The Biggest Problem Facing the US

[HongKong2LA]

He'll think he died and went to heaven if he and his mom are allowed to come to America....

tsap seui

 

FAIR WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS GENERALIZATIONS!

 

Trouble is the kids come to the US and suck up all the bad behavior and lose a lot of the filial discipline they had in China.

 

At least this is what happened in our case.

I'm 19 now and I can do whatever I want!!!!!

 

Teenagers are just like women....they're all the same and they're all different...

[warpedbored]

Mark Twain said "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

[weiaijiayou]

Yep Chinese children don't have much of a childhood.

 

Larry

 

Not if they are going to attempt to get into a top. or even bottom, university in China...lil' Bubba Jr. can count his childhood in minutes, not years.

 

He'll think he died and went to heaven if he and his mom are allowed to come to America....well, on second thought maybe I should take that back, he's too ingrained in actually working in school.

 

 

tsap seui

I hear that bubba and agree with it to an extend but do you really think that studying 10-14 a day is good for a young kid? I know. I know that is the way it is in China in order to get ahead.

 

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that it takes a lot of them so long to mature as all and I mean all of their time is devoted to studying.

 

I have a little nephew that is in the same boat. I actually feel sorry for him. Never having any time to play. I guess he has less than 4-6 hours of play time a week. Can we actually say that this is a good thing?

 

Larry

Very good point... In my opinion those two things are definitely connected. It's interesting to me how these things all seem to fit together. This system, the years of preparation and nightmarish work, is in some ways needed just because of the shear amount of material that Chinese people need to share (e.g., the tens of thousands of characters). The fact that the work is all directed toward the gaokao is then itself a kind of socialization -- it keeps kids focused, conscientious, and also very, very innocent. I totally understand your point, though, as my wife sometimes talks about how in her middle school she would work all day but still secretly sneak into the bathroom at night to study as this was the only place that was lit...

 

Tsap, by the time the visa goes through, at least your boy will have a fantastic work ethic that will pay off as he finishes high school and goes to college in the US...

 

 

My understanding of this is that around 2000 characters represents a newspaper-level vocabulary, and 20,000 or so is pretty much an unabridged dictionary.

 

I¡¯d say you're right on the second part. My writing ¡°tens of thousands of characters¡± was a bit over the top. (Even though there are in fact tens of thousands of characters (with different estimates of up to like 50,000), obviously many of them are not in common use or used at all...) But as for 2000 characters being a newspaper-level vocabulary, this is way too low. To my knowledge, claims like this (I¡¯ve also heard people say 900 and 3000) are based on analyses of character frequencies in newspapers. The assumption is that, if most of the characters in most articles are among the most commonly used 2000, shouldn¡¯t someone who knows those 2000 characters be able to read the newspaper? Unfortunately, what this doesn¡¯t take into account is that most of the meaning in an article comes from the minority of characters that are unique in the article. If you don't believe me, just spend several years learning the most common 2000 characters and a corresponding understanding of grammar and see how much you get out of a random Chinese newspaper!!

 

The Chinese character system is a lot closer to ours in terms of literacy and effort to learn (and even keyboard usage) than we realize. That is, Chinese students can pretty much keep pace with their American counterparts, including in typing.

 

I just can¡¯t believe anyone living in China who presumably interacts with Chinese people could think this. In terms of difficulty, the Chinese writing system is in a different galaxy from almost any other language on Earth. Kids need 7 or 8 years to learn to read and write their first 3000 characters. Even very highly educated Chinese people regularly forget how to write characters for common words. Assuming you have seriously tried at all to learn to read Chinese (and even more so if you have learned to write anything), I'm surprised (incredulous?) to hear anything except how different the two writing systems are in terms of the time, effort, and frustration needed to learn them. As for keyboard usage, not sure why you would mention this as it¡¯s totally separate, requiring Chinese people to learn a complete system of Romanized script (like ours) in addition to their own written language!

