing about her grandparents’ mud-brick home helped her realize that she likes simplicity. “Now I know I am a girl who is attracted toward a peaceful life, breathing fresh air, green grass, low hills. . . I just want to get away from the h= ustle and bustle of city life.”

Shirley, from whom the subt= itle of this paper came, wrote that she finally realized that her hometown is her favorite place: “I always dreamed of leaving my small, slow-developing hometown and was eager to live in the big modern city. But now, after leavi= ng that place, I find I was totally wrong. My lovely hometown is, in fact, my favorite place.”

Most people in= the city, and actually most in the countryside, live in multiple-story apartment complexes. The lack of personal outdoor space is evident: laundry – drying on hooks or lines – covers apartment buildings, and families s= et up tables and chairs on wide public sidewalks to play cards and board games= or to have meals. Unlike so many Americans who own acres of land they never en= joy, the Chinese appreciate the outdoors, even though it is public; they enjoy o= ne another’s company. The c= ity of Changsha has many public parks with wide-open green spaces and public fishing lakes, whi= ch throngs of people enjoy together, particularly on weekends.

Claire, a = high school student from Changsha, who took the class to prepare for the SAT, said, “My favorite place is the roof of my house. The roof is on the eighth floor, high above the haze = and noise below. The biggest park in Changsha is before me, and I can see people boating, chanting and playing. Up here, I can hear only the birds singing and the wind blowing the trees. At night, t= he stars in the clear, dark sky are above me.”

As I consi= dered the opportunity to teach in China, I thought if I were ever going to do it, I wanted to do it now before China is any further westernized, as the presenc= e of McDonald’s, KFC, and Pizza Hut and a three-story Wal-Mart on Walking Street in Changsha demonstrate. With the Communist government opening its d= oors to the world and to a capitalist economy, the opportunities for new dreams = and expectations increase exponentially. In the students’ final two writi= ng assignments, they had to reflect on their earlier essays to define themselv= es and then to determine their futures. Joy stated my goals for the assignm= ent well: “By the time I wrote three essays, I realized the process of writing is the process of discovering myself.”

In her self-definition essay, Alexandra wrote in third person of her realization t= hat she is many different people: “ Alexandra is a good student in her teacher’s eyes. She is a courteous girl. . . Alexandra= ’s friends see her as a fortitude girl, who can stand every circumstance by herself. When her foot was scalded with hot water, Alexandra dropped not a tear.”

Phillip wr= ote that the writing assignments improved his concept of self: “The generous professor from the other side of the earth forced me to write long articles= I had never tried before. . . T= hanks to her, I have learned how to narrate, persuade and describe well in my pap= ers and to organize my writing. I learned to dig materials from my deep heart a= nd utilize them. When I finished my writing, I even did not believe my eyes. . . So why didn’t I try b= efore? Because I was lacking courage and confidence. However, Donna’s coming changed my concept. It was she that encouraged me, it was she that gave me confidence, and it was she that helped me find me beyond me.”

The future is = brighter for most of my students than it was perhaps for earlier generations in China. Lynn wr= ote, “I dreamed hundreds of times that I would be a woman soldier, in green from head to foot, helmet on my head. How jubilant I would be! . . .I dreamed, too, that I would be a nurse who saves people, an angel in white. . . I dreamed I would be an actor, a dancer, an artist, a singer and so on. . .= I now realize that I want to be a teacher. I am curious about all things. I am a person content with little. I like to live a steady, peaceful life. All this can be satisfied if I am a teacher.”

Like many = of the students we met, high school student Claire wrote that she hoped to attend = an American university for graduate school, if not undergraduate. She spends u= p to sixteen hours a day either in school or studying for exam scores that will = set her apart from others with the same dream. She emails me often to ask what literature I suggest she read. In January 2007, Claire emailed to tell me s= he has been accepted to several premiere universities in the U.S. an= d will be arriving in August. She will study journalism. Her father, the university’s vice president for foreign languages, believes China w= ill have freedom of the press in the near future. He wants his daughter to be prepar= ed for the challenge.

Nona also = is clear about her dream: “Going to Africa = as part of the International Rescue Team is my goal,” she said. “I= ’ll be quite happy to be there, to teach the children about other cultures and civilizations, to bear the bitterness with them, to help them all that I ca= n, to bring them happiness.”

I hope I broug= ht these same things to the students of Changsha. I hope I opened doors to their understanding of themselves, doors to their futures, as well as windows to their pasts.

On the las= t day of class, I shared with the students some of the thousands of photographs I had made during our four weeks in <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">Changsha. Some sai= d the photos made them see their five-thousand-year-old history and culture with renewed appreciation. I hope they hold onto that appreciation.

While I de= cided out of necessity to use photographs and first-hand stories as prompts for writing assignments because to ship texts was cost prohibitive, I was extre= mely pleased with the results. From what the students and the administrators at = Changsha University told me, Chinese studen= ts have a very formal relationship with their professors, rarely speaking to t= hem outside the classroom. Sharing my personal experiences made me more approachable for the students, who often stopped me on campus to chat about their assignments or other matters or to invite me to an event in which they were participating. At their invitation, I attended basketball games, fashi= on shows and traditional cultural performances, all of which broadened my orig= inal theory: We are not so different from our counterparts in Communist China. We all have the same basic interests, concerns and dreams.

=

Finally, I= will leave you with my three strongest impressions of the Chinese: They are the hardest-working, the happiest and the friendliest people I have ever met. I hope to return to Ch= ina. I suggest you go there, too.