Profiles
Each issue we profile several members of the IU East Asian Studies Community. Know someone you think should be "profiled"? Email your suggestion to sfurukaw@indiana.edu.
In
some ways, you could say that teaching language is in Zhen Chen's blood.
Both of her parents are renowned Chinese linguists, and teaching is something
that she turned to almost naturally when she was a college student in Beijing.
She went to the University of Hawaii, Manoa from Beijing seven years ago to
pursue her dream of becoming a Chinese language educator. Before moving to
the U.S. Zhen taught English at two universities in Beijing, where she found
that the teaching style was in many ways predetermined. Every aspect of the
classes she taught was spelled out in teachers' manuals which she was expected
to follow word-for-word. While teaching English in this way provided her with
a valuable introduction to the world of foreign language teaching, she realized
that there had to be a better way to engage and challenge her students. Zhen's
seven years at the University of Hawaii, where she is finishing her Ph.D.
in Chinese linguistics, provided her with the methodological background and
experience necessary to become a dynamic teacher. "Knowing the theories
and methods behind teaching a foreign language makes teaching a lot more fun
for me," she explains.
While she believes that success in learning any foreign language is directly tied to the skill of the teacher and the commitment of the students, Zhen also recognizes that Chinese characters and mastering the various tones one needs before becoming skilled at Chinese can be daunting at first. "Sometimes in the beginning of first-year Chinese, the students look like they want to cry," she admits. Many of her friends tell her that teaching Chinese sounds like such an easy job. After all, she is already a native speaker. Learning how to teach in a way that is both challenging and easy for students to understand has taken time, however. She believes that learners should be encouraged to get involved in learning rather than being passive observers or note-takers, and that language is most easily taught in the context of culture and most easily learned in a meaningful context which is close to real life. "A few words that characterize my Chinese language and culture classroom are not only instructional, but also informational, intellectual, innovative, interactive, interesting and inspiring."
Zhen Chen has been in Indiana for about two and a half months now, and she admits that her two goals for her first year at IU are to survive her first winter here (after seven years in Hawaii, she expects that this winter will feel exceptionally cold!), and to survive the heavy workload, which is much different than what she imagined when she was a student. Most days she works in her office for 10 to 12 hours before heading home to work 2 or 3 more. At the University of Hawaii, full-time language teachers have at most 45 students per semester, but Zhen Chen currently has more than 140 students. That's a lot of names and faces to remember. She's excited about the challenge, though, and looks forward to adapting the skills she developed in Beijing and Hawaii to the Indiana University classroom. In her free time, "some time next summer," she plans to continue working on her dissertation, "The Diachronic Development and Synchronic Diversity of The Double-Directional Complements in Chinese - A Corpus-based Cross-linguistic Study on the Grammaticalization Pathways and Semantic Change of the Double-Directional Complements," a massive project she is doing with the support of her advisor Professor Ying-Che Li. Zhen is strongly committed to helping students who are in lower-level classes to develop a deep interest in Chinese, so that they will pursue other courses such as Chinese literature, history, religion and politics. Zhen is excited to make the most of her time here at IU, "to contribute with what [she] has learned, learn what's new to [her], and take on new challenges." Written by Susan Furukawa
Masanobu Kimura, EALC's Visiting Scholar
In Japan in recent years, there has been increased coverage of stories about bullying and school dropouts. Whether these are new concerns or ones that have been newly recognized, the media is filled with panel discussions on education, and bookstore shelves are lined with books focusing on solving the problems of today's youths. Many of these discussions are centered on the breakdown of the nuclear family, overemphasis on academic success, lack of emphasis on creativity, and hyper-materialism. Masanobu Kimura, a Visiting EALC Scholar from Chikushi Jogakuen University in Fukuoka, Japan believes that the origins of these issues go further back.
When he considered the issues facing the Japanese education system, he decided to go back to the beginning to look at education in the Tokugawa period. By starting his research where modern Japanese education began, he reasoned, he would be able to put the problems into a historical and social context which might make them easier to solve. Kimura believes that we can learn the most about current Japanese education by studying how it developed and how the system came to be structured as it is. "School is a very important aspect of every Japanese person's life. In many ways it determines what that person becomes. Therefore, I believe it is very important to study and understand how this strongly influential system came into being," Professor Kimura explains.
