Zheng Yue, a young woman from China who is teaching her native language to students in Lawton on the Oklahoma grasslands, was explaining a vocabulary quiz on a recent morning. Then a student interrupted.
"Sorry, I was zoning out," said the girl, a junior wearing black eye makeup. "What are we supposed to be doing?"
Zheng seemed taken aback but patiently repeated the instructions. "In China," she said after class, "if you teach the students and they don't get it, that's their problem. Here if they don't get it, you teach it again." Zheng, 27, is teaching Chinese in Lawton — and learning a few things herself about American culture — because of a partnership between an agency of China's Education Ministry and the College Board.
China wants to teach the world its language and culture, and Zheng is one of about 325 guest teachers who have volunteered to work for up to three years in American schools, with their salaries subsidized by the Chinese government. A parallel effort has sent about 2,000 American school administrators to visit China at Beijing's expense. Read more about the project in The New York Times
online.
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