Crossing cultures: Teaching Confucian heritage students

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

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Cultures of learning
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What do you know about Confucius and Socrates?
Why are they relevant to UniSA in 2010?
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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!

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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

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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

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UniSA learning cultures in contact
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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)

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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)

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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?

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Cultures of Learning in contact
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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?

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• CELTA training context

Group work in Australia
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Typical HE classroom in China
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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/Z
  henhui-TeachingStyles.html 

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What to do?
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Our way?
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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?

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Students way?
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Studentsway (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?)

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A third way??
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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?

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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?

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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?

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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
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• Bjorning-Gyde, M., Doogan, F. (2004). TEFL
  practice and reform in China Learning, adapting,
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• Bodycott, P., Walker, A. (2000). Teaching
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• Cheng, X. (2002). Chinese EFL students' cultures
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• Curro, G., McTaggart, R. (2003). Supporting the
  Pedagogy of Internationalisation. Paper presented
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• Dooley, K. (2001). Re-envisioning teacher
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• Gan, Z., Humphreys, G., Hamp-Lyons, L. (2004).
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• Gibbs, M. (2005, July). Proceed with caution. EL
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• Jin, L., Cortazzi, M. (2006). Changing
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