 

Chinese students can pretty much keep pace in reading and writing, but it¡¯s because of the ridiculously long hours of rote memorization and practice demanded by the writing and education system¡­

[Randy W]

 

My understanding of this is that around 2000 characters represents a newspaper-level vocabulary, and 20,000 or so is pretty much an unabridged dictionary.

 

I¡¯d say you're right on the second part. My writing ¡°tens of thousands of characters¡± was a bit over the top. (Even though there are in fact tens of thousands of characters (with different estimates of up to like 50,000), obviously many of them are not in common use or used at all...) But as for 2000 characters being a newspaper-level vocabulary, this is way too low. To my knowledge, claims like this (I¡¯ve also heard people say 900 and 3000) are based on analyses of character frequencies in newspapers. The assumption is that, if most of the characters in most articles are among the most commonly used 2000, shouldn¡¯t someone who knows those 2000 characters be able to read the newspaper? Unfortunately, what this doesn¡¯t take into account is that most of the meaning in an article comes from the minority of characters that are unique in the article. If you don't believe me, just spend several years learning the most common 2000 characters and a corresponding understanding of grammar and see how much you get out of a random Chinese newspaper!!

 

The Chinese character system is a lot closer to ours in terms of literacy and effort to learn (and even keyboard usage) than we realize. That is, Chinese students can pretty much keep pace with their American counterparts, including in typing.

 

I just can¡¯t believe anyone living in China who presumably interacts with Chinese people could think this. In terms of difficulty, the Chinese writing system is in a different galaxy from almost any other language on Earth. Kids need 7 or 8 years to learn to read and write their first 3000 characters. Even very highly educated Chinese people regularly forget how to write characters for common words. Assuming you have seriously tried at all to learn to read Chinese (and even more so if you have learned to write anything), I'm surprised (incredulous?) to hear anything except how different the two writing systems are in terms of the time, effort, and frustration needed to learn them. As for keyboard usage, not sure why you would mention this as it¡¯s totally separate, requiring Chinese people to learn a complete system of Romanized script (like ours) in addition to their own written language!

 

Chinese students can pretty much keep pace in reading and writing, but it¡¯s because of the ridiculously long hours of rote memorization and practice demanded by the writing and education system¡­

 

 

When you compare the number of common characters with the number of English words in a typical dictionary, you get a very different picture. Especially when you factor in the inconsistencies, irregularities, and places where you "say this, not that" in the English language.

 

Chinese people react the same way when they study the English language. It is NOT a matter of what you or I have to say about it.

 

As far as "ridiculously long hours of rote memorization and practice demanded by the writing and education system¡­", I would say the same thing about my own education.

 

No, they don't need to learn any Romanized script to enter characters on a keyboard. During the Cultural Revolution they did not teach that. That system is very slow. Touch typists, using entry systems designed for professionals, can almost keep pace with their western counterparts.

 

These are things I've heard from Chinese people, and NOT from my own experience.

 

From my own experience, I see certain characters repeated often enough that I begin to recognize them. 'Exit' is one of the first you'll recognize if you've done any traveling. Others I'll spend a little more time to look up if I get the inkling.

 

Pattern recognition works in either language.

[weiaijiayou]

When you compare the number of common characters with the number of English words in a typical dictionary, you get a very different picture. Especially when you factor in the inconsistencies, irregularities, and places where you "say this, not that" in the English language.

 

Chinese people react the same way when they study the English language. It is NOT a matter of what you or I have to say about it.

 

As far as "ridiculously long hours of rote memorization and practice demanded by the writing and education system¡­", I would say the same thing about my own education.

 

No, they don't need to learn any Romanized script to enter characters on a keyboard. During the Cultural Revolution they did not teach that. That system is very slow. Touch typists, using entry systems designed for professionals, can almost keep pace with their western counterparts.

 

These are things I've heard from Chinese people, and NOT from my own experience.

