A History of My Faculty Seminars on Teaching Methodology

I’d like to pretend that I deliberately gave this post the most boring title I could think of and that what follows is actually a hilarious high-octane spoof that will have you in stitches throughout. No such luck. Actually, this post is really, no kidding, a “history of my faculty seminars on teaching methodology.” Possibly the driest topic ever attempted voluntarily by a blogger (perhaps some have attempted drier subjects, but only under extreme duress and coercion). So thanks for reading this far! I have tried to make it not too painful (as in less painful than actually attending a seminar on teaching methodology), but it still may be hard to bear for those of you who are not me. Good luck to you.

Truth is, I put this picture here to get you interested in the post. It has no relevance to teaching methods or seminars, but it’s the kind of thing I see everyday on bike rides around the city. Endless construction and change. [more on that later]

The first six weeks I was here, I taught American history to faculty members in the International Exchange College (IEC) and Foreign Language Institute. That experience was rewarding, if not entirely interactive. It was mostly me talking and them listening (see post: "American History in Hohhot").

As I pondered the next set of faculty seminars I would give, I was not too optimistic about making them into interactive “seminars” instead of lectures. Chinese teachers--like Chinese students--expect teachers to teach and students to listen. My other misgivings concerned the subject matter of the seminars. Vice Dean Wu Yunna said that she wanted me to talk about teaching methods and classroom strategies. This held out about as much excitement for me as giving a seminar on cement. I know it’s corny, but I think teaching is a calling and that each teacher finds his own unique path (some would call it methodology) through a process of pedagogical self-improvement that has little to do with studying the "five types of learning styles" or the "six approaches to stimulating the learning process," or whatever kind of drivel they fill you with in university education classes or teacher conference seminars, where teachers sit in circles brain-storming ways to initiate "student-centered learning." Not that I'm against student-centered learning (whatever that means) or having a conceptual knowledge of one's own teaching methods and goals (I mean, knowledge is always better than ignorance), but I just think that teaching methods are a highly individualized thing best learned by individuals through practice and self-driven advice-seeking. Teaching is like the Tao: every teacher has to find his own path. But I am interested in teaching, obviously, so I figured that talking about teaching with Chinese instructors would be a great way to learn about the similarities and differences of our educational systems.

And then I received a phone call from Ms. Na Ri Su, who is the faculty lead in the Foreign Languages Institute. It was the Friday before the beginning of the October holiday and I was riding my bike to "South Lake," a really neat bike park about 8K south of Hohhot.

"Would you like to hear some suggestions about topics?" she asked.

"That would be great," I said, thrilled that the teachers already had some ideas for where the seminars might go--certainly a promising start for creating a dynamic forum where I wasn't just unilaterally dispensing information.

"One topic the teachers would like you speak on would be etiquette and table manners in the West."

I couldn't believe my ears. Did she really want me to discuss American table manners? I laughed. "Ms. Na, I'm certainly not an expert on table manners. I actually have very poor table manners and I'm continually being corrected by my wife. Did the teachers have any other suggestions?"

"Yes," Ms. Na went on, "they are also interested in having you discuss food culture."

"You mean what people eat?" I asked.

"Yes, the different food traditions and how they might differ from place to place. Of course you could go into great detail."

"That might be an interesting topic," I lied. "Did the teachers have any other suggestions?"

"They also wanted to know about churches. How many of them are there? What happens in the different churches and so on."

I was pretty shocked and wasn't sure whether to be embarrassed or insulted. Clearly the Foreign Language teachers could not have known that I’m a secular slob who can’t hold a knife correctly or recite the Lord’s Prayer. I could forgive them for that. But did the teachers not understand that I’m interested in talking about professional and intellectual issues? The topics they proposed could be discussed competently by most intelligent (and church-going) sixteen year-olds. Not that I consider myself a wellspring of intellectual depth, but "table etiquette"? Weren't they interested in engaging in deeper issues? I began to despair.

Fortunately, Dean Wu Yunna understood that I was interested in professional issues. Her insistence on discussing teaching methods saved me from becoming Mr. Manners USA in Hohhot. "Well, these are very interesting topics, but Wu Yunna told me she wanted something on teaching methods so perhaps we'll begin there and address these other issues later." I was privately hoping that new issues would emerge and we would never have to visit the topic of table manners again. In the end that’s what happened.

I went into the first seminar with a great deal of trepidation, but my fears were quickly assuaged. Only 15 teachers showed up--less than I expected. But I could not blame them: would I come to hear a visiting scholar on a Thursday afternoon at 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm unless I was forced? Probably not.

I was determined not to continue these seminars like the history lectures. I made a few introductory comments about American education (historical and contemporary conflicts between teaching "traditionalists" and "innovators") and then I broke the teachers up into three groups to discuss 1) Five things you know about Chinese or American education and 2) Five things you want to learn about American education.

It ended up being a great discussion. This post will be far too long if I bore you with all the details, but just to give you a sense of how rich that first seminar was, here are some of the points made by just ONE GROUP of my Chinese colleagues:

--Chinese education has been, and still largely is, "teacher-centric" rather than "student-centric." Chinese teachers are authority figures who focus on unilaterally dispensing knowledge to their students, who become passive receptacles of information.

--Chinese education has also been, and still largely is, "exam-centric." Teachers focus primarily on exam preparation, which takes precedence over classroom activities that may focus on participation, student interaction, and skill-building activities.

--Chinese students, for the most part, like this kind of teacher-centric education, because they are not trained to be active and engaged participants in their own education. They are by nature (or socialization) shy and reticent and they often resist efforts to force them into more active learning styles.

--Chinese teachers also like this style of pedagogy because they can more easily control what happens in the classroom.

