Yanyin Yu, or more commonly known by her American name, Nicole Yu, is an international fourth-year transfer student at the University of California, Berkeley. She is of Chinese descent; born and raised in the Guangdong province of southeast China, Nicole didn’t move to America until she turned sixteen years old. She spent her entire childhood in China – receiving an education from Chinese educators, socializing in Mandarin and Cantonese with her friends, and immersing herself in her own native culture for most of her life. Prior to immigrating to America, Nicole attended a public school in China where all of her teachers were Chinese natives. At Nicole’s school in China, however, English is a required course of study taught mostly by emphasizing English vocabulary, completing short one-page writing assignments, and practicing spelling. Learning English pronunciations and engaging in realistic English conversation wasn’t the goal for educators in China. The goal in China was to prepare students to pass their post-high school exam, which was their ticket into attending a university. The exam is highly demanding for Chinese students because it requires knowledge of English reading, comprehension, spelling and writing. For Nicole, the most stressful part of this exam was that students taking it …show more content…
She says these courses helped reinforce her writing and public speaking skills, and it was in community college where she gave her first formal presentation entirely in English, which to her felt both nerve-wracking and liberating. After completing two years of community college, Nicole filled out her transfer student application to UCB, UCLA, UCSD, and UCI. Giving credit to her essay about immigration and English-learning, Nicole was admitted to all four universities, but decided to attend Berkeley due to its proximity to her family and
English as a communication tool holds prominent position in Chinese curriculum (Liu, 2012). Learning English as a Second Language (ESL) has seen its boost in China (Qiang & Wolff, 2007). Mastering English is an asset for students in job hunting and further education. As academic achievement is highly valued in Chinese culture, students are expected to achieve high marks in English tests (Liu, 2012). University students need to pass National English proficiency examinations, which are the part of the evaluation for obtaining degrees (Wolff, 2010). Students attend after-school English courses for enhancing their English because of the pressure (Liu, 2012). The majority of ELL students aim at improving the international English proficiency tests results, such as International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). ELL students are more motivated in the after-school English courses because of the high-target learning environment. However, the teacher-centred learning procedure neglects the long-term enhancement of students’ English level. The ignorance of the long-term development is due to less student involvement during the teaching procedure (Mo, 2012). Some Chinese ELL students choose to attend ESL courses abroad. The reasons are that they can have a better language environment (Wolff, 2010) and can engage more in the learning procedure (Smith & Hu, 2013). The aim of the study is to compare the teacher-centred teaching in China and student-centred teaching in Canada and to examine efficient teaching methods for Chinese speaking ELL
Yung, Judy. Chinese Women in America: A Pictorial History. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1989.
"How can she thing she can blend in? Only her skin and her hair are Chinese. Insideshe is all American-made. It's my fault she is this way. I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?" (288).
Similarly, Wong also grew up in America with a traditional Chinese mother. In contrast, Wong’s upbringing involves her mother forcing her into attending two different schools. After her American school day, Wong continues on with Chinese school to learn both cultures. Her mother felt it was her duty to “[. . .] learn the language of [her] heritage” (Wong 144). This puts a burden on Wong as she starts to despise the Chinese culture.
Towards the end of the book, there is a definite line between the differences of the two generations. Lindo Jong, whose daughter, Waverly, doesn't even know four Chinese words, describes the complete difference and incompatibility of the two worlds she tried to connect for her daughter, American circumstances and Chinese character. She explains that there is no lasting shame in being born in America, and that as a minority you are the first in line for scholarships. Most importantly, she notes that "In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you." (p. 289)
During the period of colonial rule, the Chinese community received the least amount of support from the colonial government from an education perspective. Teachers and students alike were subjected to biased treatments for example, Chinese school teachers received a lower remuneration as compared to English school teachers and Chinese middle school graduates also found themselves with the predicament of no employment opportunities. This is consistent with the newspaper article titled, Education in Chinese that says, “Yearly, there are thousands of Chinese schools passing out from vernacular schools who are left jobless and ramble up and down the streets of the Federation because they have no bilingual qualifications.” The Chinese community had to finance their own schools as well as the employment of teachers from China.3 Predictably, the teachings in Chinese schools here, correspondingly modeled that as in China: with textbooks being imported from there.3 Students were taught “compilations that were vehicles of Confucianism” and materials that reiterated lessons of filial piety and loyalty towards one’s land.3 Chinese schools in...
