The China Chronicles

This is a brief (hopefully) account of my frustration with the Chinese educational system. For some of the classes we teach, such as writing, oral, and listening, we split the classes between two teachers because it's really difficult to teach 50+ students when you need to be interactive. It used to be that foreign teachers were pretty free to do whatever they wanted. Chinese teachers make 70% of students' final grades the final exam, and the other 30% is participation, homework, etc. Usually, foreign teachers make the participation and homework grade 70% and the final exam 30%. This school has just been accredited as a university instead of a college, so everything is changing.

Certain classes are examined now. I think essentially the education commission is checking up on us. We just found out yesterday that we have to have final exams as well as answer keys for the classes that are being examined turned in December 11. Finals week isn't until the first week of January, but they have to review our exams. They also need to know how many points each question is worth, because they will re-grade the tests after we grade them. This is kind of a pain, and it's really short notice to have to figure out what you are teaching for the next four weeks and what will be on your exam, but it wouldn't be so bad, except...

The classes we split have to have one exam for the entire class. And that wouldn't be so bad, except...there are no guidelines as to what to teach in each class. There's not a certain amount of the book you have to get through. Some teachers use the book, and some teachers don't. It's the same as two different sections of an American college class taught by different professors. If you went to Arvada West, think Mr. Link vs. Ms. Bellacome. If you went to UCCS, think Dr. Harvey vs. Dr. Pellow. (The point here is difference in teaching styles, not the fact that Dr. Pellow writes things like "this is grammatical chaos" on people's papers).

I have to give three of these exams. For my other classes (junior listening and freshmen reading), I can pretty much do what I want. I have to give one for my freshmen oral, one for my freshmen listening, and one for my junior writing. I teach both sections of the freshmen oral, so that won't be a problem. However, I split my writing class with Kris. She's already written her exam for that class, and there is nothing on it that I have taught my class. That means I have to spend the next four weeks teaching my class everything that will be on the test, and since the test is short answer ("write an outline in the correct format"), I have to sit down with her to find out exactly how she taught outlines so that our answer keys will be the same. As for my freshmen listening, I split it with some Chinese teacher, and I have no idea who he or she is. AHH! I'm spending this weekend feverishly writing lesson plans and test questions. I feel like I'm back in college myself.

On a happier note, I went to get dumplings at this amazing new dumpling place. I'd tell you the Chinese name, but I can't figure out how to spell it. It sounds like jao-dzuh. Anyway, we had them with garlic which was amazing. Then we got a TON of junk food (cookies, more cookies, krispy rice thingies, cake, chocolate...) and watched "Big Fish." That's how we are coping with this dumb new test business :)

posted by Sara @ 5:44 AM