 

From my own experience, I see certain characters repeated often enough that I begin to recognize them. 'Exit' is one of the first you'll recognize if you've done any traveling. Others I'll spend a little more time to look up if I get the inkling.

 

Pattern recognition works in either language.

 

Hehe, I agree ¨C it¡¯s not a matter of what you or I have to say about it. The English writing system has 26 letters. The Chinese character system has a few hundred semantic and over a thousand phonetic radicals. Moreover, the reliability and usefulness of these components for giving info on pronunciation and meaning could scarcely be compared to that of letters in English. Analyses of characters suggest that in 39% of modern characters the phonetic radical provides reliable information about pronunciation, in 26% it seems to provide a hint (i.e., the same radical can indicate sounds as different as, e.g., tao2 and zhao4), and in 15% it provides no information. The other 20% have no identifiable phonetic component. As for meaning, 58% of characters taught in elementary schools contain a radical that tells an astute learner what general category the character is in (e.g., the Å® in Âè suggests something female), 30% have a radical that gives a tangential hint (e.g., the left part of ÁÔ correctly suggests the word has something to do with animals), and in 9% the radical gives no information about meaning. All of this is to say that pattern recognition ¡°works¡± a lot differently in reading Chinese and reading English. In Chinese, it sometimes gives a hint about meaning; it sometimes tells you or gives you a hint about pronunciation. In English, written words tell you the answer for both. The pronunciation is read phonetically using our memorized/internalized 26 letters and rules for combination, and the association between written symbols and meaning follows naturally given our verbal language abilities.

 

This doesn¡¯t even get into the problem of remembering how to write Chinese characters, which should be obvious¡­

 

The difference in the difficulty of the two writing systems is also illustrated in heritage learners. Heritage learners are people who speak a second language at home but lack either formal skills in the language or, as is very common with overseas Chinese, reading and writing skills. For languages with Romanized alphabets like English, heritage learners have a very strong advantage over non-heritage learners in learning to read and write. This is because the heritage learners already have many sound-meaning links, and, with a simple script, they can use this knowledge to very quickly acquire symbol-sound and symbol-meaning links. With Chinese, on the other hand, heritage students have little if any advantage over non-heritage students in learning to read and write. Even though they have much more background knowledge and verbal abilities in Chinese, the heritage students are held back just as much as non-heritage students by the sheer complexity of the character system and the demands it makes on anyone learning it:

 

http://www.international.ucla.edu/language...?parentid=52483

 

From the article:

¡°¡­this study found that heritage learners did significantly better than their non-heritage counterparts in speaking, listening, grammar, and sentence constructions, but not in reading comprehension, vocabulary learning, and Chinese character writing. These results suggest that heritage learners¡¯ oral exposure to their home language does not necessarily lead them to acquire reading and writing skills more quickly than non-heritage learners. Home background knowledge of Chinese, a language with notoriously difficult orthography, may not support reading comprehension or vocabulary learning if that knowledge does not include sufficient exposure to the script system.¡±

 

¡±The findings of the present two studies seem to run counter to other background studies from different perspectives, which claim that background knowledge facilitates reading and writing. The likely reason for the discrepancy between this study and others is that many studies focus on the reading skills of fluent readers, including L1 speakers, or heritage speakers of languages with alphabetic orthographies. However, some orthographies such as Chinese characters, which are logographic in nature, are notoriously difficult to learn. The results of these two studies show that, in foreign language learning, a lack of sufficient knowledge about the target orthography system would block the learners, heritage and non-heritage alike, from tapping their background knowledge for reading and writing.¡±

 

If you think Chinese people and English people react the same way to learning the two writing systems in L2, just think about how quickly your wife was able to learn to ¡°read¡± (i.e., look at and pronounce) English writing. Try and get to the same level of reading ability in Chinese (e.g., go through the newspaper and pronounce, with minor errors, every word). With hard work, I¡¯d estimate about a month for the English learner and at least 5 years or so for a learner of Chinese¡­

 

No, they don't need to learn any Romanized script to enter characters on a keyboard. During the Cultural Revolution they did not teach that. That system is very slow. Touch typists, using entry systems designed for professionals, can almost keep pace with their western counterparts.