In the early years of my life, adapting to the foreign customs of America was my top priority. Although born in America, I constantly moved back and forth from Korea to the US, experiencing nerve-racking, yet thrilling emotions caused by the unfamiliarity of new traditions. Along with these strange traditions, came struggles with accepting my ethnicity. Because of the obvious physical differences due to my race, the first question asked by the students in elementary school was, “Are you from China?” These inquiries were constantly asked by several of American students until middle school which transformed to “You must be good at math” referencing the stereotypical intellect that Asian are perceived to have. Through continuous insult on my Asian heritage, I began to believe and later hate the person I was due to criticism made by teenagers which I started to see true despite all the lies that was actively told. This racial discrimination was a reoccurring pattern that
Amy Chua (2011) names off three reasons that support her argument in why Chinese children are more successful. First, she mentions that Westerners worry too much on how their child will accept failure, whereas Chinese parents assume only strength in their child and nothing less. For example, if a Western child comes home with a B on a test, some parents will praise the child on their success and some may be upset, while a Chinese parent would convince their child they are “worthless” and “a disgrace.” The Western parents hope to spare their children’s feelings and to be careful not to make their child feel insecure or inadequate, while Chinese parents demand perfect grades because they believe their children can get them (Chua, 2011). Secondly, Chinese parents believe their chil...
Stories like Li’s are becoming increasingly. “Most of my Chinese students have troubles during their study in the U.S. due to tones of unaware vocabulary, including everyday vocabulary,” Jin Jin, a Chemistry professor currently works in WIU says, “It confuses me how they could get accepted by WIU in the first place.”
Chua believes that Chinese parents force their children to be academically successful in order to reach “higher” goals in life. She emphasizes this when she states “…Chinese parents have … higher dreams for their children…” (Chua 8). Although Amy set higher s...
Amy Tan admits that the language spoken in the family, notably in immigrant families, plays a significant role in shaping the language of the child. Tan acknowledges that Asian students do better in science and math but struggle in English. She mentions that maybe teachers discourage them away from writing and into math and science because of their “broken” English.
In a word, both family and school play a crucial role in American born Chinese’s socialization process. Both of them influence ABC’s behaviors, norms and personalities.
In Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiographical piece “Silence”, she describes her inability to speak English when she was in grade school. Kindergarten was the birthplace of her silence because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed of her inability, and when moments came up where she had to speak, “self-disgust” filled her day because of that squeaky voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that she never talked to anyone at school for her first year of silence, except for one or two other Chinese kids in her class. Maxine’s sister, who was even worse than she was, stayed almost completely silent for three years. Both went to the same school and were in the same second grade class because Maxine had flunked kindergarten.
The problem started with her mother because she spoke broken English. She had a hard time during her life when she moved to the US because she couldn’t speak English well. The first reason was mixed the English with Chinese, and they used code. The family didn’t practice the language. On one day Amy Tan 's mother exposed to a lot of attitude and that’s bothering her because when she spoke to the native speaker some people understood 50% and the other did not understand her. Since she wants to order something they didn’t give her a nice service, or tried to ignore her, but Amy Tan always tried to fix the problem for her mother because she can speak the English clearly. Amy Tan 's mother felt depressing and Her daughter decided to make her mother glad, so she made a huge deal for her mother because she made her mother tried to speak English by explaining the English words to Chinese, and that’s made the English for her mother more easily just to be in touched with the American people. Even Amy Tan 's mother was struggling with English, but she plain in her life goal that’s mean nothing impossible to do it, and everything from learning could be possible. If anyone would something they
The very first important development for a successful country is to have a respectable education system for those who need it from the first day they are born into the world. We have to instill what we want in our people to reflect how we want our to development to appear. In china their school system has more of a strict structure for example, at Harbin Number One High School; students begin school at 7:00 a.m., and remain until 8:20 p.m. The seniors, preparing for their final examinations, stay later, even until 10:00 at night.(Rybak) In a Chinese school the day are much longer than an American school day. This means that Chinese student spend a lot more time in school which bring us to conclusion that Chinese are more advantaged then the American student in long run. This prepares them for college or even the young adult can be bio-lingual. Most American student usually attends school for seven hours each weekday and may forget what they have learned because it in instilled into the young adults’ heads like the Chinese do with their students.