By Mengyu Ma, Jasmine Xiao
Mengyu Ma, Learning Experience Designer at Centner for Teaching and Learning, and Jasmine Xiao ’22 talked with Li Xu, M.A., Chinese Language Lecturer, about her initiative on the service-learning project in her Chinese courses, which allows international students to better engage with Chinese local community.
Ever since 2014, students from Peiben Elementary School in Kunshan have had special guest teachers in their classroom. Continuing the tradition, a group of Duke Kunshan University (DKU) undergraduate students has started their teaching in Fall 2019 semester. Prof. Li Xu, Chinese language instructor from the Language Culture Center at DKU, initiated the service-learning to enable her students, international students of DKU, to actively learn from an authentic environment.
Service-learning is an educational approach that links classroom learning with community service. DKU promotes this method of learning, as it deepens students’ understanding of academic subjects while providing opportunities to collaborate with local community partners and transform classroom knowledge into real-world experience. The mutual benefits of enhancing educational goals and providing needed services to a community also bond higher education with social development.
Prof. Xu’s two Chinese language courses (“Advanced Intermediate Chinese” and “First Year Chinese for Heritage Learners”) in Fall 2018 have shown a good example of how service-learning works at DKU. Students who participated in this project prepared and taught at least 3 international culture classes in Mandarin in an elementary school and assisted students’ clubs, including cooking, drama, and English. They were divided into groups of two or three to teach cooperatively. Throughout the project, students’ reflective journals written in Chinese were collected and graded, which were about their understanding of the local community, Chinese culture, behaviors of Chinese people and in-depth analysis based on their experience and observation.
Students gave positive feedback after they completed the project and would recommend it to others. They reflected that the project allowed them to “interact with the community in a way that would have been impossible without this project,” and led them to “grow interests not only in Chinese, but also in working with children and other school clubs that offer similar services.” One student added, “I hope other classes will also offer opportunities like the one we had in Chinese, since it motivated me to learn. Not only for myself, but also for the elementary schoolers I was teaching.”
Prof. Xu made many adaptations to ensure the successful implementation of service-learning at DKU. International students gain a great deal of experience by stepping out of campus and immersing themselves in an authentic Chinese-speaking environment. Service-learning provides the bridge between classroom knowledge and real-life experience. As a result, these Chinese language learners have gained confidence and effectively improved their language proficiency when they actively participated in the language use with the community.
Teaching in a classroom is a meaningful practice and production of knowledge. As one student said, “I think the service-learning gave me a chance to really practice my Chinese and grow my confidence in speaking. Although I had to spend a lot of time preparing, I think it was well worth it.” Prof. Xu selected the service target very carefully. To build up confidence and affirmation of her students in second language learning, Prof. Xu believes that elementary school students are perfect to help these international students overcome negative affections (awkward, stressed, embarrassed, etc.). Young kids are energetic, friendly, and always give positive reactions. Some DKU students expressed concern regarding their ability in spoken Chinese, but the elementary school students were patient with the range of accents and were eager to help, which made the service-learning project enjoyable for both parties.
Pugh & Philips (2011) claim if the tasks are authentic, students are more likely to see the genuine utility value of work and are also more likely to find the tasks meaningful and interesting (as cited in Hoy, 2015, page 498).1 As weekly teachers of the classroom, DKU international students played a role in the elementary schoolers’ education. Thus, a sense of belonging and rewarding motivated them to work harder at learning and speaking Chinese in the future.
Service-learning provides rich opportunities for international students who study Chinese to practice the language in an authentic environment with native speakers. Most importantly, the high-level motivation of any language learners is imperative and beneficial. In this case, Prof. Xu’s service-learning project encourages students to develop an emotional dedication to the language and culture while they’re able to take advantage of their location.
The implementation of service-learning is mature and successful in some of the U.S. universities. Any subjects could include such a project to promote active learning. The way of enhancing academic goals and contributing to a local community at the same time brings students to an authentic learning environment. The emotional connections built in this procedure would internally motivate students in future learning.
Please watch the video created by Prof. Xu and her students at the end of the semester: https://duke.box.com/s/ecvobogstjvy4mdfy2dp7k1b4pfc6fmp
Reference
- Hoy, Anita Woolfolk. Educational Psychology. Thirteenth Edition, Global Edition. Harlow: Pearson, 2015. Web.
Faculty Introduction
Li Xu
Lecturer in Chinese language, Duke Kunshan University
Li Xu is a lecturer at Duke Kunshan University in China. She has taught Chinese classes at all levels. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Beijing Normal University. Before joining Duke Kunshan in 2014, she served as a lecturer at Princeton University from 2007 to 2011 and the Language Director at the Alliance for Global Education from 2011 to 2014. Li Xu has also worked as an instructor at the Middlebury College Chinese School, a lead teacher at the Princeton in Beijing Intensive Language Program, and the Academic Director at the Critical Language Scholarship Program in Beijing and Middlebury Interactive Language Beijing Academy.
