Hopkins-Nanjing Center Master of Arts in International Studies Thesis Tutorial Course

Student blogger Hope Parker reflects on the required First-Year Interdisciplinary MA Tutorial Course. 

Every first-year Master of Arts in International Studies (MAIS) student at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center is required to take the interdisciplinary MA Tutorial Course during their first year. Before starting the course, I assumed it would be a research methods class in preparation for writing our theses. As it turns out, although master’s students do take a separate class that includes research methods later on in their studies, the tutorial is meant to help students start thinking about a variety of questions that we may encounter while researching and writing our theses. Given that every master’s student is required to take the course, there are Chinese and international students in each section, and the course is co-taught by an American and a Chinese faculty member. The professors take turns leading the course in English and Chinese, based on English and Chinese readings. Chinese and international students have discussions using their target languages.
 

As an interdisciplinary course, the tutorial covers topics on a variety of social sciences, frequently focusing on different theories’ applicability in China, the United States, and the rest of the world. The structure prompts an examination of these theories against students’ existing understandings of an issue within a particular cultural context. Explaining how I understand social science theories based on my own cultural background in Chinese has been more challenging than I anticipated, but has made me aware of how closely language and culture are related. At the beginning of the course, I would bring up ideas that are inherently based on my American education and background. However, raising those ideas in Chinese to people who do not have the same background made me realize that what I said may not have meant the same thing for my classmates as it did for me.

Taking the tutorial course requires me to think about ideas and explain them in a more systematic fashion, reflecting not just on my perspective, but why I have that perspective. I then do the same when listening to my classmates, attempting to make my ideas as clear as possible and understand others’ perspectives as well as I can. These class discussions will help my thesis by giving it more nuanced perspectives, not just in terms of varying social science theories, but also based on their applicability to different situations. More generally, I find the class to be a good listening and discussion exercise.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center’s cross-cultural setting provides a unique forum for examining arguments in a methodical way. In the tutorial course and at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, having fellow classmates ask me a question about my perspective has prompted me to reflect on what experiences and lessons I experienced that may be common within the United States, but not elsewhere. As an international student at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, not only have I learned a lot about China and Chinese society, but I have also been encouraged to think more deeply about my own background.

Written by Hope Parker, Master of Arts in International Studies ‘20

Volunteer Teaching in Nanjing

Student blogger Cady Deck, Certificate ’19, shares her experience volunteer teaching at a local elementary school in Nanjing.

This semester, I am one of four international students volunteering as an English teacher at Xijie Elementary School. I talked with Paul Armstrong-Taylor, an economics professor at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and our volunteer teaching faculty advisor, to learn about the school and how the volunteer teaching program began. The program started in 2010 when he and a first-year master’s student, “realized that many students were interested in volunteering, but because they were only at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for one or two years it was often hard to connect with opportunities.” They reached out to a major Chinese non-profit based in Nanjing, who put them in contact with a local elementary school. Although they began teaching at that elementary school, the school that students volunteer at has changed several times over the years.



We teach a class of about 30 students on Friday afternoons, which presents a unique challenge. As a former third grader, I sympathize with their desire to start the weekend, but as a teacher, their excitement is my biggest challenge. The four of us are tasked with teaching them new material, reviewing what they have already learned, and maintaining control of the class, all in the span of 40 minutes. As a result, not only are we developing our teaching skills, but we’re also gaining classroom management skills. At the beginning of the semester, I saw a volunteer teaching WeChat QR code posted on the Hopkins-Nanjing Center bulletin board and immediately scanned it to sign up. For me, volunteering at this school is a fun way to interact with the local community and do something productive with my free time on Fridays.

Volunteer teaching is a very rewarding experience, even though we only teach for 40 minutes every time. We meet before each class to come up with new lesson plans. The first time we went, we weren’t sure what level the students were at, so we came up with activities based on the first few lessons in their textbook, which consisted of very basic greetings, such as “hello” and “good morning.” After teaching them for a few minutes, we quickly realized they were at a much more advanced level. We needed to give them a bigger challenge, so we taught them more complex sentence structures and had them introduce themselves to each other and to us.

Because the students are so far ahead of the lessons in the textbook, we come up with our own topics every week. For example, last time we taught them about different flavors and food. We incorporate as many interactive elements as possible so they can practice speaking with and listening to native English speakers. By doing this, we correct their mistakes, and they hear how certain words should be pronounced. However, correcting pronunciation isn’t a one-way street. An unintentional benefit of this opportunity is that the students aren’t afraid to let us know when our tones are wrong or when they don’t understand our Chinese.

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center emphasizes the importance of cross-cultural dialogue, and this is a great way to engage with people of different ages and backgrounds. Professor Armstrong-Taylor summed up the overall experience perfectly by saying that “we not only get the psychological benefits of helping others, but also an opportunity to get out of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center bubble and see a part of Nanjing and Chinese society that we would not otherwise have access to.”

Written by Cady Deck, Hopkins-Nanjing Center Certificate ’19