The past few weeks I've been working on my final exams with my students. The exam is as follows: a one minute speech on either (1) your best friend, (2) your favorite sports and hobbies, or (3) your summer holiday. All relatively easy topics that we've covered in my past classes.
I gave all the students a week to prepare and then we started the exam. Let me start by saying it was a bizarre experience. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but what I got was definitely not it.
Each student is assigned a number, rather than alphabetical order, which is not really possible with Chinese Characters. What I got was basically an assembly line of speeches.
In numerical order, the students obediently filed to the front of the class and began to recite, from memory, a highly unoriginal speech about their best friend Jack or Mary, which I later discovered was copied almost word for word from their English book.
"My Best Friend. My best friend is named Jack. He is the tallest boy in our class. He is almost 1.75 meters tall. He has short black hair and black eyes. Jack has poor eyesight so he always wears a pair of glasses. They make him look smart. Jack has a good sense of humor. He always makes me laugh. I never feel bored or unhappy when he is with me. Jack and I may not get to see each other often, but we will always be best friends."
"My Best Friend. My best friend is named Mary. She has shoulder length hair and bright smiling eyes. They make her look kind. Mary is a nice girl. She is always willing to give her seat on the bus to someone in need. Mary wants to be a social worker when she grows up. I think she will be a good social worker. She is a good listener and she always helps me with my problems. Mary can keep a secret. I think we will be best friends until the end."
I have 900 students. Approximately 95% of them recited some variation of this speech. I would bet big money that my speeches above are over 90% similar to what my students have in their English textbooks.
This is not only okay, it is expected. Even some of my best students recited this garbage (although their pronunciation and fluidity was far superior). Extra points to the students who attempted to insert their actual best friend's name into the mix.
After about 10 of these speeches I had to adjust my grading scale. 80 points for just attempting to speak (It's scary to stand up in front of a room of 50 people and try to speak a foreign language). 85 for reciting the best friend speech. Plus or minus points for pronunciation, length, and attempting to add original content.
Students who attempted the "Summer Holiday" or "My Favorite Sports and Hobbies" speeches unsurprisingly did much better… Likely because they must have been much more confident in their English skills to venture that far out of the box.
The Chinese education system is largely focused on the memorization of facts. Originality and creativity are not much of a concern. And these kids memorize a lot of facts. My average student spends about 10+ hours a day at school or at home studying. If there was an international contest on who could recite anything that can be easily memorized, the Chinese would win hands down.
Originality, creative thinking, and explaining these memorized facts in your own words is probably a different story. If the Chinese figure out how to teach their kids to think for themselves, the rest of the world will definitely be answering to them.
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