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PLU professors Ann Auman and Bridget Yaden share teaching and learning experiences in China
PLU professors Ann Auman and Bridget Yaden share teaching and learning experiences in China
Image: Ann Auman, professor and Dean of Natural Sciences, and Bridget Haden, professor of Hispanic and Latino Studies and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Programs, recently taught a summer intensive course at Sichuan University. PLU is working to establish a future exchange that would bring Sichuan faculty to the PLU campus. (PLU Photo / Sy Bean)
By Debbie Cafazzo
PLU Marketing & Communications Guest Writer
Two PLU professors were recently invited to teach a summer intensive course at Sichuan University, a 70,000-student public university in Chengdu, China.
PLU and Sichuan have a decades-long relationship that dates back to the 1980s. PLU faculty visits took place in 2023, and in summer 2024, Biology Professor and Dean of Natural Sciences Ann Auman, and Bridget Yaden, Professor of Hispanic & Latino Studies and Associate Provost for Undergraduate Programs, visited Sichuan University.
“The basic philosophy is to introduce their students to the best knowledge and best minds all over the world,” said Paul Manfredi, chair of PLU’s Chinese Studies program.
PLU is also working to establish a future exchange that would bring Sichuan faculty to the PLU campus.
The PLU professors taught in their areas of expertise, in English, to Chinese students. We asked Auman and Yaden to share some of their experiences — and tell us what they learned.
Q&A
How did this experience continue to shape your views on cross-cultural learning and global education?
Auman: I have always been a big proponent of cross-cultural education. I previously served as site director for PLU’s Gateway program in Namibia. I was interested in this experience because I already had that personal and professional interest. There is a lot to be gained from seeing how regular people live, as well as how Chinese students see us.
Yaden: I have traveled with students, and I lived in Russia in the 1990s. This solidified for me that — while there is so much in the news about the U.S. and China being adversaries — the people-to-people connection is what we need to avoid conflict. People are people; they care about learning. I never once, while there, felt censored, or that I had to be careful about what I did.
Tell us about the class you taught.
Auman: I taught a class called Biology in Everyday Life. It was geared for non-majors. I drew from classes I have taught at PLU. Until the week before, I thought I was going to have 15 students. The fact that 47 showed up was a shocker. There was no lab component. We barely fit in the classroom.
Yaden: I taught a class on language acquisition, and world language teaching principles. We compared and contrasted the experiences of how we teach foreign languages in the United States with the experiences that Chinese students have learning English.
The big difference is that in the U.S., most often we start learning a language in high school and only for a few years. In China, and most of the rest of the world, they take language classes early on because they see the value of bilingualism.
How was it different from teaching at PLU?
Auman: We met for three to four hours each day, for five days. It was kind of like teaching a week of J-term at PLU. I broke the class into small groups, but I felt like they did not have a lot of experience with that.
Students all spoke English, but their skills and comfort level varied. Sometimes they would ask me about a word, and I would try to describe it in a different way. A lot of them had translator apps so they could look up words.
Yaden: Students there were less comfortable, less experienced with group work. I did a lot of metacognition with them to talk about this difference. Students in China were content to listen to me talk for three hours — if I were to do that. But I didn’t – I wanted to de-center myself as the teacher and center students so that they would engage, talk to each other, and learn from each other.
Did the students in China ask questions or challenge your ideas differently than your PLU students?
Auman: PLU students are more likely to question authority. With Chinese students, it’s more “I am the student. I respect you due to your authority and the relationship.” In the larger group, they were not super likely to ask questions. They were more likely to do so when I gave them a group activity.
Yaden: Students there don’t raise their hands and don’t question what we are learning. It’s probably grounded in respect (for the professor). I wanted to get them to question me on things. I would say “You are experiencing a U.S. professor this week. So please do that.”
What advice would you give other professors considering visiting China?
Auman: Investigate the technology, and how things work. They don’t really use credit cards there. They use other systems, kind of like a Chinese version of Apple Pay. A lot of places don’t take cash. So you have to navigate that.
Yaden: I would say go and do it — you will love it. The students are warm and welcoming.
I was surprised at how hi-tech the country was. It’s harder to spend cash there than in the U.S. I needed to download two or three different apps to make purchases anywhere.
Can you share any notable stories from your experience?
Auman: To demonstrate natural selection, I brought Starburst candies from the U.S. — all four flavors in equal numbers. I passed the bag around and asked each person to pick their favorite flavor, then look at the distribution. I was surprised — at the very end, there were no lemon flavors left. They had preferentially picked lemon. One student said: “You can’t go wrong with lemon!” In the U.S., that is the last thing I would have predicted. It was a cultural difference.
Yaden: On the very first day, just like at PLU, I start off by asking students questions. I want to get to know their identities.
The first question I always ask is, “What is your preferred name? And what are your pronouns?” We ended up having an hour-long conversation about why I did that. The students were very surprised at first. They had never experienced that question. They didn’t all come around to agreeing that it was valuable or important. But they understood that if they go to the U.S., it’s probably a question they would be asked. So they needed to be ready to answer it.
At the end of the week, each student did a presentation on what they found most interesting in the class. One student chose as a topic my question about preferred pronouns, and he introduced himself with his pronouns.
What were some of the cultural experiences you had outside the classroom?
Auman: We were there slightly over two weeks. During the second week, there were lots of cultural activities. We did several activities with a group of PLU students who were in China at the same time. We saw a Chinese opera with them.
Chengdu is massive: lots of cars, motorbikes and people. We rode a high-speed train. Within four minutes, everybody gets off, and the hundreds of people waiting get on. I can’t believe it actually worked.
Yaden: We went to the panda reserve near Chengdu with PLU students. We got to see the pandas up close in their habitat.
We went to the Great Wall. Almost all the visitors were Chinese, coming from other parts of China. This was our first experience of many, as we’re walking along the Great Wall — people stopping to take our picture or asking if their child could take a picture with us. Because we stood out so much.
What cultural experiences did you find the most interesting while you were in China?
Auman: There were a lot of very interesting cultural experiences that we were able to enjoy, ranging from seeing the pandas to watching Chinese opera to visiting Mount Qingcheng and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System. It was fun to learn more about the history, tradition, and significance of each of these. I also appreciated the variety of food we were able to try, especially hot pot, an outing that was planned by my TA in collaboration with staff members at Sichuan University. During hot pot, my TA explained what everything was and how to eat it. Very interesting, delicious, and enjoyable!
Yaden: The food in each region of China had its own style, showing their unique culture and flavors. I loved trying the different foods in Beijing, Chengdu, and Guangzhou. Chengdu’s Sichuan hotpot was an adventure, with spices and all sorts of interesting food such as duck intestines and bamboo. Guangzhou’s food, like dim sum and fresh seafood, was less spicy. I also enjoyed the tea ceremony. I found folks to be very proud of their region’s food and loved to describe what was unique about their food.