 

I don¡¯t get this part. The only Chinese input methods I¡¯ve ever seen anyone use is a keyboard with pinyin input (which is a Romanized script, hence the name: literally, ¡°spelling sounds¡±) or a touch screen in which characters are written. I¡¯m not sure what these ¡°touch typist entry systems¡± are or who uses them, but it¡¯s not most Chinese people today. Most Chinese people learn a Romanized script in which sounds are spelled phonetically and then the desired character(s) is selected from a list ¨C it¡¯s just as fast and efficient as writing in English language, but it is a Romanized script learned in addition to their own system of Chinese characters¡­

[Randy W]

When you compare the number of common characters with the number of English words in a typical dictionary, you get a very different picture. Especially when you factor in the inconsistencies, irregularities, and places where you "say this, not that" in the English language.

 

Chinese people react the same way when they study the English language. It is NOT a matter of what you or I have to say about it.

 

As far as "ridiculously long hours of rote memorization and practice demanded by the writing and education system¡­", I would say the same thing about my own education.

 

No, they don't need to learn any Romanized script to enter characters on a keyboard. During the Cultural Revolution they did not teach that. That system is very slow. Touch typists, using entry systems designed for professionals, can almost keep pace with their western counterparts.

 

These are things I've heard from Chinese people, and NOT from my own experience.

 

From my own experience, I see certain characters repeated often enough that I begin to recognize them. 'Exit' is one of the first you'll recognize if you've done any traveling. Others I'll spend a little more time to look up if I get the inkling.

 

Pattern recognition works in either language.

 

Hehe, I agree ¨C it¡¯s not a matter of what you or I have to say about it. The English writing system has 26 letters. The Chinese character system has a few hundred semantic and over a thousand phonetic radicals. Moreover, the reliability and usefulness of these components for giving info on pronunciation and meaning could scarcely be compared to that of letters in English. Analyses of characters suggest that in 39% of modern characters the phonetic radical provides reliable information about pronunciation, in 26% it seems to provide a hint (i.e., the same radical can indicate sounds as different as, e.g., tao2 and zhao4), and in 15% it provides no information. The other 20% have no identifiable phonetic component. As for meaning, 58% of characters taught in elementary schools contain a radical that tells an astute learner what general category the character is in (e.g., the Å® in Âè suggests something female), 30% have a radical that gives a tangential hint (e.g., the left part of ÁÔ correctly suggests the word has something to do with animals), and in 9% the radical gives no information about meaning. All of this is to say that pattern recognition ¡°works¡± a lot differently in reading Chinese and reading English. In Chinese, it sometimes gives a hint about meaning; it sometimes tells you or gives you a hint about pronunciation. In English, written words tell you the answer for both. The pronunciation is read phonetically using our memorized/internalized 26 letters and rules for combination, and the association between written symbols and meaning follows naturally given our verbal language abilities.

 

This doesn¡¯t even get into the problem of remembering how to write Chinese characters, which should be obvious¡­

 

The difference in the difficulty of the two writing systems is also illustrated in heritage learners. Heritage learners are people who speak a second language at home but lack either formal skills in the language or, as is very common with overseas Chinese, reading and writing skills. For languages with Romanized alphabets like English, heritage learners have a very strong advantage over non-heritage learners in learning to read and write. This is because the heritage learners already have many sound-meaning links, and, with a simple script, they can use this knowledge to very quickly acquire symbol-sound and symbol-meaning links. With Chinese, on the other hand, heritage students have little if any advantage over non-heritage students in learning to read and write. Even though they have much more background knowledge and verbal abilities in Chinese, the heritage students are held back just as much as non-heritage students by the sheer complexity of the character system and the demands it makes on anyone learning it:

 

http://www.international.ucla.edu/language...?parentid=52483

 

