Educational Renaissance / 'Confucius' fosters Chinese
By Keiko Katayama and Takashi Noguchi Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
The following are excerpts from The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series, continued from last week, focuses on what is happening in China's higher education.
As a national policy, the Chinese government has been setting up Confucius Institutions since 2004 at universities and language schools all over the world to promote its culture and language (Mandarin), offering teaching materials and dispatching instructors to these schools. Although the government set an initial goal to open 100 Confucius Institutions by 2010, that goal has already been achieved--as of June this year, there were 156 schools, including some satellite campuses--in 54 countries and territories.
In Japan, eight universities housed a Confucius Institution, with another university preparing to open one more. J.F. Oberlin University in Machida, Tokyo, is one of the eight, with its Confucius Institution located in front of the nearest train station.
The Confucius Institution at J.F. Oberlin University is one of just a few to offer a one-year intensive course, which it established last year. Beginning-level students in the course, just several months after starting to learn Chinese, study for one month in the summer at Tongi University in Shanghai, one of China's prestigious higher educational institutions.
Li Zhenai, 38, is in charge of a beginning-level conversation class in the intensive course. As a postdoctoral student at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, Li is a fluent speaker of Japanese, but speaks only Chinese during her classes.
"For beginners, it's most import!ant to train listening comprehension skills," she said. "I always arrange what to teach depending on my students' situations so that my classes would not end with one-way communication from the teacher's side."
J.F. Oberlin University dates back to 1921, when founder Yasuzo Shimizu opened a girl's school in Beijing. Along with Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, which also enjoys strong ties with China, it is one of the nation's first universities to set up a Confucius Institution.
"Acquiring Chinese-language skills is not a goal [in itself]. It's a basis for understanding the Chinese civilization," said Masaaki Mitsuta, principal of the Confucius Institution at J.F. Oberlin University. "Our goal is to help the students [in the intensive course] develop sufficient language skills in one year to be able to take all-Chinese courses, for example, on politics and economics."
"We also fling down a challenge to Japan's higher educational institutions," the principal added. "Here, even though students major in particular foreign languages, many of them cannot speak the target ones adequately."
The Confucius Institution at J.F. Oberlin University has adopted the "direct method" to expose its students to a shower of Chinese all the time because its faculty has concluded that the approach is effective in helping students reach a certain level in a short period such as one year.
The students at the intensive course take an average of 19 classes per week, each of which lasts for 90 minutes. Of them, only six classes, such as those on interpreting, allow them to use Japanese.
All of the course's morning classes are taught by instructors who are dispatched from Tongi University in turn. These teachers encourage the students to read sentence patterns aloud over and over until they actually can use them on their own.
The intensive course started with nine students last year, but the student body has expanded to 30 this year, aged from 18 to 73, who were selected through screening tests. Those who complete the one-year course can transfer to the second year of Tongi or J.F. Oberlin universities.
Some of the 30 students have already passed the eighth grade of Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK), a Chinese-language proficiency test for which the 11th grade is the highest. Passing the eighth grade means acquiring linguistic skills higher than the minimum levels required to study at universities in China.
The 30 students include a former manager of an izakaya restaurant aiming to get involved in the food business with China and a nurse driven to study Chinese to better deal with an increasing number of Chinese patients. As such, they are motivated for learning with their own clear targets.
Naoki Tanaka, 20, was enrolled at Oberlin's Confucius Institution after dropping out of a university where he majored in Chinese literature. During his two hour train commute each way to and from the institution, he focuses on listening practice.
"I couldn't find any meaning in the courses I took at my university," he said. "However, I find that classes here have direct connections to my future career."
Among other missions, Confucius Institutions aim at expanding the number of those learning Chinese as a foreign language, which is now estimated to be more than 30 million. To this end, Oberlin's Confucius Institution offers events opened to the general public, such as a Chinese-language exchange party, a speech contest and a karaoke competition.
China aims at eventually expanding the number of students of Chinese to 100 million. The spread of Confucius Institutions may also pose a challenge to the status of English as the world's lingua franca.
University students earning British degrees without leaving China
NINGBO, Zhejiang--A half-hour flight south of Shanghai, there is a British-style campus in this port city. The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China (UNNC), which officially opened in September 2005, offers courses in English identical to those available at its British campus.
