The government of China brings teachers to the U.S.

**The government of China brings teachers to the U.S.** · #1 02-10-2007, 08:24 AM

The government of China brings teachers to the U.S.

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HOLLYWOOD, MD. // Zhijun Peng, the new teacher from China, spins a large world globe to show two first-graders just how far her country is from the United States. Halfway around, Ashley and Ethan find it.

Only two weeks ago Peng was in China, but today she is standing in front of a rapt class of 6-year-olds in a St. Mary's County elementary school, earnestly trying to bridge the miles and make the Chinese culture seem fun.

She will spend the rest of the school year at Hollywood Elementary, helping to expose young children to a little of the culture. She taught the first-graders how to say "hello" and "school bus" this week and what to do when you are greeted on the street in China.

In the fall, she will teach Chinese language classes at Leonardtown middle and high schools.

Complete Story

I wish one of these teachers would come to my high school. I know little or nothing about my own heritage and I think this would be a good idea.

Icyblackflame · #2 02-10-2007, 02:56 PM

Our school has taught Chinese forever. We have a Japanese teacher next year. Our school speciallizes in Asian languages.

Alltogether, I think that our county offers (not at every school. The county as a whole) the regular Spanish, Latin, French, and German, along with Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Italian (new this year), and others. Mostly places from Asia, and a few from Europe. I think that they'll be offering different spins of Spanish other than Mexican for a change (maybe Cuban or Argentinean or something. They have different pronounciations and words in some cases). We have a very good language program if nothing else, but maybe that is because it is required (in this county) to take (and pass) four language classes (of the same language) in order to graduate.

I've been taking Chinese for a while. I really like it, although I am wildly more interested in Japanese culture and language. I've been to Japan quite a bit and the language is interesting. However, there are more Chinese-speaking students at my school than Japanese-speaking ones, so I'll ave more "real-time" speaking the Chinese language.
-Icy

Kazmarov · #3 02-10-2007, 03:31 PM

The purpose isn't learning Chinese in this story, it's getting Americans acclimated to Chinese culture, because given their size and economic power we'll be the end station of a huge quanitity of cultural export in the ensuing decades.

Icyblackflame · #4 02-10-2007, 03:52 PM

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Originally Posted by Kazmarov

The purpose isn't learning Chinese in this story, it's getting Americans acclimated to Chinese culture, because given their size and economic power we'll be the end station of a huge quanitity of cultural export in the ensuing decades.

Yeah...and you are aware that, along with those classes, you get quite the history and culture lessons, right? It's not just learning the language.

By having all these classes available to us, we get to learn much more than we are "regularly" taught in school. Okay...it's not like we learn THAT much, but...we're learning something, which is...generally more than we're taught about some of these countries.

They need to hurry up and get a Burmese teacher goin'. So many of my friends speak Tagalog(sp?) and I want to speak to them!
-Icy

oxyMORON · #5 02-12-2007, 08:25 PM

Yeah....It'll be helpful to know a bit of Chinese culture....WHEN THEY INVADE

I hardly ever get exposed to Chinese culture without going through family first. Schools hardly ever touch Asian culture unless it's history or the CHinese class itself, which is pretty understandable. I"m sure many people would have a hard time taking and learning other cultures easily and maturely.

Kazmarov · #6 02-12-2007, 09:49 PM

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Yeah...and you are aware that, along with those classes, you get quite the history and culture lessons, right? It's not just learning the language.

Firstly, I laugh at your sentence structure.

Secondly, you just repeated what I said, yet attempted to be argumentative about it, as is per the rest of your post. This astounds me.

Icyblackflame · #7 02-13-2007, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kazmarov

Secondly, you just repeated what I said, yet attempted to be argumentative about it, as is per the rest of your post. This astounds me.

You took my talking about the language courses as just that - taking the class and learning the language. In my reply to you, I was saying that we don't just learn the language. We learn some culture and history. Since you only talked about the language element, clearly you weren't thinking of this when you replied to me. I was just making it clear that I was not only speaking of the language, which, again, you clearly thought. The big message was that, because we have so many foreign language courses available, we have a chance to learn much more about these cultures. And this thread was about learning Chinese culture. So, yes, generally I said the same thing as you. The first time. But I had to repeat it because you didn't get it.
And they were not about the same thing. Yours was about the cultures as a whole, and mine was about the classes.

And, nope. According to what I read, the main purpose was

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getting Americans acclimated to Chinese culture

and just that. She just said that she wanted to know her culture. I don't believe that she only wanted to know it because of the trade and whatever you're implying. At least I missed that part if she did.

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Firstly, I laugh at your sentence structure.

What's so amusing? Nothing is incorrect in that sentence you quoted. My sentence structure is fine.
-Icy

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