From the article:

¡°¡­this study found that heritage learners did significantly better than their non-heritage counterparts in speaking, listening, grammar, and sentence constructions, but not in reading comprehension, vocabulary learning, and Chinese character writing. These results suggest that heritage learners¡¯ oral exposure to their home language does not necessarily lead them to acquire reading and writing skills more quickly than non-heritage learners. Home background knowledge of Chinese, a language with notoriously difficult orthography, may not support reading comprehension or vocabulary learning if that knowledge does not include sufficient exposure to the script system.¡±

 

¡±The findings of the present two studies seem to run counter to other background studies from different perspectives, which claim that background knowledge facilitates reading and writing. The likely reason for the discrepancy between this study and others is that many studies focus on the reading skills of fluent readers, including L1 speakers, or heritage speakers of languages with alphabetic orthographies. However, some orthographies such as Chinese characters, which are logographic in nature, are notoriously difficult to learn. The results of these two studies show that, in foreign language learning, a lack of sufficient knowledge about the target orthography system would block the learners, heritage and non-heritage alike, from tapping their background knowledge for reading and writing.¡±

 

If you think Chinese people and English people react the same way to learning the two writing systems in L2, just think about how quickly your wife was able to learn to ¡°read¡± (i.e., look at and pronounce) English writing. Try and get to the same level of reading ability in Chinese (e.g., go through the newspaper and pronounce, with minor errors, every word). With hard work, I¡¯d estimate about a month for the English learner and at least 5 years or so for a learner of Chinese¡­

 

No, they don't need to learn any Romanized script to enter characters on a keyboard. During the Cultural Revolution they did not teach that. That system is very slow. Touch typists, using entry systems designed for professionals, can almost keep pace with their western counterparts.

 

I don¡¯t get this part. The only Chinese input methods I¡¯ve ever seen anyone use is a keyboard with pinyin input (which is a Romanized script, hence the name: literally, ¡°spelling sounds¡±) or a touch screen in which characters are written. I¡¯m not sure what these ¡°touch typist entry systems¡± are or who uses them, but it¡¯s not most Chinese people today. Most Chinese people learn a Romanized script in which sounds are spelled phonetically and then the desired character(s) is selected from a list ¨C it¡¯s just as fast and efficient as writing in English language, but it is a Romanized script learned in addition to their own system of Chinese characters¡­

 

 

The ones who were taught pinyin in school are basically taught a second system (like you are saying)- not all were. At one point, I had to tell my wife how to spell her son's name (she didn't know the western spelling). We are both saying that that is slow. It probably fits in better today because of the prevalence of second (or more) languages being taught (usually English).

 

Not sure why you haven't seen the other keyboard input methods. Ones supported by Microsoft include NeiMa, QuangPin, ShangPin, and ZhengMa.

 

You've also heard of the Chinese telegraphic code - an earlier system for basically the same thing

 

About Wubi,

For example, the popular Pinyin method requires little training; one need only transliterate the character being entered into English letters. However, since multiple characters correspond to a single pronunciation, isolating the desired character from a list of many, does slow and interrupt the process. In addition, phonetic input methods that use one Chinese dialect are unusable by speakers of another dialect.

 

Îå±Ê×ÖÐÍ (Wu3bi3zi4xing2) solves both the dialect problem and the speed problem. Wubi, as this text will refer to the method, has these advantages:

 

* Any Chinese character can be entered by using four or less keystrokes.

* Based on the written character, rather than pronunciation, multiple methods for different dialects are not necessary; therefore, Wubi is universal.

* A skilled operator can input 160 characters per minute, a rate exceeding any Western language.

 

http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/wubi/xing.html

 

If they would compare high school students against high school students with a similar level of education, I'll bet the picture would be much different.

[chengdu4me]

IMHO, after teaching here for the past six months, I would put any 8th grade Chinese student up against any American student in the subject of math or science. These are finite arts. They have rules and laws. They are black and white. Beyond that, Chinese students are nothing more than poorly disciplined robots. Any mention of creative thinking and they go "tilt".

