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October 14, 2014

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Home » City specials » Hangzhou

Schools set goal to broaden young minds

By Xu Wenwen | October 14, 2014, Tuesday | Print Edition

HANGZHOU is embarking on an ambitious plan to internalize its schools. A big part of the plan is hiring foreign teachers and promoting “international understanding” in classrooms across the city.

Overseas teachers have long been sought to teach English, a compulsory subject, but Hangzhou also wants them teaching other subjects like mathematics, science, and art.

“The goal is to broaden the view of students and increase their cross-cultural understanding,” said Xu Jieyu, a Hangzhou Education Bureau official.

Earlier this year the bureau issued its Promoting Education Internationalization Plan with the principal goal of modernizing the curriculum.

The plan requires all 21 public high schools in the city to include foreign teachers by the end of this year. It also envisions all 50 elementary and junior middle schools employing foreign teachers by the end of 2017.

Lin Zhen, deputy chief of the principal’s office of Greentown Yuhua School, said there is a rising trend of Chinese students studying abroad.

“Classes taught by foreigners will help students better prepare for further study overseas,” Lin said.

“Teaching is not just about stuffing knowledge into their heads. It’s also important to broaden their outlook and taking foreign teachers’ classes can help students become more open-minded.”

Greentown Yuhua started hiring foreign teachers for English and other classes in the 1990s. It now has overseas teachers for German, Spanish, French, Korean and English courses.

Nuria Pitarque, who teaches Spanish at Greentown Yuhua School, said teaching foreign languages “opens doors to other parts of the world to students.”

The school’s German teacher, Michael Wilhelm, agrees and says his students are curious about other parts of the world.

“Students love to ask me about how German teenagers live their life,” he said.

Greentown Yuhua isn’t the city’s only school with foreign teachers.

Hangzhou Zhongce Vocational School has football and piano teachers from overseas. Hangzhou No. 2 Middle School has a foreign music and dance teacher. Hotel management classes are taught by a foreigner at Hangzhou Tourism Vocational School while Hangzhou No. 14 Middle School says two years ago it hired foreign teachers in mathematics, physics, and chemistry.

Annual subsidy

Ye Cuiwei, principal of Hangzhou No. 2 Middle School, said knowledge is no longer enough in the modern world.

“In the global era, learning how to use tools and how to think creatively are crucial skills,” Ye saud.

“Our German football teacher goes beyond just teaching how to play the game, but also shows students and other teachers how to be precise and conscientious about their work.”

Ye added the school plans to hire foreign science and engineering teachers.

The city’s education bureau provides a 120,000 yuan (US$19,586) annual subsidy to hire one foreign teacher to encourage schools to be “international.”

However, hiring an overseas teacher who teaches subjects other than languages is not always easy. According to regulations, to qualify as a “foreign expert” who doesn’t teach a foreign language, the candidate needs to be under 60, have more than five years of teaching experience and hold at least a bachelor’s degree.

Even if a school is willing to employ a foreign teacher or school administrator, wage demands are often too high.

One school teacher says most schools look for foreign teachers through agencies and occasionally exchange teachers with schools in other countries.

Aside from having more foreign teachers, education authorities also want to cultivate international understanding, according to Gao Ning, director of the Hangzhou Education Bureau’s International Communication and Cooperation Department.

“We want students to respect others, as well as themselves, and strengthen their cultural communication,” said Gao, adding the bureau is working on more plans to further this goal.

Nanxiaobu Elementary School has a class called international understanding. It merges ideas and concepts from this class into other subjects.

As one example, an etiquette class has been started because teachers say they noticed too many impolite children who also waste a lot of food in the lunch canteen.

Teachers have also designed a series of classes around global holidays. It includes China’s Spring Festival and Dragon Boat Festival to Christmas and Easter. The school says the classes teach history and some folk culture knowledge from a much wider perspective.

Hangzhou


 

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