Provost Peter Buttery, 63, is proud that his institution can offer high-quality education to Chinese students, saying it is significant to develop global-minded people in this rapidly developing country with its presence growing in the international community.
UNNC was set up by the University of Nottingham, one of Britain's most prestigious higher educational institutions, and Zhejiang Wanli University in Zhejiang Province under a Chinese law stipulating the government's policy regarding cooperation with foreign educational institutions. Put into effect in 2003, the ordinance prohibits foreign institutions from setting up schools of their own or offering compulsory-level education.
For the University of Nottingham, UNNC is its second overseas campus following the opening of a campus in Malaysia. It has about 2,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
In their first year, all students have to go through intensive English training and begin studying their respective specialized subjects from the second year. on graduation, they are awarded a degree from Nottingham University.
Despite an annual tuition fee of 50,000 yuan (800,000 yen)--10 times the average tuition fees for local counterparts--UNNC is attracting more and more interest from Chinese students. Half of its new students last year were from Zhejiang Province, with the other half from 14 provinces and cities nationwide.
"I can acquire English-language skills, and I also found it attractive to earn a British degree," said Xin Ying, 21, on why she chose UNNC. A major in international business management, she often struggles with thick academic books.
"Because it offers the same curriculum as the main British campus, it's hard [to keep up with the courses], but it's fulfilling," she added.
A British education available in China also attracts foreign students. Indian Punit Yagnik, 22, currently living in China due to his father's business, is a UNNC postgraduate student majoring in international management.
The Indian initially planned to study in Britain after graduating from the University of Mumbai. However, he changed his mind because although he could enjoy the same education and earn the same degree, studying in China would cost just one fourth of the money required in Britain, he said.
For universities in the West, China is a huge market with 2.5 million students. Institutions from Germany and France are also setting up campuses in the same way as the University of Nottingham.
"In China, you are appreciated if you graduate from a prestigious Western university," pointed out Hiroshi Fukunishi, 63, head of the Beijing office of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. "Therefore, they are likely successful when coming to China."
Fukunishi is concerned that Japanese higher educational institutions are lagging behind the trend. "Western universities separate academic research from management and have strategic views over their expansion," he said. "However, there are no professionals in management at Japanese universities."
(Sep. 20, 2007)
By Keiko Katayama and Takashi Noguchi Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
The following are excerpts from The Yomiuri Shimbun's Educational Renaissance series. This part of the series, continued from last week, focuses on what is happening in China's higher education.
As a national policy, the Chinese government has been setting up Confucius Institutions since 2004 at universities and language schools all over the world to promote its culture and language (Mandarin), offering teaching materials and dispatching instructors to these schools. Although the government set an initial goal to open 100 Confucius Institutions by 2010, that goal has already been achieved--as of June this year, there were 156 schools, including some satellite campuses--in 54 countries and territories.
In Japan, eight universities housed a Confucius Institution, with another university preparing to open one more. J.F. Oberlin University in Machida, Tokyo, is one of the eight, with its Confucius Institution located in front of the nearest train station.
The Confucius Institution at J.F. Oberlin University is one of just a few to offer a one-year intensive course, which it established last year. Beginning-level students in the course, just several months after starting to learn Chinese, study for one month in the summer at Tongi University in Shanghai, one of China's prestigious higher educational institutions.
Li Zhenai, 38, is in charge of a beginning-level conversation class in the intensive course. As a postdoctoral student at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo, Li is a fluent speaker of Japanese, but speaks only Chinese during her classes.
"For beginners, it's most import!ant to train listening comprehension skills," she said. "I always arrange what to teach depending on my students' situations so that my classes would not end with one-way communication from the teacher's side."
J.F. Oberlin University dates back to 1921, when founder Yasuzo Shimizu opened a girl's school in Beijing. Along with Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, which also enjoys strong ties with China, it is one of the nation's first universities to set up a Confucius Institution.
"Acquiring Chinese-language skills is not a goal [in itself]. It's a basis for understanding the Chinese civilization," said Masaaki Mitsuta, principal of the Confucius Institution at J.F. Oberlin University. "Our goal is to help the students [in the intensive course] develop sufficient language skills in one year to be able to take all-Chinese courses, for example, on politics and economics."
"We also fling down a challenge to Japan's higher educational institutions," the principal added. "Here, even though students major in particular foreign languages, many of them cannot speak the target ones adequately."