 

They can recite anything in the greatest detail that they have learned over the past semester. Beyond that, they have no clue. Once they have taken the state exam on that material, it is either flushed from their brain or put into a memory block that is inaccessible.

 

I have 520 students that have all taken English for 8 years. Not one of them can think of a simple ten word sentence to write or speak in English in any spontaneous fashion. They can write or speak the entire textbook, word for word in exact order. They can't tell you what it means. My son is in 8th grade. Anything beyond a three word reply from him is impossible.

 

They can't do it in Chinese either. Certain subjects will get a Chinese phrase out of them. Mostly leisure activities. Academic subjects are nothing but rote. Drills, practice, memorization...that's all. They memorize what is written in their books, but if you ask them what it means, again.."tilt"

 

I heard a very notable and well educated Chinese scholar on TV here the other day. he said..."Once the Chinese see other ways to do things, they can copy it as well as anyone. Creative invention is not necessary in China, since inventions are once in a lifetime events and production is an ongoing task".

 

IMO, there is only one way to interpret that. We don't care what you know, We only care about that you can make us money. Do not try to think, you will only hurt yourself. We will steal the idea, you copy it for us.

 

It is not the students that are stupid. It is the state. It is the idea that learning is only about what is written in the book. It is the idea that thinking for yourself is just not a worthy pursuit. One of the reason that there are so many classes each day is that parents want their kids cared for while they are working. They do not want their kids at home when they are not there. The Chinese education system is about memorization and babysitting.

 

As far as the hours the kids go to school everyday, it is a joke. Here is the schedule for an 8th grade student anywhere in China.

 

8:00 AM - 8:40 AM Class 1

8:50 AM - 9:30 AM Class 2

9:40 AM - 10:20 AM Class 3

10:20 AM - 10:50 AM Mandatory organized break - Military formation style stretching and exercise. You do it standing in one spot.

10:50 AM - 11:30 AM Class 4

11:40 AM - 12:20 AM Class 5

12:20 AM - 1:00 PM - Lunch

1:00 PM - 2:15 PM - Mandatory rest time. Go back to your classroom and put your head on your desk and take a nap.

2:15 PM - 2:55 PM Class 6

3:05 PM - 3:45 PM Class 7

3:55 PM - 4:35 PM Class 8

4:45 PM - 5:25 PM Class 9

5:35 PM - 6:15 PM Class 10

 

This is the mandatory class schedule prescribed by the Ministry of Education. Some provinces deviate from this schedule a tiny bit. They have ten different classes each day in school. Some subjects have classes every day, others do not.

 

These subjects are:

Chinese Language

Math (8th graders are learning Algebra and Geometry)

Science (8th grades are learning Physics and Chemistry)

English Grammar

English Reading

English Writing

Oral English

Art

Music

P.E.

History

Political Affairs(Civics)

Geography

Computer Usage

 

The last two classes of the day are usually "self-study", so you can get your homework done. Even during the self-study classes, the teachers will not help the students that have questions. One of these classes is a P.E. class, but it is also a joke. Girls do not do P.E. They sit and stretch or they play ping pong. Boys play BB or soccer.

 

Classrooms in China in public schools have an average of 60 students. There is no time for explanations of any kind. The teacher gives the lesson plan, again, by rote, by the number, and then class is over. If you do not understand or you do not "get it", you are ignored and left behind. Teachers are not given any time to help students. They, like the students, are just programmed robots. If you need help beyond the classroom, you may hire your teacher to tutor you or you may go out and hire a private tutor.

 

From what I have seen and experienced here, I would rank Chinese education in the K- 12 arena as one of the worst in the world. I haven't experienced it , but from what I hear, university education isn't much better.

