On study of classroom behavior between chinese students

On Study of Classroom Behavior Between Chinese Students and American Students Malan Cai Guangxi Normal University mlcai2003@yahoo.com... On occasion, the number of international stud

On Study of Classroom Behavior Between Chinese

Students and American

Students

Malan Cai Guangxi Normal University

mlcai2003@yahoo.com

experienced the trend of an ever

increasing enrollment of international

students On occasion, the number of

international students enrolled in a

particular class can even exceed the

number of American students

Two expectations are proposed:

 a American students are more active than

Asian students in classroom participation;

 b Asian students care more how the professor and classmates receive their answers than

American students

 Participants for this study are from Morehead

Sate University, 10 are American students and 10 are Asian students Among the Asian students, 2 students are from Mainland China, one is from

Japan and 7 are from Taiwan They are assigned

to complete the questionnaire of 11 items quickly according to their first impression Chi-square

test and t-test are used to measure the data

 TABLE 1

 Mean evaluation of difference bet ween Asian students and Americ

an students in classroom discussi on.

Questions American Students Asian Students Q3 I feel comfortable speaking

Q4 I feel nervous talking in

Q5 I’d let other people do the

Q6 I dare not ask question in

Q7 I like discussing problems

with the professor and the

students.

Q8 I have problem in

expressing myself clearly in

public

Q9 Do you care how your

professor and classmates think

of your answer in classroom

discussion?

Q10 Are you satisfied with

more or less participation in

classroom discussion?

1 2 3 4 5

less experience in classroom

SA A N D SD

Q3 I feel comfortable speaking in the classroom

Q7 I like discussing problems with the professor and the

Students in Guangxi Normal

University

 The findings show that there is a great

difference in classroom discussion between

Asian students and American students The

first expectation is true American students are more active than Asian students in class They feel more comfortable speaking in class than Asian students

 “If we seek to understand a people,

we have to put ourselves as far as w

e can, in that particular history and c ultural background […] one has to re cognize that countries and people diff

er in their approach and their ways, i

n their approach to life and their way

s of living and thinking

 The Asian students’ silent response to the classroom discussion is caused by the similar educational background and educational philosophy they’ve

received

 “Silence is gold.”

 “Less speaking is the best way of speaking.”

 “The superior man is diligent in duty but slo

w to speak.”

 “Of the two persons walking with me, at least one can be my teacher I would learn from his g ood points and guard against his bad ones.”

 “He who knows does not talk, he wh

o talks does not know”

Dewey’s educational thought

providing its young with the kinds of experiences that make their value

real and significant for their own

lives

 We encourage them to follow their own

purposes of communication […] Similarly,

learning to participate in democratic life

involves living democratically -students

working together on common problems,

establishing the rules by which their classroom will be governed, testing and evaluating ideas for the improvement of classroom life, and

learning, and participating in the construction

of objectives for their own learning

 Dewey believed that teacher should make students aware of various

possibilities - possibilities in the

domain of ends or learning

objectives and possibilities among means for achieving their ends

 Comparing the Eastern education

philosophies with the Western

education philosophies, we can find that they are totally different

 In order to understand them, we hav

e to understand their way of life and approach If we wish to convince the

m, we have to use their language as

we can, not language in the narrow s ense of the word, but the language o

f the mind.”

 “As we regard the host environment as a partn

er and engage ourselves in that environment, w

e need to be prepared to accept the likelihood t hat a part of who we are maybe changed by ou

r new experiences, at least temporarily This w illingness to be changed is vital if we are to att ain a degree of functional fitness in the new so cio-cultural system…this understanding of ada ptive capacity within ourselves bring hope and strength even in the midst of severe culture-sh ock experiences” (Young Yun Kim, 225-226)

Thank you