What sort of Chinese students have you got?

Trip Start Oct 05, 2004

Trip End Jun 30, 2005

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Flag of China Dongguan, China
Friday, March 18, 2005

In one of my new classes I was doing a get to know each other exercise which involved students writing answers to different questions about themselves and then giving only the answer to the other students who had to guess what the question was. It's quite good fun, very simple and productively time-consuming! People who've taught EFL will know what I mean.

The thing that fascinated me were the answers to the questions, "Who do you admire most?" and "Who did you look up to when you were young?" I've done this with other adulte students of different ages and backgrounds since and 98% of the answers are either Mao Tse Tung, Zhou Enlai, or Deng Xiaoping. It's repeated almost verbatim without thought. The majority of the time I can easily forget the political system, because it's not a factor in daily life, but this is a little reminder.

Occasionally, you'll get someone who will answer differently, and it's safe to say that person is different - not necessarily in what they think, but in their self-confidence. As a teacher it's great to find these things out.