--All of this is changing, especially at the university level and in larger cities, where a new breed of younger faculty are introducing new, western-influenced methods, that focus as much on problem-solving and task-based activities (active learning; “student-centered learning”) as they do rote memorization.

--Changes in teaching methodology are causing conflicts between traditionalists and innovators, just as has been the case throughout the history of American education. Just like Americans, many Chinese teachers and citizens worry that teaching innovations mean declining standards. They worry that students are learning less "information" than before.

Wow. And that was just one group.

Okay, I said I wouldn’t bore you with too many details, but here are some highlights from another group who made equally compelling points about both Chinese and American education systems.

Their primary points were as follows:

--It is easier to be accepted into an American university than it is to graduate from one. In other words, students in America can more easily become enrolled (as opposed to China where gaining admission to a university is very competitive, very expensive, and largely dependent upon exam scores and connections) but once enrolled, American students often drop out (as opposed to Chinese students, who are stewarded through the process from matriculation to graduation).

--American university life is very individualistic: students succeed or fail on their own merits, whereas in China (like at Shi Da), students moved through university life as "classes" rather than individuals.

In the discussion that followed, we agreed that perhaps American university life is too individualistic while Chinese university life is too communal. American students would benefit from greater community involvement, which might help retention efforts, but Chinese students might benefit from less hand-holding and more individual responsibility.

You can get a sense just from these talking points that we had a great discussion. I was really pleased with how interactive the teachers were, and how honest they were in assessing both the strengths of weaknesses of both Chinese and American systems. Moreover, their many comments provided me with ample discussion topics for the weeks ahead. In subsequent seminars, we touched on thorny issues like “academic freedom” and “ideological” training in Chinese universities (more on that to come in later posts). I was really enjoying myself.

And yet, things were not so perfect. Over the course of the following weeks, I began to doubt whether the Chinese teachers were really as enthusiastic as I was. For one, the attendance of the seminars began to drop (from a high of 30 teachers in week 2 to a low of 7 by week 4). I was told the teachers were busy, or had meetings. That was fine. But not having a fixed group of teachers who came every week made it hard to establish trust, common understandings, and progressively explore new topics over time. I felt like each new seminar was starting over.

And despite the fact that the teachers were all very attentive and kind, it was entirely unclear to me whether they were interested in these seminars. In fact, I realized the only questions they were asking were ones that I made them formulate in groups. Beyond that, "discussions" were largely me asking questions and them giving the very shortest answers possible. Was it a language thing—not wanting to lose face by making comments in less than perfect English? Was it a cultural thing—passive students waiting for the teacher to expound? Was it a discipline thing—I’m a history teacher and they are language teachers?

By week four I was feeling pretty insecure. I didn’t know what topics to explore. I didn’t know how many people would be in class, if anyone. I had been asking a lot of questions but hadn't been giving a lot of answers. Chinese teachers, like Chinese students, value expertise, and I wasn't acting like an expert. And yet, as I pondered what to do for the next class, the last thing I felt capable of being was an expert. Not that I couldn't go in and run a powerpoint on some topic. But I'd die of boredom. I had to be enthusiastic about something, but my enthusiasm was waning.

I talked with WuYunna that week and she apologized that the IEC teachers hadn't been to the last seminar--they were at meetings. I asked her what the teachers wanted to learn and she reiterated that she wanted them to learn about teaching methodology--something that would help them to become better teachers. But what could I really teach language teachers about effective teaching methods?

After some “in-depth research” into the latest language-learning teaching methods (about an hour on the internet plus phone calls and emails to my CBC colleagues Barb Sandness and Yongsheng Sun), I decided that I was most taken with the humanistic approach, which seemed to mesh with my most idealistic conceptions of education. In this method, teaching language is less about grammar than it is about helping your students unleash their human potential through problem-solving, reasoning, free-will and cooperation. The goals of language teaching in a humanistic classroom are ultimately about "advancing the species through understanding and cooperation," at least according to some English web site. This sounded really good--a good way to keep me from teaching grammar. It also jibed with my own inclination to take the long-term view of the classroom--it was about the student's development as a human being rather than some more modest and measurable outcome--a good way to keep me from measuring outcomes.

But how did the humanistic approach provide insight into teaching methods? Well, according to this English website, the humanistic approach encourages you to understand what motivates your students. If they are externally motivated (they need to pass a test or get a certificate), then throw a lot of exams and exercises at them. If they are intrinsically motivated by the pure love of knowledge (like about 95% of my students at CBC), then have them solve problems and work things out.

Great--I could ask teachers to brainstorm what motivates their students. They could break up into groups and then report back. It would be fun and I'd get to hear their views of Chinese students.

I was pretty happy with myself. One question. No lecture. No powerpoint presentation. Group work. Cutting-edge stuff.

I took a pad of paper with nothing but one quotation written on it, from Socrates: "I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think." (I love the internet...)

I strode into the seminar room to see that my class had now shrunk to seven teachers--the ones who had been threatened with dismissal if they didn't attend.

Undeterred, I went ahead with my plan. We broke into a group to discuss the motivations of our students. One teacher who teaches Business English immediately began to talk about how her students lack the theoretical knowledge of economics. She then began to show us the curve that analyzes the upward and downward course of "producer" nations and "imitator" nations. There went my focused group project. Like teachers everywhere, we all had a lot to say, little of it relevant to my initial question. But we did talk about both economics and ethnicity (or, as the Chinese say, "nationality"), two topics that trump teaching methodology any day, in my opinion. [and more on that in later posts, as well]

Well, I just wanted to give you a sense of what I’m doing from week to week, what I’m experiencing and learning in the classroom, etc…. It’s been really rich and rewarding—and it continues. I’ll be heading into another seminar this week with little idea where it will end up.

Thanks for reading!

Dave