newspaper + education

So this online newspaper I have seems like it's really coming together. I've come up with an advertisement and scheduled a first meeting for December 13th. I've made an announcement in all of my classes and it seems like a great deal of my students are really interested. The biggest challenge I see now is making sure that the content isn't vapid and trite articles about, 'How great my hometown is'. I'm not too worried about the sophomores and juniors. I'm really worried about the freshmen and non-English majors whose English is considerably worse but arguably exhibit much more confidence than the English majors.

I'm not sure why the freshmen and non-English majors have more confidence when speaking than my sophomore and junior students. The freshmen are the only ones who will come up to me in the hallway and ask me questions, even though they're just the dull milk-toast questions about whether I like China. I'm not even sure what happens that makes students shy about approaching a foreigner in the first place. I know when I had native Spanish speakers at F&M I wasn't necessarily afraid of approaching him or her. I never went up to one and initiated a conversation like some of the students here do, but I think it would just be strange to walk up to a professor and ask her if she likes American food.

In any event, I was never shy about approaching a professor. I think a lot of the apprehension here has to do with the level of the professor verses that of a student. The word for teacher, laoshi, literally means old master and the laoshi in China is certainly considered more knowledgable and therefore above a student. In the US, the tradition is for students to actively question as opposed to passively receive, which would explain the emphasis on participation and volunteering in American classrooms. I believe that is the biggest difference between American and Chinese classrooms. I've seen a couple classes here and for the most part, there is little teacher-student interaction. Most of the information is one way only. It's been difficult to get students to consistently participate, but the progress that I've seen so far, although not the level I'd like it yet, is quite surprising and commendable given the students' educational background up until now.

Perhaps it's unfair to compare the F&M liberal arts education to CWNU though. I think most unviersities in the United States are not like F&M, and are probably just as impersonal in terms of professor-student relationships as I think CWNU is. I don't have much experience with big schools, so I should say that these conclusions are somewhat unsubstantiated considering. Students here though have very little face time with professors, and interaction between students and professor is fairly limited. I do everything I can to make sure I am available to students at all times: I have office hours, give out my e-mail and phone number, hold review sessions, visit English corners etc... but I am the only English teacher that does this. Chinese professors, at least the ones I've met so far, don't hold office hours and never visit English corner. There is a bi-weekly showing of an English movie by Mr. Hao, but the word 'showing' is a misleading term. I thought originally that Mr. Hao would explain the context of the movie and give some background, but it turns out all he does is choose the movie and give it to a student to show. That's certainly a better situation than having no movie at all, but it lacks the personalism that I've experienced throughout my schooling. I've inquired about showing my own movies (which I now have quite a collection of) but students seem content with having Mr. Hao choose the films for them.

In any event, this newspaper shows some promise for bridging the professor-student gap even more, and making sure that students have another English outlet. More to follow...