Teaching for Understanding in China

Landing in China from Bangalore, I realized what a jolt it is not to share a common language with one’s companions. English is commonly spoken in southern India, so I rarely needed a translator in Bangalore. In China, I have discovered that most young people know at least some English. Students in China (at least in the major cities) now start learning English in school as early as first grade. (Does this make you wonder how early most American students start learning Chinese or any other language besides English?) This policy is a relatively recent one, however. So many adults in China do not speak or understand English, including many people working at the front desk of my hotel in Shanghai, the travel agent at the hotel, all the taxi drivers I met, and many waiters in the restaurants I visited. Fortunately, most Chinese people are friendly, patient, and good at sign language. I was also lucky to find bilingual people at all the crucial junctures. Still, it is a struggle to communicate across a big language barrier. I sympathize more deeply than before with immigrants who are dumped into schools or other places without knowing the local language and must start from scratch trying to make sense and express themselves.


Teaching for Understanding as a Common Language:

Speaking of common languages, I found that Teaching for Understanding does indeed provide a wonderfully rich means of communication, even when it has to work across cultural and linguistic divides. The elements and terms of the framework supported some wonderful conversations with Chinese educators about what they have learned from their online courses with WIDE World, how this learning is affecting their teaching and their work with colleagues, and how it is benefiting their students.

A Lovely Lesson at Pingnan Primary School in Shanghai:

I had a very exciting visit with a fifth grade English teacher names Zhang Yurong (who told me her English name is Lucia) at the Pingnan Primary School. My visit was arranged by Vicky Wang, a professor at a teacher training school in Shanghai, who completed the Teaching for Understanding I course and the coach development course through WIDE World. Vicky had offered to take me to see a teacher apply what she learned from the TfU I course. Ms. Zhang was the teacher she had in mind. When we arrived at the Pingnan School, Vicky and I were impressed to see an electronic sign greeting us as honored guests. This was followed by a warm welcome from the elegantly clad and coiffed headmistress (I begin to see why they say that Shanghai is the New York City of China), Zhang Xiao Juan (no relation to the teacher).

After a quick chat, with Vicky translating for Ms. Zhang and me, we were ushered down to the classroom where the lesson was already underway. I could hear the strains of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” wafting up the stairwell as Vicky, the headmistress, and several other teachers hurried in to the classroom to take our seats in the back of the room.

About 25 freshly scrubbed, pink-cheeked fifth graders were singing lustily in English and acting out the moves of the animals who live on MacDonald’s farm. As we settled into our seats, the teacher told the children that today they’d be sharing some of the ideas they had recently been studying about animals. “First, let’s talk about our favorite animals,” she proposed in a soft, but clearly audible voice. “Who knows what my favorite animal is?”
“A monkey!” suggested a young boy in the front row of seats. “You really love monkeys, don’t you?” responded Ms. Zhang warmly, and indeed this kid proposed “monkey” as the answer to nearly every question she posed during the 40 minute class. “But, no, that’s not my favorite.”
“A tiger!” said another boy. “No, I’m afraid of tigers.”
“A turtle!” said another student when Ms. Zhang called on her waving hand. “Yes,” said Ms. Zhang, as she opened a PowerPoint slide showing a photo of two turtles. “These are my two pet turtles. They have a lovely painted pattern on their shells, as you see. I have these two big turtles and…two small turtles,” clicking the slide to add the photo of her smaller pets. She talked about what she fed the turtles and then she asked, “What do you think the turtles are doing while I’m here at school?”
“They’re sleeping,” called out a kid when she acknowledged his raised hand.
“Yes, that right because now it is winter. In winter it’s (she paused) ‘very cold’ (called out several excited students), yes, and what do turtles do during the winter? They hibernate (she enunciated this word with emphasis, and the children repeated it as she pronounced it three more times and defined it for them.)

