Crossing cultures: Teaching Confucian heritage students

1. Crossing cultures: Teaching Confucian heritage students Dr Phiona Stanley Learning and Teaching Unit UniSA

2. Workshop Outline • Cultures of learning • Socratic and Confucian learning cultures • Western teachers and CHC learners • Dealing with learning cultures in contact • Our way? Their way? A third way? • Implications

3. Cultures of learning

4. What do you know about Confucius and Socrates? Why are they relevant to UniSA in 2010?

5. Confucian-heritage cultures (CHCs) • (PR) China • Hong Kong (SAR) • Taiwan • Vietnam • Korea • Japan • Malaysia • Singapore • Most international students at UniSA are from CHCs • Of course, not all learners are homogenous; • And things are changing, esp. in mainland China!

6. Socratic culture of learning 'The unexamined life is not worth living. ... Wisdom begins in wonder.' (Socrates, 470-399 BC) • dialogic (dialectic) method of inquiry • teachers questions → construction of knowledge • hypothesis testing and elimination • forces students to examine own beliefs • students taught to question “knowledge” • Western rationalism / logic

7. Confucian culture of learning 'I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.' (Confucius, 551 - 479 BC) • Centrality of five relationships: filial piety (parent/child) • Role of teachers: students owe strong duties of reverence and service to their teachers • Texts are revered; “correct” answers valued • “To study without thought is labor lost; but thinking without study is dangerous indeed”

8. UniSA: learning cultures in contact

9. Cultures of learning “taken-for-granted frameworks of expectations, attitudes, values and beliefs about how to teach or learn successfully … A culture of learning frames what teachers and students expect to happen in classrooms” Jin and Cortazzi (2006, p. 9)

10. Confucian cultures of learning • Confucian heritage students stereotyped as: • quiet, passive rote learners • respectful of teachers / teaching materials • unable or unwilling to think critically • reluctant to express opinions (Atkinson, 1997; Ballard & Clanchy, 1991; Bodycott & Walker, 2000) • Chinese learners are “not accustomed to actively participating in class … teachers ‘teach’ and students rarely speak out of turn” (Gibbs, 2005, p. 6) • Some evidence that Chinese students’ cultures of learning are starting to change (Biggs, 1996; Cheng, 2002; Curro & McTaggart, 2003; Gan, Humphreys & Hamp-Lyons, 2004; Gieve and Clark, 2005; Shi, 2006)

11. A quiz! • Why might Confucian heritage (CH) students be reluctant to speak up in class? • How might CH learners feel about copying ideas from textbooks, and why? • How do CH students address their teachers and why might they feel uncomfortable with Australian ways of addressing teachers? • How might CH students feel about Western educational norms & practices?

12. Cultures of Learning in contact

13. Discussion: Spot the difference! • Look at the pictures on the next two slides • What are some differences? • Why might there be problems if a learner comes to context 1 from context 2?

14. CELTA training context Group work in Australia

15. Typical HE classroom in China

16. Case studies jigsaw reading: Cultures of learning in contact • Two cases studies: • Jenny in Vietnam • Liu Hong in China • Read your case study; • Find someone with the other case study; • Describe your case study and what the problem is; • Discuss the culture of learning assumptions being made by the people in the case studies Cases adapted from: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Zhenhui-TeachingStyles.html

17. What to do?

18. Our way?

19. Our way (Liao 2004) • Methodological universalism • Educational research • Evidence-based research as context-blind • Cultural/educational assimilation model; becoming part of global academic community • Context specificity • Cultural resistance? • Assumptions about students’ needs/identities • Unclear expectations?

20. Students’ way?

21. Students’way (Yu, 2001; Zhang, 2004) • People do successfully learn with all sorts of teaching methods • Issue of ‘methodological imperialism’? • Methodological relativism: “context approach” (Bax, 2003) • Discredited model of learning • transmission; • constuctivism • What about non-CHC students? • (Are we any good at Confucian-style teaching?)

22. A third way??

23. A third way?(Bjorning-Gyde & Doodgan, 2004; Hu, 2002; Senior & Xu, 2002) • Cultural fusion models • Negotiated third space – between two cultures • Lack of consistency in theoretical underpinning? • Teachers/students may lack adaptation skills • Expected graduate qualities of Australian education, e.g. Participation in discussions – learned through Socratic-style teaching?

