JIU
Women's Ekiden Team
JIU's
Women's Ekiden team secured the 6th place in the Ekiden marathon
and automatically qualified for the next year's event. Considering
that this is a new team, they surprised everyone including
TV reporters.
Univ.
of California opens Beijing school
Japan Economic Newswire
(July 23, 2004)
Univ. of California opens Beijing school
BEIJING
A campus of the University of California,
which has a prestigious reputation in China, has opened a school in Beijing
for Chinese students to study English while avoiding the hassles of getting
U.S.
visas.
On Monday, the University of California
at Riverside began classes at its Beijing International Education Center in
a downtown office building after eight months of preparations.
Fourteen students have enrolled so far,
but after an ad blitz, the school expects up to 600 this year and up to 3,000
after building a separate Beijing campus from next year.
Foreign schools like the University of
California that offer Chinese students academic credits are a growing phenomenon
in China, but U.S. universities are relatively few here. Many Chinese students
want to study at U.S. universities, preferably in the United States, but student
visas are hard to get, students say.
'Due to economic and political problems
around the world, it has become increasingly difficult for international students
to go to the United States to study,' said Charlene Pratt, director of UCR's
China school.
'We at UCR feel that if the world cannot
come to us, then we will go to the world,' she said.
The state university, has similar schools
in Thailand and South Korea, intends to teach in a style that will give its
Chinese students the ability to work in their increasingly internationalized
society
without making the technical or cross-cultural mistakes common today, Pratt
said.
The 16 teachers, all native speakers
with teaching credentials, give 10-week courses in six levels of English plus
advanced lessons in English for the customer-service and event-management fields.
Too much of English spoken in China today
consists of memorized lines not backed by fluid conversational skills, she
said.
The school plans to contact Chinese organizations,
such as Air China, to suggest classes for their employees, Pratt said. 'What
we'd like to do is find a need and fill the need,' she said.
Other classes prepare students for studies
in the United States, where classroom expectations sometimes greatly differ
from those of China, and to become teaching assistants at U.S. universities.
UCR has said it will not use any more
Chinese teaching assistants unless certified by the Beijing school because
so many California students say they cannot understand their English, Pratt
said.
Tian Ye, 24, said he has found that American
teachers expect students to speak out when they do not understand. In China,
students keep quiet for fear of losing face or disrupting their teachers' lesson
plans.
He said he sees the Beijing school as
'a chance to communicate with real foreigners' and to learn about teaching
skills before going to Riverside, where he has been awarded a five-year chemistry
master's
scholarship plus a teaching assistant offer.
The Beijing credits should be recognized
by other overseas universities when students apply for admission.
The school expects eventually to enroll
other Asian students and offer Chinese language lessons to foreigners in Beijing
as well as expand into Shanghai and Xian, Pratt said.
-UCR host
to Educators from China
On Monday,
November 24th, Dr. Sheila Dwight of International Education Programs,
Dr. Sue Teele of Education Extension, and Eric Blum of Business,
Engineering and Technology met with a Chinese delegation from Guangdong
Province in China. The purpose of the visit was for the delegates
to:gain an understanding of the US education system and to discuss
the possibilities
for potential cooperation for training in language and management.
Jeffrey Williamson, Director, Center for International Trade Development,
was responsible
for arranging the group visit.
The 13 members of this Chinese Mission were leaders of education organizations
and principals of senior high , middle and primary schools. The highlight
of the meeting occurred when Dr. Teele administered her assessment
tool to determine the multiple intelligence strengths of participants.
When
she told one member that he had strong musical intelligence, all were
amazed to discover that he ranked as one of the top ten opera singers
in his province!
The session ended with Dr. Teele taking the delegation on a visit to
her office so they could all see her panoptic panoply of pandas.
Back
to news page
-Teachers Arrive in China for new UCR-Beijing International Education
Center
Thanksgiving Day saw our first group of teachers arriving in China to join
one fellow teacher and administrators already in Beijing. Unbelievably
enough, Mr. Jing, the head of Oriental University City, found a turkey
for a Thanksgiving feast. Not to be outdone, the second group, arriving
on Saturday, had dinner in a prison cell-- a five-star one! They were
all treated by Neal Wan of University Counseling China to a fantastic
Chinese dinner in a new restaurant with a prison motif. Way to go, teachers!
Back
to news page |