The Confucius Institution at J.F. Oberlin University has adopted the "direct method" to expose its students to a shower of Chinese all the time because its faculty has concluded that the approach is effective in helping students reach a certain level in a short period such as one year.
The students at the intensive course take an average of 19 classes per week, each of which lasts for 90 minutes. Of them, only six classes, such as those on interpreting, allow them to use Japanese.
All of the course's morning classes are taught by instructors who are dispatched from Tongi University in turn. These teachers encourage the students to read sentence patterns aloud over and over until they actually can use them on their own.
The intensive course started with nine students last year, but the student body has expanded to 30 this year, aged from 18 to 73, who were selected through screening tests. Those who complete the one-year course can transfer to the second year of Tongi or J.F. Oberlin universities.
Some of the 30 students have already passed the eighth grade of Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK), a Chinese-language proficiency test for which the 11th grade is the highest. Passing the eighth grade means acquiring linguistic skills higher than the minimum levels required to study at universities in China.
The 30 students include a former manager of an izakaya restaurant aiming to get involved in the food business with China and a nurse driven to study Chinese to better deal with an increasing number of Chinese patients. As such, they are motivated for learning with their own clear targets.
Naoki Tanaka, 20, was enrolled at Oberlin's Confucius Institution after dropping out of a university where he majored in Chinese literature. During his two hour train commute each way to and from the institution, he focuses on listening practice.
"I couldn't find any meaning in the courses I took at my university," he said. "However, I find that classes here have direct connections to my future career."
Among other missions, Confucius Institutions aim at expanding the number of those learning Chinese as a foreign language, which is now estimated to be more than 30 million. To this end, Oberlin's Confucius Institution offers events opened to the general public, such as a Chinese-language exchange party, a speech contest and a karaoke competition.
China aims at eventually expanding the number of students of Chinese to 100 million. The spread of Confucius Institutions may also pose a challenge to the status of English as the world's lingua franca.
University students earning British degrees without leaving China
NINGBO, Zhejiang--A half-hour flight south of Shanghai, there is a British-style campus in this port city. The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China (UNNC), which officially opened in September 2005, offers courses in English identical to those available at its British campus.
Provost Peter Buttery, 63, is proud that his institution can offer high-quality education to Chinese students, saying it is significant to develop global-minded people in this rapidly developing country with its presence growing in the international community.
UNNC was set up by the University of Nottingham, one of Britain's most prestigious higher educational institutions, and Zhejiang Wanli University in Zhejiang Province under a Chinese law stipulating the government's policy regarding cooperation with foreign educational institutions. Put into effect in 2003, the ordinance prohibits foreign institutions from setting up schools of their own or offering compulsory-level education.
For the University of Nottingham, UNNC is its second overseas campus following the opening of a campus in Malaysia. It has about 2,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
In their first year, all students have to go through intensive English training and begin studying their respective specialized subjects from the second year. on graduation, they are awarded a degree from Nottingham University.
Despite an annual tuition fee of 50,000 yuan (800,000 yen)--10 times the average tuition fees for local counterparts--UNNC is attracting more and more interest from Chinese students. Half of its new students last year were from Zhejiang Province, with the other half from 14 provinces and cities nationwide.
"I can acquire English-language skills, and I also found it attractive to earn a British degree," said Xin Ying, 21, on why she chose UNNC. A major in international business management, she often struggles with thick academic books.
"Because it offers the same curriculum as the main British campus, it's hard [to keep up with the courses], but it's fulfilling," she added.
A British education available in China also attracts foreign students. Indian Punit Yagnik, 22, currently living in China due to his father's business, is a UNNC postgraduate student majoring in international management.
The Indian initially planned to study in Britain after graduating from the University of Mumbai. However, he changed his mind because although he could enjoy the same education and earn the same degree, studying in China would cost just one fourth of the money required in Britain, he said.
For universities in the West, China is a huge market with 2.5 million students. Institutions from Germany and France are also setting up campuses in the same way as the University of Nottingham.
"In China, you are appreciated if you graduate from a prestigious Western university," pointed out Hiroshi Fukunishi, 63, head of the Beijing office of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. "Therefore, they are likely successful when coming to China."
Fukunishi is concerned that Japanese higher educational institutions are lagging behind the trend. "Western universities separate academic research from management and have strategic views over their expansion," he said. "However, there are no professionals in management at Japanese universities."
(Sep. 20, 2007)