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In Chinese classrooms

classroom

The interview excerpts in the following pages offer some impression of what it is like to study at middle school and at university in China.

In their interviews the students commented on:

  • the teaching styles they encountered, ranging from the rigidly traditional to more up-to-date and innovative;
  • the forms of assessment they underwent;
  • their experience of library research and academic writing, and what they learnt about referencing and plagiarism;
  • what makes a good student or a good teacher in China; and
  • where university students turn for help when they run into trouble in their studies.

For an excellent overview of China's education system, and an invaluable account of research findings on Chinese learners and the relationship between students and teachers in Chinese schools, visit the website of the eChina~UK Programme Opens in a new window, and follow the link through to the section on Education in China, and then through to the Overarching Research Project.

Another particularly illuminating source is the ethnography of a Chinese university, inside and outside class, written by Professor Ouyang Huhua of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies ( 2004). Themes from this work inform a presentation Professor Ouyang made at Portsmouth, UK, in 2006, a detailed summary of which is available in Thorpe (2006), pp. 9-12. Also of interest is Chapter V: "Pedagogy" in Agelasto (1998), another comprehensive study of a Chinese university, but written from an outsider's viewpoint.

For comments on current educational reforms in China, see Jin & Cortazzi (2006).

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