24. Discussion: Potential issues • Can teachers adapt their practice? Do they? • Can students adapt? Do they? • What does effective adaptation depend on? • Who should adapt, when teachers in Australia teach students from Confucian-heritage cultures? • Does it depend on where classroom is physically? • Does it depend on students’ future needs, e.g. Australian uni study? • Does it depend on the proportion of CHC/other students? • How might adaptation (teacher or student) take place? • In at the deep end? • Gradual accommodation of teaching/learning cultures?

25. Bridging the gap • Starts with teacher / learner awareness • Principled eclecticism • Examination of own and students’ practices • Make expectations explicit, with rationale • Find out students’ (perceptions of) future needs • Have this discussion with students (.ppt available!) • What else?

26. References & Further Reading Atkinson, D. (1997). A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), 9-37. Ballard, B., & Clanchy, J. (1991). Teaching students from overseas: A brief guide for lecturers and supervisors. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire. Bax, S. (2003). The end of CLT: a context approach t language teaching. ELT Journal, 57(3), 278-287. Biggs, J. B. (1996). Western mis-conceptions of the Confucian-heritage learning culture. In D. A. Watkins & J. B. Biggs (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contrextaul influences. (pp. 45-67). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong. Bjorning-Gyde, M., & Doogan, F. (2004). TEFL practice and reform in China: Learning, adapting, succeeding, creating. Paper presented at the The 2nd International Conference of IATEFL China. Bodycott, P., & Walker, A. (2000). Teaching abroad: Lessons learned about intercultural understanding for teachers in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 5(1), 79-94. Cheng, X. (2002). Chinese EFL students' cultures of learning. In C. Lee & W. Littlewood (Eds.), Culture, communication and language pedagogy (pp. 103-116). Hong Kong: Hong Kong Baptist University Press. Curro, G., & McTaggart, R. (2003). Supporting the Pedagogy of Internationalisation. Paper presented at the 17thIDP Australian International Education Conference. Retrieved 3 March 2008, from http://www.jcu.edu.au/teaching/idc/groups/public/documents/staff_publications/jcuprd_016763.pdf Dooley, K. (2001). Re-envisioning teacher preparation: Lessons from China. Journal of Education for teaching, 27(3), 241-251.

27. Gan, Z., Humphreys, G., & Hamp-Lyons, L. (2004). Understanding successful and unsuccessful EFL students in Chinese universities. The Modern Language Journal, 88(ii), 229-244. Gibbs, M. (2005, July). Proceed with caution. EL Prospects. Gieve, S., & Clark, R. (2005). 'The Chinese approach to learning': Cultural trait or situated response? The case of a self-directed learning program. System, 33, 261-276. Hiep, P. H. (2007). Communicative language teaching: Unity within diversity. ELT Journal, 61(3), 193-201. Holliday, A. (1994). Appropriate methodology and social context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holliday, A. (2007). Response to ‘ELT and “the spirit of the times”’. ELT Journal, 61(4), 360-366. Hu, G. (2002). Potential cultural resistance to pedagogical imports: The case of communicative language teaching in China. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 15(2), 93-105. Hu, G. (2005a). Contextual influences on instructional practices: A Chinese case for an ecological approach to ELT. TESOL Quarterly, 39(4), 635-660. Hu, G. (2005b). Professional Development of Secondary EFL Teachers: Lessons From China [Electronic Version]. Teachers College Record. Retrieved 4 June 2007, from http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=11816

28. Jin, L., & Cortazzi, M. (2006). Changing practices in Chinese cultures of learning. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 19(1), 5-20. Liao, X. (2004). Readers Respond (2): The need for communicative language teaching in China. ELT Journal, 58(3), 270-273. Senior, R., & Xu, Z. (2002). East meets West: Language teachers from different contexts discover similar goals. English Australia Journal, 19(1), 65-74. Shi, L. (2006). The successors to Confucianism or a new generation? A questionnaire study of Chinese students' culture of learning English. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 19(1), 122-147. Wu, Y. (2001). English language teaching in China: Trends and challenges. TESOL Quarterly, 35(1), 191-194. Xinmin, Z., & Adamson, B. (2003). The pedagogy of a secondary school teacher of English in the People's Republic of China: Challenging the stereotypes. RELC Journal, 34(3), 323-337. Yu, L. (2001). Communicative language teaching in China: Progress and resistance. TESOL Quarterly, 35(1), 194-198. Zhang, L. (2004). CLT in China: Frustrations, misconceptions and frustrations. Hwa Kang Journal of TEFL, 10, 101-114.