 

One issue I have with Chinese education is that the kids don't have enough "play" time. Playtime is where children learn to be creative. They learn to think for themselves and to use their imagination. This does not happen in China. This is the root of the of the problem in the lack of creative thinking area, IMHO. It is also where kids with energy burn off that energy so they can sit still in class and learn something. Most class time is used for settling the kids down and constant repeated attempts to maintain order. This takes up about 1/3 of the class time, so even if they wanted to learn something, there is now no time for that.

 

If they didn't pay me so well to be a white face poster child for the school, I would have nothing to do with this system. It is by any definition, a poorly managed joke.

Edited April 6, 2010 by chengdu4me (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Don't sell yourself short, Larry. You are the link between them and more fluent interaction with the western world. Up until now, their teachers have been Chinese - with rare exceptions. Their English is what I referred to as the "one sentence" variety - after one sentence, they (and most likely you, unless you are just talking "at" them) are lost.

 

The ones who are the most fluent are the ones who have had interaction with native English speakers, whether in person or through watching and re-watching movies.

 

Any education system is only as good as what you can get out of it.

 

My students seem to pretty much be at an advance high school level - the papers I've gotten back have surprised me, as has their attentiveness. But, yes, always complaining about the "big words" that I like to toss up.

 

Exposure to actual Western speech and culture is very lacking in their education, except for people like us.

 

I have worked in the US with people who got bachelor's degrees in China, and went on to advanced degrees in the US - they are no slouch, believe me.

[chengdu4me]

Don't sell yourself short, Larry. You are the link between them and more fluent interaction with the western world. Up until now, their teachers have been Chinese - with rare exceptions. Their English is what I referred to as the "one sentence" variety - after one sentence, they (and most likely you, unless you are just talking "at" them) are lost.

 

The ones who are the most fluent are the ones who have had interaction with native English speakers, whether in person or through watching and re-watching movies.

 

Any education system is only as good as what you can get out of it.

 

My students seem to pretty much be at an advance high school level - the papers I've gotten back have surprised me, as has their attentiveness. But, yes, always complaining about the "big words" that I like to toss up.

 

Exposure to actual Western speech and culture is very lacking in their education, except for people like us.

 

I have worked in the US with people who got bachelor's degrees in China, and went on to advanced degrees in the US - they are no slouch, believe me.

 

 

Sell myself short? Hardly! All these kids have had native English speaking teachers for 8 years now. They can speak. They can't think on their own at any level or in any language. They are not taught to think. They are taught to memorize. That is all they are taught.

 

My classes are about thinking, listening, and speaking in English. Nothing else. But, one thing I am sure of is this. They also couldn't care less about thinking on their own. Out of 13 classes of 40 students each, I have 2 or 3 in each class that want to learn English. The rest are just spectators. They want nothing to do with participating in class. Fine with me. It's their parents money that is being wasted. I get paid the same whether they want to be there or not.

 

Yes, you have known some brilliant Chinese people...so have I...They are the very rare exception, not the rule.

[Stepbrow]

It is nice to get some reality based info from you guys teaching in China. It makes me question the theme of the original article. It sounds like the author was mainly using anecdotal information to base his argument, and not valid data.

[weiaijiayou]

The ones who were taught pinyin in school are basically taught a second system (like you are saying)- not all were. At one point, I had to tell my wife how to spell her son's name (she didn't know the western spelling). We are both saying that that is slow. It probably fits in better today because of the prevalence of second (or more) languages being taught (usually English).

 

Not sure why you haven't seen the other keyboard input methods. Ones supported by Microsoft include NeiMa, QuangPin, ShangPin, and ZhengMa.

 

You've also heard of the Chinese telegraphic code - an earlier system for basically the same thing

 

About Wubi,

For example, the popular Pinyin method requires little training; one need only transliterate the character being entered into English letters. However, since multiple characters correspond to a single pronunciation, isolating the desired character from a list of many, does slow and interrupt the process. In addition, phonetic input methods that use one Chinese dialect are unusable by speakers of another dialect.