Then Ms. Zhang, showed a slide with the question, “What is your favorite animal?” and several categories: appearance, food, habits, etc. “Now turn to your neighbor and use these categories to talk about YOUR favorite animal,” she told the class.

Students were seated in five rows of paired desks and they quickly dived into a lively conversation with their partner. As the children exchanged their ideas in English, Ms. Zhang stopped at various desks to hear how students were talking, to prompt, correct, or stimulate, and (I learned later) to make mental notes about each student’s work.

In a few minutes, she convened the whole class again by clapping her hands softly, and began the next section of the lesson. A similar sequence ensued for each section. Ms. Zhang started the conversation with the whole class by introducing a question, such as “What are China’s unique animals?”, “How are animals involved in the Beijing Olympics?” (turns out that the slogan for the Olympics sounds like the names of five little creatures, including several animals. Later, I saw their pictures on posters all over Beijing.), “What do we get from animals?”, “What endangers animals in China?”, or “What do you want to do to help animals?”. After posing the question, Ms. Zhang led the whole class in opening out some ideas about the question through a conversation that included many open-ended questions, accompanied by stimulating images and phrases on one or more slides. She called on students who raised their hands, but so many wanted to speak that she easily managed to call on every student several times during the class.

Once the conversation about the topic warmed up with the whole class, she invited students to talk in pairs, with their neighbor or sometimes with whomever they wished. She roamed as students conversed in pairs and made her way to every student at some point during the class. After pairs had a chance to exchange ideas, she would reconvene the whole class, invite individual students to share responses, and pull together the group’s ideas, using pre-prepared PowerPoint slides with pictures and phrases that responded to the question under discussion. What endangers animals?—-pollution, not enough trees, less and less food, poachers, etc.

Clearly, the students had heard some of these concepts before. I learned later that they had all done some research in preparation for this lesson. Ms. Zhang had shared the set of questions with them, and collected some magazines and books about animals from the school library. She also made a list of websites that the students could consult if they had access to the Internet at home or during school. She encouraged them to do some research and to collect their thoughts before this class. Some students had made notes and read their answers to the questions during the class. Most spoke their answers spontaneously, although they had obviously done some thinking in advance.

For the final section of the class, Ms. Zhang started a conversation about what the students could do to help animals. Then she asked each student to write his or her answer on a piece of paper, and invited them to draw a picture about their answer, if they wished. I watched as kids around the room scratched their heads and planned their sentences. Then they wrote their answers, some with fat markers and big printed letters, others with pencils or pens in neat cursive, and a few with detailed drawings to accompany a few written words.

Suddenly, I realized that a student was waving his paper in front of me and wanting to share his work. “I want to be a zoo keeper and take care of animals,” he said eagerly, pointing to these words on his page. “That’s a good idea. Have you been to a zoo?” I asked. “Yes, I’ve been to the zoo in Shanghai,” he said. “It’s a good zoo and you should visit it.” Soon there was a wiggling line of students in front of me and each one wanted to show and tell his or her answer to the question. I was enchanted by their eager faces and their bold forays into speaking this foreign language with a stranger. I asked each one a question to extend our conversation and nearly every one was able to understand and respond to me. A few were shy or didn’t understand my question, and Ms. Zhang gently helped them into a response.

All too soon, time was up, and Ms. Zhang told the students to put their materials away because the class was over. “Good-bye!” they began to chime as they waved to me with huge smiles. “Welcome to Shanghai!,” “Would you like to see my stuffed animal?,” “I hope you visit the zoo.” “Good-bye!”

