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English Australia Journal : English Australia Journal 28.2
Contents
Volume 28 No 2 39 English Australia Journal their hopes and desires. Of course, these are not unitary; there is great heterogeneity among Chinese students. However, there are general observations that can be made to provide insights into how English Australia member institutions, among others, might adjust practices, so as to engage better with Chinese students. The research in question is discussed in detail elsewhere (Stanley, 2013). Building on four years of ethnographic research, extensive stakeholder interviews and observations in Chinese classrooms, the study identified a number of key findings about what Chinese students want, both in terms of education in and of itself but also education as a means to other ends. In this article, I draw out implications for teachers and directors of studies in international education well beyond China. The main question is: what can we learn from China to inform and improve what we do here? The first section below centres on the construct of ‘Western’ teachers in China against the notion of staged authenticity from tourism studies (MacCannell, 2008). The second section examines the distinction between process and product approaches in education and the resultant divide between learning as a primary motivation versus the market for credentialling. These discussions are then drawn together as a series of implications and concrete recommendations for education providers in Australia and elsewhere. Staged authenticity: ‘Shanghaied in Shanghai’ As a verb, to ‘shanghai’ means to trick or force someone to do something against their will. The term originates around the time of the California gold rush when huge numbers of sailors were required to crew clipper ships, then the main transport for world trade. Recruiting workers to join the ships sailing to California was unproblematic: like the ships, the gold rush attracted poor, marginal itinerant labourers. But it was much more difficult to find crews for ships leaving California, sailing to East Asian ports including Shanghai. And so began ‘shanghaiing’: tricking or forcing crew to sail west across the Pacific. Some awoke, hung over, at sea while others were knocked on the head and bundled out through the ‘shanghai tunnels’ under US west-coast cities. These experiences aside, being shanghaied was not all negative: some men benefitted from months of enforced sobriety and physical labour aboard the ships. However, the word retains the meaning that united them: they were forced into something they had not chosen and that worked in interests other than their own (Alborn, 1992; Tamony, 1966). What does this have to do with Western English teachers in China? Like the ‘sailors’ who were not necessarily sailors, many such ‘teachers’ would not be considered teachers elsewhere. In many contexts in China, including universities but also
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