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?” 

    Ms. 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.” 

    China wants to teach the world its language and culture, and Ms. 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. 

    Ms. Zheng left her teaching post at a provincial university south of Beijing two years ago to come to Lawton. The culture of American schools is different. 

    “My life in high school was torture, just studying, nothing else,” said Ms. Zheng. “Here students lead more interesting lives,” partly because they are more involved in athletics, choir and other activities. 

    “They party, they drink, they date,” she added. “In China, we study and study and study.” 

    In interviews, several other Chinese teachers said they had some difficulties adjusting to the informality of American schools after working in a country where students leap to attention when a teacher enters the room. 

    Ms. Zheng said she believed that teachers get little respect in America. 

    “This country doesn’t value teachers, and that upsets me,” she said. “Teachers don’t earn much, and this country worships making money. In China, teachers don’t earn a lot either, but it’s a very honorable career.” 

    Ms. Zheng said she spent time clearing up misconceptions about China. 

    “I want students to know that Chinese people are not crazy,” she said. For instance, one of her students, referring to China’s one-child-per-family population planning policy, asked whether the authorities would kill one of the babies if a Chinese couple were to have twins. 

    Some students were astonished to learn that Chinese people used cellphones, she said. Others thought Hong Kong was the capital. 

    Ms. Zheng says she is hoping to do her part by teaching them more than how to write characters. “I want my students to have a sweet, sweet memory of taking Chinese,” she said. “They won’t remember a lot of words, but I want them to remember the beauty of the language and the culture.”

    Source: New York Times

 中国教师的美国之旅

       来自中国的郑月（音译）小姐，正在位于俄克拉荷马大草原的劳顿市传授中文。最近一天早晨，当她在向学生讲解词汇测验时，一位学生打断了她的话。

       “对不起，我刚才没注意听，”这位涂着黑眼妆的女学生说。“我们应该怎么样做？”

       郑女士似乎吃了一惊，但还是耐心地重复了一下刚才讲的内容。

       下课后，她说：“在中国，如果你教学生，而他们没听清楚，那是他们的问题。在这里，如果学生没听清楚，你得重新讲一遍。”

       中国试图向世界传授其语言和文化，包括郑月在内的大约325位教师志愿者，正在美国学校从事长达3年的教育工作，其薪水是由中国政府资助的。根据中国政府资助的另一个配套计划，大约2千名美国学校管理者已被派往中国参观访问。

       两年前，郑女士离开其在北京南部一个省的大学教职，来到劳顿市。美国的校园文化与中国学校截然不同。

       “我的高中生活简直就是受罪，只是学习，没有其他活动，”郑月说。“美国学生的生活要有意思得多，”部分原因是他们更多地参与体育运动、合唱团和其他活动。

       “他们开派对、饮酒、约会，”她说。“中国学生只是学习、学习、学习。”

       在采访中，其他几位中国教师表示，在中国，当老师进入教室时，学生的注意力会立刻集中起来，有此经历之后，他们有些难以适应不拘礼节的美国学校。

       郑月表示，她觉得老师在美国几乎不受尊敬。

       “这个国家不重视老师，这一点令我很不舒服，”她说。“老师挣得不多，这个国家崇尚的是赚钱。在中国，老师挣得也不多，但起码是一个非常光荣的职业。”

       郑月说，她经常花时间理清美国学生对中国的错误印象。

       “我想让学生知道，中国人并不是疯子，”她说。比如，在谈及中国的计划生育政策时，一位学生问她，如果中国夫妇要生一对双胞胎，当局会不会把其中一个婴儿杀死。

       一些学生非常震惊地获悉，中国人竟然也在使用手机，她说。还有的学生认为，香港是中国的首都。 

       郑月说，她希望履行好本职工作，而不仅仅是教学生如何写汉字。“我希望能给学生留下一个非常甜蜜的学中文的回忆，”她说。“他们不会记很多词语，但我想让他们记住中国的语言和文化之美。”