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I’ve
already mentioned that research on cultural learning styles is contradictory,
and tends to offer conflicting results. I would like to illustrate this with
a situation which has been the subject of a lot of debate and research, and
which has been called “the paradox of the Asian learner”. Especially in
secondary and university education in Western institutions, Chinese learners
are often reported to be more passive, less interactive and dependent upon
the teacher than most students. They are reported to use rote memorisation,
apparently without much personal understanding of what is committed to
memory; in other words, they seem to adopt what has been called a “surface”
rather than a “deep” approach to study. And yet … and yet, their level of
achievement in exams is relatively high; also, in spite of their tendency to
learn by rote, they also show higher scores in the use of study strategies
than Western students. How is this possible? What’s wrong in our
interpretation of the Chinese learning style?
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Before we
try to figure out an explanation of this paradox, let’s mention some concrete
facts first. As Graziella Favaro reports in one of her books (2002), at the
end of the very first school semester, Chinese children have learned 160
different written characters, the Latin alphabet, the relevant pronunciation
in the Chinese national language, and the meaning of every word. In the
second semester, Chinese children memorise new words through short stories
and short poems, which they repeat, copy in writing and read aloud
collectively. In this way, in the second semester of the first year at
primary school, they learn another 220 characters, and then, through the
years, they learn an average of one or two new characters every day, so that,
by the end of the sixth year of primary school, they master about 2500
characters. If you think that you must memorize 9000 characters in order to
be able to read what is normally published, you can appreciate the enormous
amount of effort which learners must spend.
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However,
this is just the surface of the iceberg, or, if you like, the most external
layer of the onion. Chinese learners belong to what have been called
“Confucian heritage cultures”, together with such different countries as
Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Confucianism stresses
the benefits of fixed hierarchical relationships which show respect for age,
seniority, rank and family background. Consequently, the teacher is often
seen as an authority figure, the one who must know all, but also as an adult
who, like parents, helps students develop as complete human beings – as an
ancient Chinese saying goes: “If a teacher for a day, a father for life”.
However, the responsibility for learning is placed on students. Students are
encouraged to do their best. Intellectual ability is valued but is not enough
– what is also required and expected is diligence, effort and endurance to
achieve academic success.
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Within
this tradition, students learn through cooperation, but watch out there - not
as a way to promote the individual – rather the opposite, as a way to promote
the common good, by supporting each other. In the learning situation,
therefore, students are sensitive to the other students in the class and are
concerned for the group as a whole. Standing out as a single individual is
out of the question – as another proverb, this one from Japan, goes: “The
nail that sticks up gets hammered down”.
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Despite
all this, as I mentioned, Asian learners are often good achievers, and a lot
of research has tried to explain this “paradox of the Asian learner”.
Research has found out, for example, that Chinese learners seem to see the
combination of memorisation with understanding as normal because they believe
that “if they really understand the material, they will have a very strong
impression that will help them to memorise without much effort” (Marton,
Delll’Alba & Tse 1996). However, they also see “memorisation with
understanding” as essential when they have to prepare for examinations; in
other words, if students perceive that assessment requires only, or mainly,
the reproduction of knowledge, they will tend to use some form of
memorisation (Au e Entwistle 1999) – and this, of course, is common to many
students around the world.
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