News

JIU Women's Ekiden Team

JIU's Women's Ekiden team secured the 6th place in the Ekiden marathon and automatically qualified for the next year's event. Considering that this is a new team, they surprised everyone including TV reporters.

Univ. of California opens Beijing school

Japan Economic Newswire
(July 23, 2004)
Univ. of California opens Beijing school
BEIJING

A campus of the University of California, which has a prestigious reputation in China, has opened a school in Beijing for Chinese students to study English while avoiding the hassles of getting U.S. visas.

On Monday, the University of California at Riverside began classes at its Beijing International Education Center in a downtown office building after eight months of preparations.

Fourteen students have enrolled so far, but after an ad blitz, the school expects up to 600 this year and up to 3,000 after building a separate Beijing campus from next year.

Foreign schools like the University of California that offer Chinese students academic credits are a growing phenomenon in China, but U.S. universities are relatively few here. Many Chinese students want to study at U.S. universities, preferably in the United States, but student visas are hard to get, students say.

'Due to economic and political problems around the world, it has become increasingly difficult for international students to go to the United States to study,' said Charlene Pratt, director of UCR's China school.

'We at UCR feel that if the world cannot come to us, then we will go to the world,' she said.

The state university, has similar schools in Thailand and South Korea, intends to teach in a style that will give its Chinese students the ability to work in their increasingly internationalized society without making the technical or cross-cultural mistakes common today, Pratt said.

The 16 teachers, all native speakers with teaching credentials, give 10-week courses in six levels of English plus advanced lessons in English for the customer-service and event-management fields.

Too much of English spoken in China today consists of memorized lines not backed by fluid conversational skills, she said.

The school plans to contact Chinese organizations, such as Air China, to suggest classes for their employees, Pratt said. 'What we'd like to do is find a need and fill the need,' she said.

Other classes prepare students for studies in the United States, where classroom expectations sometimes greatly differ from those of China, and to become teaching assistants at U.S. universities.

UCR has said it will not use any more Chinese teaching assistants unless certified by the Beijing school because so many California students say they cannot understand their English, Pratt said.

Tian Ye, 24, said he has found that American teachers expect students to speak out when they do not understand. In China, students keep quiet for fear of losing face or disrupting their teachers' lesson plans.

He said he sees the Beijing school as 'a chance to communicate with real foreigners' and to learn about teaching skills before going to Riverside, where he has been awarded a five-year chemistry master's scholarship plus a teaching assistant offer.

The Beijing credits should be recognized by other overseas universities when students apply for admission.

The school expects eventually to enroll other Asian students and offer Chinese language lessons to foreigners in Beijing as well as expand into Shanghai and Xian, Pratt said.

-UCR host to Educators from China
On Monday, November 24th, Dr. Sheila Dwight of International Education Programs, Dr. Sue Teele of Education Extension, and Eric Blum of Business, Engineering and Technology met with a Chinese delegation from Guangdong Province in China. The purpose of the visit was for the delegates to:gain an understanding of the US education system and to discuss the possibilities for potential cooperation for training in language and management. Jeffrey Williamson, Director, Center for International Trade Development, was responsible for arranging the group visit.
The 13 members of this Chinese Mission were leaders of education organizations and principals of senior high , middle and primary schools. The highlight of the meeting occurred when Dr. Teele administered her assessment tool to determine the multiple intelligence strengths of participants. When she told one member that he had strong musical intelligence, all were amazed to discover that he ranked as one of the top ten opera singers in his province! The session ended with Dr. Teele taking the delegation on a visit to her office so they could all see her panoptic panoply of pandas.

Back to news page

-Teachers Arrive in China for new UCR-Beijing International Education Center
Thanksgiving Day saw our first group of teachers arriving in China to join one fellow teacher and administrators already in Beijing. Unbelievably enough, Mr. Jing, the head of Oriental University City, found a turkey for a Thanksgiving feast. Not to be outdone, the second group, arriving on Saturday, had dinner in a prison cell-- a five-star one! They were all treated by Neal Wan of University Counseling China to a fantastic Chinese dinner in a new restaurant with a prison motif. Way to go, teachers!

Back to news page