 

Îå±Ê×ÖÐÍ (Wu3bi3zi4xing2) solves both the dialect problem and the speed problem. Wubi, as this text will refer to the method, has these advantages:

 

* Any Chinese character can be entered by using four or less keystrokes.

* Based on the written character, rather than pronunciation, multiple methods for different dialects are not necessary; therefore, Wubi is universal.

* A skilled operator can input 160 characters per minute, a rate exceeding any Western language.

 

http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/wubi/xing.html

 

If they would compare high school students against high school students with a similar level of education, I'll bet the picture would be much different.

Thanks for the info on this other type of input system, which I honestly had never heard of before. It seems like it would require a ton of memorization and practice, but once internalized it would save a lot of time. This would especially be true for typing characters that are uncommon, since a pinyin input system will require you to click through several lists before getting to the one you want. I asked my wife about these -- she looked confused at first until her face suddenly lit up. She said some of her older cousins know how to use these kinds, so it could be a generational thing (not saying you're old! ).

 

Thanks for the very interesting info, though. It's good to know even though I personally could not use this kind of input system; when I type, I can read the characters in order to use pinyin input but I wouldn't be able to type all the components for many of them...

[weiaijiayou]

It is nice to get some reality based info from you guys teaching in China. It makes me question the theme of the original article. It sounds like the author was mainly using anecdotal information to base his argument, and not valid data.

Yes, thanks for the different perspectives on Chinese students. I don't think they invalidate the point of the original article, though, since it seemed to me that it was mainly talking about where the young talent (e.g., fresh MBAs) are now seeing the brightest business and professional opportunities. One interesting thing is that, perhaps consistent with what chengdu4me is saying, China is still barely even on the radar screen for young people going into academia. From what I've seen, most Chinese people earning PhDs in the US who want to go into academia generally want to stay in the US. This obviously is related to funding opportunities and salary, but it may also have to do with the general climate of Chinese education, which does seem to focus less on innovation and discovering hot new ideas...

[knloregon]

interesting perspectives from expats teaching in China.

 

Here in Oregon, and my daughter's Chinese immersion studies, some come from China at either elementary or middle school and bring a fierce work ethic with them. At least as far as Chinese language and culture go, the immersion teachers (including my wife) pray that they will get one of these cross-over kids, because they will change the entire tone----and challenge----all the liberal white kids to do much better.

 

We have seen several cycles of this since Mandarin immersion started in 1998. Knowing some of the Chinese transplant kids--- (my daughters were pre-school, and from the orphanage, so don't really count), that have now been here for several years, I'm not seeing any lack of creativity, so either they were more malleable, and less whipped than predicted---or Portland Public Schools has one hell-of-a faculty when it comes to teaching creativity---the latter I seriously doubt.

 

The word time and time again, is this though: they come prepared to work, and have no, or low self-esteem. the first characteristic is instilled at home, and I do admit, the second is taught in school. Naturally, with low self esteem comes self doubt. And from a Chinese teaching perspective, that is the perfect mind set for a student to learn. Because the student knows, that she doesn't know the answer, and is in a posture and mentally prepared to learn.

 

Liberal western educations is exactly the opposite on this point: The student is taught that they DO know the answer, or that it is easily, and creatively within their grasp, just a few key strokes away. Even if they espouse an answer which is wildly wrong---they still get credit for participation.

 

The dilemma, is that the participation and the creative process is important, but so is the right answer. You go through the years, (k-12) without a lot of right answers, that you can build into a 'world perspective', and then you graduate.

 

Liberal colleges will take you just fine, (particularly private liberal colleges) ---but the faculty at most universities really would rather have the incoming freshmen, filled with lots of self doubt, a firm grasp of the basics of the world, and a mindset to learn. And, yes, flex their creative side. Thus the favorable argument for China's K-12 over the western liberal model as college prep. I agree its not perfect, and the Chinese system does need to encourage creativity, and independent thinking. If they do, as the original OP here----way back when---- suggests----we're doomed!