On their first trip outside China, four lecturers from Zhejiang Wanli University are visiting the University of Dundee to learn how teaching is delivered in Scotland and to prepare their students who arrive in September at the University to start their studies.
Mike Tooze, Wanli project manager who organised the visit, said "There are significant differences in teaching styles between China and the UK. In seminars and tutorials in the west, students are asked to participate and share opinions. But Chinese students are used to listening to the teacher following the Confucian master/disciple relationship. Asking questions or venturing an opinion is discouraged and the students themselves are afraid of losing face. Group work presents Chinese students with perhaps their biggest cultural challenge: they can find it intimidating. In lectures, Chinese students are used to copying notes from the blackboard and learning from the text. They can be bewildered by basic skills such as revision aids which British students take for granted."
Lianjiang Yu, Tian Jianying, Sunny Sun and Weidong (Adam) Chen will go back to China next week to prepare the first group of students due to arrive in September. Their visit involves learning teaching methods, attending staff and student meetings and discussing their research with other lecturers.
Weidong (Adam) Chen, is currently working with Dr Thompson from Electronic Engineering and Physics, Lianjiang Yu and Tian Jianying are working with Prof Powers and Mike Tooze in the Accountancy and Business Finance Department and Sunny Sun is working closely with the Centre for Applied Languages.
The Wanli Project is a partnership agreement signed in 1999 which aims to enable Chinese diploma students to complete their work for a degree at the University of Dundee by giving them direct entry into third year for both general and honours programmes.
Picture caption: 1.(l-r) Jianying Tian, Sunny Sun, Lianjian Yu, and Weidong (Adam) Chen look over work by students in a Electronic Engineering and Physics laboratory.
2.(l-r) Jianying Tian, Sunny Sun,Weidong (Adam) Chen and Lianjian Yu
3. (l-r) Dr Thompson working on a project with Weidong (Adam) Chen