Impact of TfU and WIDE World:

I haven’t seen a better demonstration of Teaching for Understanding principles in action and I said so when the teacher, the headmistress, and the other English teachers convened in the conference room a few minutes later. But first, I was honored with a gift of two ceramic pieces made by one of the students at the school, to welcome me and to emphasize how much the arts are part of learning at this school. After offering a quick summary of the many aspects of the class that impressed me, I asked the teacher Ms. Zhang to talk about how this lesson was different from what she might have done before she took the TfU 1 course from WIDE World.
Ms. Zhang was prompt and precise with her answers. I have not yet transcribed the video and audio recordings I made, so what follows are paraphrases of her comments:
“I asked the students what they wanted to study in English class: festivals, families, animals. They selected animals and I was happy to build the unit around their interests. I don’t believe I would have invited them to pick the topic before I learned about the importance of connecting a generative topic to the students’ experience.”
“Also, I shifted my goals from just learning to understanding. Before, I might have focused just on correct vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and spelling. But after learning about understanding goals, I realized that it was also important for students to be able to speak fluently in conversation and to write vividly about ideas that interested them. So I became clearer about my understanding goals.”
“I also shifted my approach to assessment. Before, I would usually assess students by giving them a test at the end of a unit. Now, I realize that I can use formative assessments and informal observations during a lesson, to gauge what students are understanding.”

With the others around the table, we talked about what helps teachers carry out these kinds of practices in their classrooms. One of the other visitors, a teacher from a different school who also completed the TfU1 course, talked about how she has worked with other English teachers at her school. She said that she had planned a lesson about festivals during her work with WIDE. She convened the other English teachers and they all decided that they could each plan a unit about a festival for their classes of different grade levels. They would each focus on a different festival and plan lessons that were suited to their students’ interests and different degrees of proficiency with English. All the English teachers, both at her school and at Pingnan School, are free at the same time for two hours each week. This gives them a common time to plan and discuss their lessons. The other English teachers from Pingnan said they’d like to work with Ms. Zhang on designing lessons that looked more like they one they had just observed her teach.

Leading for Understanding:

Then we all went to the school lunch room to share a tasty lunch and more conversation. Several people had mentioned what a superb leader the headmistress was. In front of her, I asked the teachers what made her such a good leader. They smiled warmly and one said, “She is strict and she is nice.” Strict and nice, the others agreed. This reminds me of Ron Ferguson’s research on school cultures that support high performance for minority students: the key ingredients are high expectations coupled with plenty of support. Both are needed; neither one by itself is enough. The headmistress certainly has high expectations. Indeed, she pointed out her motto for the school on her card, “Let’s do it right at first time.” That does not mean that teachers should be afraid to try something new. But they should plan it carefully so that even the first try is a good one and they don’t waste resources, Headmistress Zhang explained through the interpreter. She also provides plenty of support and encouragement to all her teachers. She is wise about how she allocates her allotted school budget. I exclaimed about how pretty the building is and several people noted that the head mistress is largely responsible. She designed many of the handsome architectural elements. And she manages the budget so that the school has money to pay for some beauty, in addition to its high quality education program.

At this point, the headmistress indicated that she had something to say. My translator Vicky interpreted her words. “I want to take this WIDE World course myself so that I will know better how to support my teachers. And I will pay for all these teachers to take the course.” This last remark generated a buzz of excitement and the teachers’ faces broke into smiles of amazement. “I want our school to become a model of Teaching for Understanding for Shanghai,” concluded headmistress Zhang Xio Juan.

Then we took a brief tour of the school grounds. I learned that school was not in session this day, because students had already begun their month-long vacation around the Chinese New Year. Ms. Zhang had asked her fifth graders to come into school for that one period just so that I could see a lesson—and they had all shown up for this purpose! The teachers and headmistress showed me around the handsome school yard, designed by the headmistress herself, with lovely plantings and architectural elements that provide seating while inviting students to practice their music with the little flutes that every student learns to play. The overall effect was of an esthetic, orderly, focused learning environment where people work hard, have fun, and support one another joyfully.

Who could ask for more? I couldn’t have been more impressed by the lesson, the collegiality, or the leadership. If WIDE World is able to spread a common language that encourages and supports fine educators like these, and provides a way for them to articulate and share their good work with others, then we should feel thoroughly pleased.