Written by the Instructional Design Team
During an Adams Center workshop (September 19, 2013) on helping Chinese students to study in America, one of the things we discussed is the facilitation of group work with Chinese students in them. Group work is an extremely useful tool for acclimation and inclusion. Many Chinese students report great learning through group work after it is finished. It is an experience for them to learn how American students think and work. Similarly, domestic students get to see how Chinese students think and work.
Interestingly, Chinese students also encounter great difficulty in group assignments while they are still unfolding. One might be misled by the idea that Chinese students have “collectivist” thinking patterns to believe that group work should be easier for Chinese students, which is often not true. Most Chinese students grow up not experiencing group assignments at all in their K-12 years. It is therefore very important to design your group work in a way that help them get used to such work. Here are some tips that we hope will help you in your design and facilitation of group work. Some may apply to students from other countries or even American students.
Create intercultural teams:
It is important to mix Chinese students with American students so that they can enrich each other with what they bring to the team. Inform teams that such effort is intentional, that it is a good thing to be able to break cultural cocoons instead of hanging out only with people they know. Spend some time discussing cultural sensitivity, mutual respect, as well as tolerance for cultural differences.
Communicate expectations:
Chinese students would prefer to have clear expectations. Do not just expect group dynamics to form and “evolve” in an implicit way. Such vagueness just creates anxiety. Make your group expectations explicit and hidden rules evident if there are Chinese students on your project teams. This would include your expectation about project participation, roles, grading, learning outcomes, and criteria you will be using. You may also want to explain the American expectation of teamwork.
Provide initial guidance:
Make yourself available for guidance as some Chinese students may not have experienced a group assignment, or group assignment as American students have experienced. Ask them questions to see how much they understand. Provide guidance when they need it. If certain parts of your instruction are intended to be vague, and to be defined by students themselves, let them know and tell them that figuring things out is part of the learning. Explain that there is no “correct” answers or approaches to certain problems.
Set up ground rules:
Sometimes Chinese students may be overshadowed by language barriers to be not very active in group work, thinking that their American teammates have a better idea how to proceed. You will need to do what you can to get students out of their comfort zones to really contribute to group work. One way is to articulate your ground rules. Share with students how you expect groups to behave and participate. You may need to appoint someone in the group to be a facilitator or group secretary to make sure everyone contributes to the best of his or her ability. Use rubrics to communicate how you intend to grade group work. You may even want to have a peer evaluation element in your projects to make students take accountability for one another.
Vary communication methods:
Many Chinese students are better at reading and writing, so it may be a good idea to take some group discussions online where they can write and edit before publishing their thoughts. You can then capitalize on what they wrote online and choose to take some discussion to the class to extend or enrich the dialogue. Often when students have already shared some thoughts online, they are more relaxed to speak in class. However, set up some protocols for discussion so that they contribute substantially to the discussion instead of just writing “I agree.”
Though it is important to encourage and support students as they try to master the English language, bear in mind that language barriers will exist for a long time, if not forever. Having things in written form may help students revisit your instructions. It is also a good practice to have in written form some kind of project sheet to list various subtasks and persons responsible so that everyone will have a clear understanding of his or her role.
Be insightful but not hurtful:
Characterization of particular groups often has certain truths to them. You may equip yourself with insights into common values and practices that define a group, but do not let such insights create unnecessary tension or new barriers. Chinese students’ study habits of “rote memory” and “collective thinking”, for instance, should not be given too much emphasis as it may create unnecessary hostility. Many such terms, though not intended to carry any negative connotations, may be perceived as derogatory. In addition, some labels become useless at a certain point. For instance, “rote memory” can be seen as a “lower order” thinking skill, while there is still controversy around “content-free” higher-order thinking.