CULTURE SHOCK - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

For instance, as one lecturer remarked, other South African students were by nomeans lagging behind Chinese students in terms of academic achievement, althoughthe latter tended to score higher in mathematics in some cases. As he saw it,“We try to develop a child from a whole range instead of simply passing on theknowledge from textbooks. . . To me, the Chinese way of educating the student todaysounds more like the practice twenty or thirty years ago in South Africa.”In particular, UPE put emphasis on developing students' verbal ability and researchskills. They learn to select research topics, check information sources, interviewpeople, etc. These positive aspects were acknowledged by the participating Chinesestudents, who were amazed by their own learning experiences at the University ofPort Elizabeth such as field work, class presentations and many other in-classactivities. (In view of what was said earlier about intercultural experiences in the eraof globalization, this can be seen as a good example of one culture influencing peoplebelonging to another culture in such a way that their ways of doing things change inimportant respects.) Even for a lab report in a chemistry class a South African lecturerwould let students develop their ideas fully and ask them to write a comprehensivereport, whereas a Chinese teacher would, in all likelihood, have students fill in theblanks on a work sheet.The teaching of mathematics was a topic of special interest because the scope and theproficiency of students' mathematics skills are (globally) of great importance in anincreasingly technological society. "As math teachers we are concerned about ourstudents," one teacher explained:“I have to go through a kind of circle to bring them along. Some students spend aconsiderable amount of time on fractions. We don't get the bare bones of twelve yearsworth of time. As we repeat things twice or three times, students begin to loseconcentration.”29