Professor Kimura did his undergraduate and graduate study in the Department of Education at Kyushu University in Fukuoka. Now, he teaches in the Education Department at Chikushi Jogakuen University and has taught courses such as "Fundamental Theory of Education," "History of Education," and "History of Culture." Recent publications by Professor Kimura include The Development and Change of Education in Early Modern Japan published by Tokyo Horei in 1995, and The History of the Education of Japanese People edited by Tuneo Ishijima and Kayo Umemura and published by Azusa Shuppan in 1996.
He has been living in Bloomington with his wife and two daughters (ages 8 and 12) since April. EALC Professor Richard Rubinger first heard of Kimura when he read an article Kimura had written about the possibility of using Shumon popular registers to measure literacy in Japanese history. Rubinger was so impressed by what Kimura had written that he sought Kimura out at the annual meeting of the Nihon Kyoikushi Gakkai (National Association of Historians of Japanese Education) in 2000. Because both men share an academic interest in the history of modern Japanese education, specifically, education as it emerged in the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), they decided that Professor Kimura would come to IU to study for a year. On every Friday throughout the semester, Professor Kimura is meeting with students to read 17th century Japanese texts about the development of education in the Tokugawa period. While in Bloomington, he is also taking courses in comparative East Asian history and the history of early modern Japan. He spends his spare time talking about Tokugawa education with Rubinger and EALC students and looking into his other interest, current literacy in America.
This interest in literacy is closely tied to his interest in Tokugawa-era education, a time marked by a shift to universal literacy. Kimura has researched the social mechanisms which enabled the spread of literacy, and how the spread of literacy then changed society. As part of his interest in literacy in contemporary society, Professor Kimura heads a volunteer literacy development center in Fukuoka. Once a week, people come to the center to practice reading and writing. Kimura explains that many of these people are either Koreans who have grown up in Japan or Japanese people in their sixties and seventies who were unable to receive proper education due to the effects of World War II. While he is in Bloomington, Professor Kimura is also looking at the case of illiteracy in the United States and examining the meaning of literacy in modern society. Written by Susan Furukawa
Joseph
(Lawton) King, a Louisville, Kentucky native, is one of Indiana University's
outstanding undergraduate students of East Asian studies. Currently a junior,
Lawton came to the EALC at IU with the intention of studying Chinese. He has
pursued his interest in the region with an enthusiasm, commitment and maturity
rarely seen among his peers. Lawton became interested in China by accident
when his parents bought a package vacation to Beijing, even though they had
promised him a trip to the Virgin Islands. Though he offered to buy his way
out of the trip to China, his parents made him go anyway. Thanks to the perseverance
of his parents, by the time he got back to Louisville, Lawton was determined
to enroll in Chinese his senior year of high school. He was immediately inspired
by his teacher, Mr. Rick Ayres, who "bequeathed to me an appreciation
for all things Chinese and persistently encouraged me to consider majoring
in Mandarin."
Lawton's language instructors praise him for the energy and
dedication he brings to class and his efforts to discuss ideas and topics
from his other courses. He has performed equally admirably in East Asian studies
courses, which have covered subjects ranging from early Daoism to business
lobbying in China. Lawton admits that it is hard for him to choose one aspect
of Chinese studies on which to focus. "Anything related to China stimulates
my interest," he explains. A sign of Lawton's strength is that he was
admitted into a graduate seminar on Chinese politics even though an undergraduate
course on the topic was offered during the same semester. He hopes to pursue
his diverse interests in China in graduate school. Beyond his scholarly abilities,
ten minutes with Lawton will impress anyone with his engaging, inquisitive
and polite demeanor. It is no surprise then that Lawton was awarded a Uehara
scholarship this past spring by EALC in recognition of his excellence. Lawton
credits his success to the strong EALC faculty. "Every single one of
the EALC professors I have taken courses from has cordially entertained me
during office hours and selflessly provided supplementary resources to quench
my curiosity." The feelings are mutual. His advisor, Scott Kennedy says,
"Lawton is a student and person of whom we can all be proud and from
whom we expect many great accomplishments in the future, whether they be in
East Asian studies or elsewhere." Written
by Susan Furukawa
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