2015 nclc - 21st-century schooling: engaging chinese teachers in discourse on classroom management...

Dr. Marjorie Hall Haley- George Mason University Dr. Lihong Wang- George Mason University Dr. Sherry Steeley -Georgetown University

1 Haley, Steeley, Wong (2015)

Increased demand for Arabic and Chinese teachers in U.S.

Focus on classroom management and discipline and how teachers address these challenges across languages and cultures of U. S. schooling.


Based on “Planning for Today’s Learners: Effective Classroom Management and Discipline.

Blended learning activities

Multiple opportunities to explore and examine transitioning to a learner-centered classroom.

Utilizing classroom management skills and strategies with millennial learners.


Focus on critical dimensions of effective classroom management (Kounin, 1970):

1. “withitness” 2. smoothness and momentum 3. behavior expectations 4. variety and challenge Focus on classroom management at the

beginning of the school year


Pre-survey

Post-survey

Group interview protocol

Online discussion boards


Combination of Arabic and Chinese pre-service and in-service teachers

Public and parochial K-12 schools

Range of teaching experience

Native and heritage speakers

All participants were female, ranging from 23-51 years old.

All volunteered for this study


How do Chinese and Arabic teachers negotiate the cross cultural challenges inherent in classroom management?

How do culturally and linguistically diverse

teachers/ teachers of critical languages experience school culture?

How do teachers of critical language perceive

their identity as teachers?


Based on pre-/post- survey results, extensive learning in specific areas of classroom management directly relevant to student

Example: Survey Question: Describe your level of knowledge about classroom management skills and strategies Pre-Institute: 5.26% high level Post-Institute: 40.0% high level


Overcoming cultural challenges: Socio-political context Student-teacher relationship Learning styles Thinking styles Praise Interactions with parents


Developing a Cross-Cultural Classroom Management Plan: Incorporating culture of origin into U.S. classroom Using L1 Student centeredness


Negotiating School Culture and Developing Classroom

Management Plans


How do Chinese and Arabic teachers negotiate the cross cultural challenges inherent in classroom management?

How do culturally and linguistically diverse

teachers/ teachers of critical languages experience school culture?

How do teachers of critical language perceive

their identity as teachers?


Dealing with differences directly:

“You can always tell the haves and have-nots…”


Heterogeneous population as challenge:

“I might be confused what kind of rules are acceptable for all students…”


Different ethnic backgrounds:

“I personally found that it is very difficult not to think about the ethnicity and race…I am still working on that.”


Negotiating cultural differences:

“…American parents sometimes have their own thoughts about education.”


Presenting teacher culture to parents:

“…Communicating with parents is not easy…explaining our Chinese classroom culture to parents is very, very important.”


Diversity of parent cultures vs. U.S. school culture:

“…not familiar with USA’s classroom and school policy…”


School support:

“the counselor, the principle and the favorite teacher might get involved...”


Peer input

“…how American teachers respond to the students…”


Due to cultural differences, a strong management plan is critical:

“my perception regarding the importance of having a classroom management plan…”


Rules must be explicit:

“…I will just make the classroom rules clear..”


From “sage on the stage” to guide on the side…:

“…in a typical classroom in the U.S., the teacher acts like a fellow learner who have more expertise in the subject…”


Motivation is key:

“…working hard and they will get my attention (help) 100%.”


From negative to positive feedback:

“I need move my focus from negative side to good side when I view students.”


Awareness of and planning for cultural differences:

“…we need to include all students' cultural background .”


Proverbs as input:

“Engineers of the human soul.”

“一日为师，终生为父“ (If you teach me 3 days, you will be my parents forever)”


Teachers’ cultural beliefs:

“…teacher should have the students’ undivided attention…students should face the board.”


School

culture:

Leadership

& Peers

Student

cultures

Parent

cultures

Student-

centered

classrooms

Teaching

models


Qualitative data samples

(culture and identity issues)

How do Chinese and Arabic teachers negotiate the cross cultural

challenges inherent in classroom management? How do culturally and linguistically diverse teachers/ teachers of

critical languages experience school culture? How do teachers of critical language perceive their identity as

teachers?


Existing literature Perceptions of US school culture

Chinese educational culture strongly influences how Chinese immigrant teachers perceive themselves in an overseas context (Pratt, Kelly, & Wong, 1999), and have suggested that their professional identities tend to be authoritarian and teacher-centered as a result of the impact of Confucianism (Gao & Watkins, 2002; Ho, 2004).

American educational culture is characterized by a low power distance and higher level of equity in teacher-student relationship and by students’ active role in choosing teaching and learning activities.


I totally agree with you that how to motivate students is very difficult. This

is even harder for us as foreigners because we have different culture

backgrounds with our students. I always want to use humor in my

classroom to let my students feel this class is interesting, so they have more

motivation to learn this class. However, this does not always work well. I

had the same experience with you. Last semester, I used a lot of time

creating activities in order to engage student, but turned out they did not

like many activities. Therefore, now I am a little bit confused what kind of

activities will attract students' attention. I still need to learn how to

motivate them.


In Chinese culture, teachers are authority figures towards students. I also want to become the authority figure when I become a teacher, because I don't want my class to be out of control. But at the same time, I don't want students to be too afraid of me, their fear might influence their engagement. I want to have great interactions with my students. I think this is the biggest challenge for me.

I thought once I enter the classroom, the students will meet me with the respect I had for my teachers when I was student. Here in U.S schools teachers have to earn the respect with good classroom management.


