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December 2008 |
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Shao visits Marion Local to teach Chinese |
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Thursday, 13 September 2007 |
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By Laura Mazur
Community Post
With each new school year comes new things.
At Marion Local, the new school year started off with a new class and a new teacher, bringing a new culture to the district.
Shao Jingjing, a visiting Chinese teacher, is teaching Mandarin Chinese I this year at Marion Local High School. The Maria Stein district is one of only 12 in Ohio to offer Chinese as a foreign language option this year.
Haling from Jining, in the Shandong Providence, the area the teacher currently stays is a bit smaller in comparison to her native city. Her native city, which she considers small, is populated by more than 1 million people. She is staying with host family Paul and Penny Mizer, of Maria Stein.
"The people are very friendly and nice. The environment is very beautiful," she said.
By native custom, the teacher inverts her last and first names in written speech, with Shao being her last name. She hopes to teach her 31 students a bit about her culture, including how to use sentences and dialects, characters and an introduction to Chinese festivals, food, clothing and games.
She said she looks forward to the "exchange of cultures in class. We have a deep and mutual understanding between us. I want to learn more about America."
And Shao will indeed learn while she teaches her Chinese classes in the morning and then sits in on other district classes during the afternoon to learn more about the United States and about teaching in the country. She will also be learning by going on field trips with classes of the school, such as to Washington, D.C. in October. Other places that interest her are San Francisco, New York and Hollywood.
"I want to travel and make some friends here, improve my spoken English and listening skills," she explained.
Also, she is learning about food and people. Shao said one difference is how food is cooked. Oil, garlic and onion are usually ingredients that add flavor to food in her Chinese household, but Americans use butter frequently. Another difference is people's relationships with animals.
"They treat animals like family," she said. "We treat animals as our friends, but not like a member of the family."
Tall buildings with many families serve as residences in her native city. Here, small buildings serve as single family dwellings.
Shao has a B.A. in English Education from Yantai Teacher's University and has been instructing English to 12-15-year-olds at the Junior Middle School (comparable to grades 6-9 in the U.S) since 2002. She said the difference in cultures even shows in the students. Chinese students are rather shy and sit very still, but American students want to move around, but are very creative.
Other area schools offering Chinese this year are Belpre, Chagrin Falls Exempted Village Schools, Shaker Heights City Schools, Tipp City Exempted Village Schools, Bellefontaine City School District, Genoa Area Local School District, Hubbard Exxempted Village School District, Jackson Local School District, Kent City School District, Piqua City School District and Crestwood Local Schools.
This is the last year Marion Local will be offering German, their German teacher having retired from full-time teaching last year, but returned to finish studies with students who had already taken German I and teach Advanced Placement English. Spanish and American Sign Language are also offered as foreign language options. Marion Local started the process to get the language as an offering last school year after seeing the program as as option and looked for community input and a host family.
Adding Chinese to the curriculum at Marion Local was done to improve educational options and help students with future employment opportunities after having a background in the language, which is the number one spoken in the world and one of the six official languages of the United Nations.
"It adds rigor to our curriculum, since it is a very demanding language to learn. I personally believe that if a student wants to be successful, they need to take the most rigorous courses they can. I realize GPA's and final class ranks are important for those going to college, but how you prepare yourself with the courses you take is just as important," explained Superintendent Carl Metzger.
Approximately 30 teachers were interviewed in late June for the 12 approved Ohio schools. Candidates needed to meet certain requirements, such as educational background, perceived ability to live away from home for a year, English language proficiency and methods and philosophies of teaching. Selected teachers then went to Beijing, China in early July for visa interviews and then attended a teacher orientation in mid-August in Columbus hosted by the Ohio Department of Education.
The Chinese government pays a stipend, not the host districts to the teacher. Marion Local does pay for Shao's health and dental insurance, though.
The goal is for the program to continue to grow. After two to three years of utilizing a visiting teacher, Marion Local will be able to hire their own full-time Chinese teacher. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 28 September 2007 )
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