In the education system of China, the EXAM is everything.\u00a0 From entering kindergarten through achieving advanced degrees, the EXAM dictates a student’s progress. Students worry all the time about their marks on various exams, as well they might, because the marks on those exams will determine their next steps.\u00a0 The common idea is that China has so many people, they have to have a way to sift them.\u00a0 The exam is seen as the way to rule out people from the competitive race for places at school.<\/p>\n
Students have told me that they must focus on the marks on the exam, not on the content.\u00a0 They learn what they need for that exam, then lay that content aside to study for the next one. Perhaps the top tier students, the ones who go to Beijing University or Shanghai, do not have this attitude.\u00a0 I have taught teachers in Shanghai and Beijing who know the reality of the system.\u00a0 As teachers, they must focus on having their students do well on the exams.\u00a0 They are not so interested in the ability to use English and enjoy it, as they are in having their students pass the exams.<\/p>\n
At our school now, the exam in a given course counts 90% of the grade, everything else–participation, attendance, regular work—counts only 10%.\u00a0 If the teacher wants to give a mid term exam, that can count for 30%, leaving 60% for the final exam.\u00a0 In this climate, many students believe that they do not have to attend class, participate, or do any regular work.\u00a0 Learning the content is not necessary.\u00a0 The main thing is to show up for the exam and get a passing mark.\u00a0 How to do this, if you haven’t learned anything new?\u00a0 Easy.\u00a0 Copy something from the internet, always available on a smart phone.\u00a0 What is the topic?\u00a0 Doesn’t matter, the internet covers everything.<\/p>\n
Will the teacher read every word you have written on a writing exam?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 The teacher knows what’s important, and reading student papers is not on the list.\u00a0 Perhaps it’s different in Beijing, I do not know.\u00a0 But this is what my colleagues in 2008-09 told me.<\/p>\n
This term, I taught eight oral classes, and one writing class.\u00a0 The orals were English majors, but the writing class was not.\u00a0 Most of my writing students could barely understand me.\u00a0 We made some progress toward writing a standard format five paragraph essay.\u00a0 But on the exam, two students copied from the internet.\u00a0 They copied the exact same essay.\u00a0 One copied it whole, while the other had only a few sentences.\u00a0 I gave both papers zero.<\/p>\n
I showed the papers to the administrator, who asked if I could meet with the students and let them know how serious this is. He said his assistant could arrange it.\u00a0 In my conversation with her, she tried to justify the students as wanting to make\u00a0 good marks on the exam!\u00a0 She loves these students, and wants them to do well.\u00a0 She did not set up the meeting, everyone is too busy at this time.<\/p>\n
One student emailed me and said that the two did not copy each other, but both copied from the internet, as if this made it a lesser offense.\u00a0 He apologized profusely, as if this would win my heart.\u00a0 He pleaded that he would be unhappy in the New Year celebration if he got a failing mark, as if his happiness were the main issue. He recognized the cultural difference between us, as if I should recognize that this form of copying is acceptable here. He has enough command of English to do all this in e-mail.\u00a0 As I see it, the fact is that it is not only a common practice, but an acceptable one, here in China.\u00a0 After all, the main thing is the mark on the EXAM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the education system of China, the EXAM is everything.\u00a0 From entering kindergarten through achieving advanced degrees, the EXAM dictates a student’s progress. Students worry all the time about their marks on various exams, as well they might, because the marks on those exams will determine their next steps.\u00a0 The common idea is that China […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingwithjulia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}