Educators from Lanzhou Jiaotong University (LZJTU), a science and engineering university in Central China, came to Iowa State University last summer to improve their research skills and language teaching ability. During a four-week Iowa State University Extension teacher-training program, 20 LZJTU faculty members experienced Iowa school systems, Iowa culture and the rich resources of a land-grant institution.
The visitng teachers were led by Hua Bai, vice dean of the School of Foreign Languages at the university located in the capital city of Gansu Province in Central China. She said the 19 faculty members who participated in the program were greatly satisfied by what they learned while they were in Iowa and would use what they had learned when they returned home.
One Lanzhou faculty member shared the following thoughts: "Life with you helps to broaden our vision. Our teaching usually is too much focused on exams, or preparation for exams, which is contrary to the theme of education. Your teaching has made me convinced that I need to make a change in this aspect. In the past, I have been a strict teacher of whom so many students are afraid. Now, I have changed. My mission is to inspire their stronger interest in English and greater efforts towards the goals they have set for themselves. This has brought favorable feedback. They tend to like my teaching better. What is more, the teaching result becomes better."
Barbara Schwarte, interim director for ISU’s Intensive English and Orientation Program, has a background in training teachers to teach English. She said she was pleased by the opportunity to offer this train-the-trainer program through ISU Extension, and she hopes that “this (exchange) will be the first of many more to come.”
Joan Chamberlin and Karina Silva, co-instructors for the program, kept the group busy with research activities that culminated in a mini-conference on the final day of the program. The course provided an update on language teaching methodology and a range of workshops that focused on creating interaction in the language classroom, computer assisted language learning and cross-cultural exploration.
In addition to the classroom and library activities, the group was also introduced to new cultural experiences in Iowa: browsing the Ames Public Library, witnessing the exuberance in the RAGBRAI bicycling event during its stop in Ames, attending the Iowa State Fair, visiting the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, barbequing in picturesque Pella, wading into the Mississippi River, collecting fossils in Rockford, and practicing the art of consumerism at the Mall of America in Minnesota.
Perhaps what some of them enjoyed most were the trips to visit the elementary, middle, and high schools in Ames. They even had the opportunity to interview a fourth grade teacher at Fellows Elementary School, who explained what a typical day looks like for a fourth-grader and how subjects are taught, and how classes are structured at the school. The four-week experience was further enhanced by the involvement of Chris Rozendaal, an ISU English lecturer who teaches at Lanzhou Jiaotong University. Rozendaal has lived in Lanzhou since 2005 and was happy to play the role of host; attending to the various needs of these teachers.
“We received much more than what we expected,” Bai said. The group was impressed by the enthusiasm and dedication that the two Intensive English instructors demonstrated.
Hongling Lai, the vice chair of the English department at LZJTU, could not agree more. She spent most of her nights during the four weeks at the university library, excitedly poring over the many online research journals that she had access to while she was enrolled in the program.
The director of ISU’s International Cooperation and Exchange Office, Dianjian Wang, said he was extremely pleased with the results of the 2008 training program. He is working hard with Sok-Leng Tan of ISU’s Global Extension program to bring in another cohort of teachers to ISU for a similar training experience next summer.