“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
― Albert Einstein
The classes here in China are held in a completely different manner than they are back in the United States, with the most obvious difference lying in course scheduling. I'm enrolled in Chinese language and MBA courses. The Chinese language courses are split into 4 topics: reading (more of a general study course), listening, speaking, and writing. The general study course is each day from 8:00 - 10:00, followed by listening, speaking or writing from 10:00 to 11:35 with 10 minute breaks at the 50 minute mark of each hour. These courses last for a whole semester, so overall this seems pretty normal to me - on the other hand, the business courses are not so simple.
Currently, the only business course I'm taking is Business Ethics. Business Ethics only meets on Friday nights from 6:30 to 9:30 for 8 weeks. I'm also signed up for International Business Law and Corporate Finance, both of which start in early May and end in late June. This means that right now, I really only have 2 classes and I'm really not very busy. Since my primary reasons for coming here were to experience life in a foreign country and gain exposure to Chinese culture, this really isn't a big deal (actually, it's quite nice), but I think that anyone coming here explicitly to learn would be somewhat disappointed with the overall course quality. There are several reasons for this, and while most of them may be personal opinion, I've spoken with my European classmates and they tend to agree.
The first reason for this is the huge language barrier. It seems that many of the Chinese language teachers don't speak English very well. This shouldn't be a problem in the upper level courses, once you can speak Chinese well enough to carry on a conversation, but for those of us just learning it can be very difficult. Oftentimes I or one of my classmates will ask the teacher how to say a specific word in Chinese and they'll have no idea what we're asking for. I think this problem is exacerbated by how young several of the teachers are. I know for a fact that our speaking teacher is only 25 years old - younger than 3 of the students in the class and the same age as 2 others. I would of course have no complaints if the teacher was great at what she did, but she is one of the teachers we've had the most trouble with. At a full fledged University I would expect a teacher with more experience than someone nearly my age.
That said, my business ethics professor is excellent. She taught in Canada for a time and speaks English very fluently. In addition, she does a great job at engaging students in discussion and seems genuinely interested in the subject. My only complaint is that she won't take charge of the class when it gets out of hand. At the moment, Business ethics is the only course I have with Chinese students, so I don't know whether this is the norm, but it's not uncommon for the entire class to just break into discussions of their own while the professor is lecturing. Whenever this happens, instead of addressing the class and attempting to get everyone's attention, she simply turns on a microphone and begins speaking into that as if nothing is happening. At times, the chatter can get distracting, though I wouldn't say it's too big a deal. More than anything, I just find it interesting that this is acceptable. Similarly, in my Chinese language class, someone can be completely asleep with their head on the desk and the teacher won't say a thing. Even more interesting is that if you walk into class late, you'll more than likely be interrogated about where you've been for the past 5 minutes.
I'd also like to briefly mention another issue of distraction: classrooms can't be heated past a certain date. I'm hoping the weather will warm up soon, but for the past few weeks it's been in the 40's and 50's during the mornings and nights, which can be really uncomfortable in a room with no temperature control!
The last issue I can complain about is the subject matter of the Chinese language courses. Since I've been here, the primary focus of our language courses have been writing. The reason I don't like this is because in order to understand something as simple as a newspaper, you need to know 1500 to 2000 characters. In order to truly read something like a newspaper, you need to know 3000 characters. In my mind, it's simply not feasible for foreigners to attempt to learn to read and write Chinese hanzi (the characters - the language is also written in the Romanized pinyin, used primarily for learning as far as I can tell). This is even more-so the case for those of us only staying a semester. Personally, I would much rather focus my time and energy on learning to speak and learning more vocabulary. I'm sure this preference varies from person to person, but when you've spoken to people who have lived in China for 15+ years who still can't read (and don't find much reason to read) Chinese, it's hard to look at the issue as anything more than a futile effort.
I know that the past few paragraphs have been very negative as far as the language courses though, but I don't want everyone reading this to think they're terrible. I still go to all of my classes and, if nothing else, don't mind attending them at all. First, we actually are learning very quickly. I think the fact that I'm comfortable telling cab drivers where to go, ordering food, and engaging in small talk with some of the street vendors is testament to this. I fully believe that at the end of the month it would be very possible to come close to conversational for those who are engaged in class. Second, the teachers really are very helpful and try their hardest to help. They constantly have us speaking to each other in partners and critique and correct our speaking in a manner that shows they care, and they're very receptive to questions, even though they sometimes have no clue what it is you're asking.