According to my culture, managing my classroom meant everyone is sitting quietly listening to me. Shifting from that to adapt what I have been learning, I will just make the classroom rules clear. And work harder in the beginning of the year to establish routine and gradually let the students take big part of the responsibility of their learning.

Also, my communication style was so different from that of my students that it led to many unpleasant and conflictive moments. Now, I became more aware of my personal identity and more appreciative of the diverse cultural backgrounds of my students. This will help me in managing my classroom by considering all students and different cultural backgrounds.


I feel the same regarding how to find the right balance between lecturing and interactive activities. As you mentioned, we should always have a purpose while implementing games into our lessons. The games are included in the lesson because they will facilitate the learning further, not only because they are fun.

I like the fact that everyone is talking about fun and games. HOWEVER, as we all know, learning is not always fun, but it's drudgery and hard work too. Sometimes I worry if I have too much fun with the kids. That's when I hold back and pull on the reins a little.

Before, I thought playing games and working in groups wasn't part of teaching-learning . Now I understood that while students are rotating and playing game they are learning too. (Arabic teacher)


Due to the fact that I went through the majority of my education in typical Chinese classrooms, I feel that my biggest challenges is how not to assume while carrying out my classroom management plans. While introducing the classroom rules and routines to my students, I shouldn't assume that the students will automatically follow them. There should be thorough explanations and discussions involved regarding the rules between my students and me. Modeling is absolutely necessary, and there should be consequences and positive rewards built in to ensure consistency and fairness.


I think the biggest difference between Chinese culture and here is the value towards people. We tend to focus on conformity and obedience in appearance, in other (sic) to achieve that, we always take the short cut sometimes including harsh criticism and discipline. The focus is on result not on people. But here, all students are respected and their needs are being addressed individually. The focus is on students as individual, result is the by product of good relationship and inspiration. It takes longer to achieve the result, but it also last longer and a much happier experience for students.


One example is: American students don't expect homework during weekends while Chinese teachers tend to give more homework during the weekend. I grew up in a culture that teachers thought we had more time to do homework during weekends, so I had more homework on weekends than during weekdays. Sometimes I apply my American mind (which I have developed after 3 years teaching); sometimes I apply my Chinese mind. It really depends on what kind of issue, and we as teachers need to be flexible to deal this them.


In other words, We always tell students don’t do this, don’t’ do that, rarely to encourage them to positively participate the classroom activities. We did not give them enough praise no matter by tone, by words, or by prices.

The Chinese culture, as most people have already mentioned, emphasizes a lot on discipline. Although it is all that helpful in the American tradition, it does provide a model for how an organized classroom should look like. However, we should use positive reinforcement, instead of negative reinforcement, to reach that goal. Meanwhile, we also learned that an organized classroom created by positive reinforcement is a lot more friendly and encouraging environment than one created by negative reinforcement.


Classroom management problem is much easier for teachers to handle if teaching in China. My classroom management plan is influenced by this culture, I also want to be the authority figure when I become a teacher. However, American students are not the same. I noticed there are two characteristics of American education. First one is the diversity of the members and the second one is the foundation of freedom and democratic value. The population of American students are heterogeneous, it consists of students from all over the world. These students come with diverse cultural, linguistic and historical background. They might not value my classroom management culture and might /can not understand my plans. Most importantly, they value the spirit of freedom and equality. Therefore, I need my class to be student-centered, I will give students authority and choices in class. I should earn the respect and authority by my own efforts instead of take that for granted.


I definitely agree with you that communicating with parents is not easy! I heard many Chinese teachers complain about this. I think your solution that explaining our Chinese classroom culture to parents is very very important. Parents should know that this is just our culture instead of thinking we are not high-quality teachers. We should keep an openly (sic) communication with our students' parents, after all, we have the same goal---promote students' learning.


The use of technology to classroom management and the introduction of new technology to classroom, both can help building our relationship with student. Students usually hold the belief that Chinese teachers are very conservative. If we are able to introduce something new and interesting to our students. They will be : OMG, this is so cool. This will make the classroom more efficient and also as teachers, we can increase our influence.


As we discussed yesterday, it is always a challenge to use

target language while maintaining classroom management, therefore we need to go beyond the verbal communication and use body language, eye contact, and of course, technology! With their interactive nature, the tech tools often provide comprehensible input to our students and help them to understand the subject better.

(one Chinese teacher also said that now she used more body language in the US classroom)


“we define who we are by where we have been and where we are going’

(Wenger, 1998, p.149)


Teacher’s perception of him or herself influences his or her actions (Fraser, 2011).

‘’identity is closely related to practice; and the construction of one’s identity is related to identification and meaning negotiation within community” (Wenger, 1998, p.149)

A prevalent assumption in studies of immigrant teachers’ identities and beliefs is that because of beliefs and identities formed earlier in their lives, adapting to a new educational system brings challenges and transformation in teachers’ identities and views on teaching. (Wang & Du, 2014).


Teachers’ beliefs about their roles as teachers and about student-teacher relationships are shaped by both their prior experiences and backgrounds and the current social and cultural contexts in which they are situated.(Wang & Du, 2014)

Teacher’s professional identity has a dynamic and shifting nature, subject to cultural, contextual, and personal influences (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009).

Identity change is an active process of negotiating meaning between the individual and the outside sociocultural context (Xu, 2013). Trend (2010) argues that experiences of border-crossing are consequential for identity because they can involve a feeling of becoming someone new (Trend, 2010, p.2)


Reconciling the duality of teacher’s culture and U.S. classroom context

Macro and micro factors impacting learning and communication

Process approach to classroom management led to positive results

This study is further evidenced of the

strength and importance of StarTalk programs and their impact.


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