The author participated in the "drum circle" activity organized by the school, which aims to enhance mutual understanding among international students.
Provided by JCU International Company
The breakthrough I chose was the course "IT project practice". In this course, team members need to work together under the guidance of the tutor to complete a one-year real IT project. The choice of team members has a great influence on the performance of the course. On the day of the first class, the tutor sent us more than a dozen long emails, asking us to choose our favorite projects from them and then start grouping. Faced with almost unknown projects and a room full of unfamiliar faces, I knew I had to make a quick decision. First of all, I made an alliance with an Indonesian classmate in my class last semester. I know he is a diligent and reliable teammate. At this time, three local Australian students raised their hands to show their interest in the first project. Indonesian classmates winked at me and we immediately raised our hands. Francis, a student from Papua New Guinea (PNG), also raised his hand. There are six people interested in this project.
However, the course requires a maximum of four people in each group, so we sit around a table and discuss how to divide into two groups.
My wishful thinking is to make Francis a group with two local students, and my Indonesian classmate a group with another local student, so that each group is "mixed". Just as I was trying to find a politically correct statement that didn't offend anyone, a local student said, "Do you think this score is good?" He drew a virtual line on the desktop with his hand. On one side of the line are three local students and on the other side are three international students. I find this kind of body language very clever, and it doesn't need words and sentences. It looks very casual, except that three local students "just" sit together and are "just" zoned to the same side. My Indonesian classmates and I couldn't find a reason to refute, so we nodded. This result makes me a little depressed. After several group adjustments, at the suggestion of China, I recommended Francis to another group and absorbed two people from China to form an "Asian Group" again. Everything seems to be back to the "normal" and "comfortable" track.
In my university, this phenomenon of "pure subgroups" or even "pure China groups" is very common. Among the more than 20,000 students in the school, there are about 1000 students in China (data 20 13). It seems that there is an invisible film around these international students in China, which wraps them together and is isolated from the world, making it difficult to break through. I have a classmate from China who can't speak English all semester. This classmate is friendly and good at dealing with people, but he still hasn't tried to break through this film. If you don't understand something in class, ask the people around you in China. Group assignments and final review are all done with China students and communicated in pure Chinese; Working in a Chinese restaurant, the boss speaks Chinese; In my spare time, I get together with China students to play ball. Once he did an experiment and his computer broke down. He asked me to help him ask the teacher what to do as usual. Another China classmate and I just wanted to force him to speak English once, and no one helped him ask. He sat in front of the computer on strike for almost 20 minutes, and finally got up to find the teacher. The teacher immediately enthusiastically went to his computer to help him solve the problem. This is the only time I have heard him speak English. In this small town where the Chinese population is only about 65,438+0%, he has created a pure Mandarin environment for himself (and some of them can only speak Cantonese), and the effect is good. Of course, sometimes he complains that this place is "desolate and boring".
This phenomenon is not a case. In the United States, some universities were forced to lower their teaching standards because a large number of China students failed the language proficiency test. The places where China students gather sometimes form a small closed society, and even some serious behavior problems may occur. A case of kidnapping and bullying in California, USA, which resulted in the sentencing of three overseas students from China, is an example.
In order to help foreign students better adapt to their study tasks and integrate into the local environment, my university has made a lot of efforts. For example, upload the lecture video to the internet for students who don't understand to watch it repeatedly; There is also a "hands-on tutorial", which divides the experimental steps into the most basic operations and attaches pictures to ensure that students without any foundation can complete them step by step. In addition, there is a free lunch every week to create opportunities for foreign students to make friends.
Even so, there are still some invisible obstacles that interfere with the cooperation between students of different nationalities. There is a classmate in China, and I am glad to hear that I am not in the same group as the local classmates in IT class. He said that he once had three local teammates, and it was a terrible experience, because once the group ended, he never saw these teammates again. He had to finish the work of four people independently, and it was difficult to hand in his homework on time and in quantity, and he almost failed. Teamwork is an essential part of academic evaluation. If you can't submit qualified works before the deadline, you will fail the whole course. According to the school regulations, if you fail, you need to retake the exam and pay the tuition fee for this course again. For international students, the tuition fee for each course is more than 3,000 Australian dollars, equivalent to about 6,543,800 yuan (tuition fees in big cities such as Sydney and Melbourne are more expensive). However, local students do not have this pressure. The Australian government provides generous financial subsidies to local students, and the tuition fees are low. Unlike foreign students who study hard and strive for safe graduation, local students often pay more attention to enjoying life and developing personal hobbies, such as forming rock bands. "They don't care at all," said the classmate. "I dragged them away, and I did all the work alone. If you have the strength to delay, that's fine. Once it is delayed, it will all hang up, but only you will' break the money'. "
Of course, the potential "problem teammates" are not limited to local students. There is also a view of Indian students circulating in the circle of international students in China that most of them want to work here. I know this is a stereotype, but it doesn't seem to be completely fabricated. My other classmate from China, due to inadequate preparation, still "fought alone" even though most of his classmates had formed a team, and finally found two Indian classmates who were also "left behind". According to him, these two students have to work in a restaurant seven nights a week and wash their cars for two days on weekends 10 hours. Working more than 40 hours a week, I have no time to take care of my studies. Australian law stipulates that international students can work up to 20 hours a week, so their extra 20 hours are "black jobs". Indian students also have their difficulties. Compared with the income level in India, the prices in Australia are surprisingly high. Unlike many wealthy China students who are fully funded by their parents, most Indian students need more working hours to get enough tuition and living expenses.
And a close friend of mine from China in townsville tried to stop me from joining PNG students because of his "bitter" experience. He rented a house off campus, and there were three roommates from Papua New Guinea before and after, each of whom caused a lot of trouble. One of them broke the previous agreement and held a party at home in the middle of the night, which kept others awake. After getting drunk, he peed in my friend's girlfriend's car. Another female tenant is a student of JCU like us. First, she claimed that she had no money and could not pay the rent for the time being. She only gave my friend an iPad as collateral. And then disappeared for a few months. According to Australian law, even if the tenant defaults on the rent, no one has the right to enter or empty her room. Then one day, when my friend was not at home, she suddenly came back and moved everything. After moving out, she continued to study in JCU, refused to pay the six-month rent in arrears, and demanded to return the iPad. Later, I accompanied my friend to the police station. The lady who received us at the police station asked about the situation and said directly: "The rent problem belongs to a civil case, and the police can't control it. But you have to give her back that iPad. Australian law does not allow private seizure of other people's property. If she accuses you of theft, it will be very troublesome. " After leaving the police station, this friend sincerely said to me, "I beg you, don't be with the students in that place." You have to do this project for a year, not for fun. "