All in all, I may have gotten a better education at Hendrix, but I'm enjoying my classes and I'm learning far more here than I could have by staying at home.
Currently, the only business course I'm taking is Business Ethics. Business Ethics only meets on Friday nights from 6:30 to 9:30 for 8 weeks. I'm also signed up for International Business Law and Corporate Finance, both of which start in early May and end in late June. This means that right now, I really only have 2 classes and I'm really not very busy. Since my primary reasons for coming here were to experience life in a foreign country and gain exposure to Chinese culture, this really isn't a big deal (actually, it's quite nice), but I think that anyone coming here explicitly to learn would be somewhat disappointed with the overall course quality. There are several reasons for this, and while most of them may be personal opinion, I've spoken with my European classmates and they tend to agree.
The first reason for this is the huge language barrier. It seems that many of the Chinese language teachers don't speak English very well. This shouldn't be a problem in the upper level courses, once you can speak Chinese well enough to carry on a conversation, but for those of us just learning it can be very difficult. Oftentimes I or one of my classmates will ask the teacher how to say a specific word in Chinese and they'll have no idea what we're asking for. I think this problem is exacerbated by how young several of the teachers are. I know for a fact that our speaking teacher is only 25 years old - younger than 3 of the students in the class and the same age as 2 others. I would of course have no complaints if the teacher was great at what she did, but she is one of the teachers we've had the most trouble with. At a full fledged University I would expect a teacher with more experience than someone nearly my age.
That said, my business ethics professor is excellent. She taught in Canada for a time and speaks English very fluently. In addition, she does a great job at engaging students in discussion and seems genuinely interested in the subject. My only complaint is that she won't take charge of the class when it gets out of hand. At the moment, Business ethics is the only course I have with Chinese students, so I don't know whether this is the norm, but it's not uncommon for the entire class to just break into discussions of their own while the professor is lecturing. Whenever this happens, instead of addressing the class and attempting to get everyone's attention, she simply turns on a microphone and begins speaking into that as if nothing is happening. At times, the chatter can get distracting, though I wouldn't say it's too big a deal. More than anything, I just find it interesting that this is acceptable. Similarly, in my Chinese language class, someone can be completely asleep with their head on the desk and the teacher won't say a thing. Even more interesting is that if you walk into class late, you'll more than likely be interrogated about where you've been for the past 5 minutes.
I'd also like to briefly mention another issue of distraction: classrooms can't be heated past a certain date. I'm hoping the weather will warm up soon, but for the past few weeks it's been in the 40's and 50's during the mornings and nights, which can be really uncomfortable in a room with no temperature control!
The last issue I can complain about is the subject matter of the Chinese language courses. Since I've been here, the primary focus of our language courses have been writing. The reason I don't like this is because in order to understand something as simple as a newspaper, you need to know 1500 to 2000 characters. In order to truly read something like a newspaper, you need to know 3000 characters. In my mind, it's simply not feasible for foreigners to attempt to learn to read and write Chinese hanzi (the characters - the language is also written in the Romanized pinyin, used primarily for learning as far as I can tell). This is even more-so the case for those of us only staying a semester. Personally, I would much rather focus my time and energy on learning to speak and learning more vocabulary. I'm sure this preference varies from person to person, but when you've spoken to people who have lived in China for 15+ years who still can't read (and don't find much reason to read) Chinese, it's hard to look at the issue as anything more than a futile effort.
I know that the past few paragraphs have been very negative as far as the language courses though, but I don't want everyone reading this to think they're terrible. I still go to all of my classes and, if nothing else, don't mind attending them at all. First, we actually are learning very quickly. I think the fact that I'm comfortable telling cab drivers where to go, ordering food, and engaging in small talk with some of the street vendors is testament to this. I fully believe that at the end of the month it would be very possible to come close to conversational for those who are engaged in class. Second, the teachers really are very helpful and try their hardest to help. They constantly have us speaking to each other in partners and critique and correct our speaking in a manner that shows they care, and they're very receptive to questions, even though they sometimes have no clue what it is you're asking.
All in all, I may have gotten a better education at Hendrix, but I'm enjoying my classes and I'm learning far more here than I could have by staying at home.
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