Chinese and Dutch Students interact

Every year, The Hague University of Applied Sciences takes in well over a hundred students from mainland China. Therefore we have piloted a video conferencing based introduction programme named  ‘Studying in The Hague’ with a number of them. Key to the success of this pilot was the interaction between our home and the new students. We hold that acculturation is a two way process with both groups meeting adjusting to each other. As such the pilot involved students in joint assignments made possible by both synchronous (skype/WIMBA) and asynchronous (E-mail/Blackboard discussion boards) WEB based contact.

Remediation tends to be emphasised strongly in preparing foreign students for their courses in our international classrooms. We opted for English language proficiency that tends to be the Achilles’ heel of  many Chinese students. We set up a full 13 week Blackboard course making use of the INTUIT Language Toolbox and a number of weekly assignments for joint production with the home students. The latter was not really a success.  Students worked in a haphazard fashion and most gave up on it some three or four weeks into the course.

Screen shot of online exercise in BB created with Hot Potatoes


WIMBA and webcams

In addition we provided a weekly teacher-led online lecture through WIMBA Classroom that worked very well with both Chinese and home students connected through web cams.  Most students got used to seeing themselves online quickly and appeared to enjoy participating in the class activities.
A problem however was the 7 hour time difference with China requiring our home students to start early which does not seem to agree with young people and lack of bandwidth for some Chinese students. (See video clip)

Screen shot of WIMBA classroom – teacher view


Internet security?

WIMBA classroom worked fine until once the Chinese government’s Golden Shield initiative, or China’s great Firewall made its presence felt during a class on Dutch politics. Our screens went blank twice and contact could only be restored after skipping the Powerpoint slide that contained the word ‘democracy’. Internet security is an issue to be reckoned with in E-learning.

Second pilot

In the first pilot a full distance learning course of English at intermediate level CEFR B1 to B2 or IELTS band 5 to 6 was offered through Blackboard in conjunction with an online synchronous acculturation course via WIMBA classroom. Twelve Chinese students were invited to take part. Twelve international students of the Hague university were contracted to act as language learning and acculturation coaches. They had undergone and survived the culture shock of studying abroad and were expected to share their experiences with the Chinese students in a mentor or coaching role.

Our experiences: The English course did not work out well. Students gave up on it and experienced insufficient incentives to put in the amount of work required for successful completion of the course. Chinese students are strongly exam focused and as our distance course was self-paced and self-assessed they found the concept too unfamiliar to take it seriously, the more so because Dutch Higher Education requires minimum scores in internationally recognised exams such as TOEFL or IELTS.

Relations between the European student-coaches and the Chinese students became strained in some cases. The Chinese students resented the linguistic superiority of their coaches and found the criticism e.g. on their learning or use of English as expressed by their coaches difficult to deal with. The online lectures however were quite successful partly because they were teacher-led and as such familiar to the Chinese students, but also because they contained cultural material the students were really curious about.

So we implemented the following changes in pilot round 2 The BB course of English was considerably reduced to additional material to the online lectures. It was designed more as a resource base for students who wanted to know more about what was discussed in the lectures. Through BB details about assignments for the online classes were provided. More online exercises were given to be worked on in conjunction with their European learning partners.

Rather than E-coaches, this time round we selected learning partners less for fluency in English but more on cultural awareness. On purpose we selected students whose English was more on par with the best of the Chinese students we invited. Chinese students on the other hand were selected on their level of English. In the online lectures students were set numerous assignments they could only complete by working together on an equal footing as content experts. In this way the Europeans learnt about Chinese culture while the Chinese got a taste of life in the Netherlands.

Secondly more attention was given to learning theory and learning styles. Raising awareness was the aim rather than knowledge acquisition. This was entirely new to the Chinese students whose educational background is steeped in rote learning and reproducing information. Students like it.

Unfortunately the teacher for the online lectures fell seriously ill two thirds into the course and was unable to complete the series of lectures. However both the European and Chinese students expressed they had found the course helpful and interesting and were sorry it had to be discontinued.

April 4th, 2009 - Congress: Fourth International Forum of Leading schools in Xi'an China

• How to better prepare students for Global Higher Education (click to enter presentation)

• Watch the presentation by Jan Brouwer (click to enter presentation)

Visit to Cambridge Skills Development Programme (SDP)

In 2008 more than 1900 students from mainland China entered Dutch Higher Education, a 30% increase compared to 2007. A drop in the ocean compared to the UK’s intake however. Even if we require better English language proficiency from our foreign students than the UK, it is still generally felt that many Chinese students are ill equipped for effective participation in our nation’s international classrooms. Undoubtedly there often is a language problem, but the lack of familiarity with western educational practices is another obstacle.

The CAMBRIDGE SKILLS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (SDP) addresses this by providing a course that aims to engage the interests of students whilst gradually introducing and extending the skills they need to embark on their university studies. In addition to learning English, areas such as reflection on one’s own study behaviour, independent and self-guided learning, team work, critical thinking and enterprise skills are covered. On successful completion of the course students will receive the official Cambridge SDP Certificate. The course covers three weeks of full time study and will be piloted in October at the prestigious Beijing Highschool #4. I am planning to attend a full day of the course and will report on this platform.

Chinese education is in a state of flux. Large numbers of students go abroad and as international educational cooperation is becoming more accepted, the willingness to adopt some of the western educational trends is beginning to emerge. The theme of the Fourth International Forum of Leading Schools conference organised in Xi’an last April was ‘ how to prepare students better for studying abroad’ . It was at this venue that Ann Puntis CEO of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) and Jack Jia, chairman of the European Union Education Foundation (CHEER) signed the agreement to start the SDP programme in China. A laudable initiative with one major flaw namely, short intensive courses in the country of origin are not the real thing. And that is where our acculturation initiative comes into its own with real ‘foreign’ students cooperating with other nationalities. In that respect our distance learning acculturation programmes seem to be a natural partner of the SDP and as such the Haagse Hogeschool will undertake to teach an on site three week SDP course September 2010 as a follow up of an online acculturation programme.

Summary of materials used in the pilot