Instructor Name Mary Christian
W131 IE first draft
Is studying abroad always a good thing ?
Cultural diversity is important because our country, our workplaces and our schools include persons of various ethnics groups and interests. For me, I was born in a Cultural diverse family, my parents were born in different region of China. Because they have different culture background, they shaped me a diverse worldview and made a good arrangement for education. It’s no doubt that basic education yields important direct and indirect benefits to individuals and society. Individual benefits include higher lifetime earnings, reduced infant mortality, and better health status. Therefore, many western counties continued invest basic education and kept improving the quantity of education.( Mertaugh, Michael T,2009,p.55) . In this case, a plenty of Asian students decide to study abroad.
The reason is that there is a big argument regarding the best method of education in China. I am going to focus on the strengths and weakness of “the teacher-centered” method and “the student-centered” learning method. Comparing Western and Asian methods of learning, it is true that Western students are expected to discover things for themselves rather than relying on their teacher to tell them. Up to now most Chinese students are still accustomed only to exam-oriented education. They are always encouraged to obey teacher’s instruction, but discourages from arguing with teachers about what is being taught, let alone being encouraged form their own original ideas.
This passive educational pattern has caused many problem and side effects. Firstly, students dare not challenge what is conventional, so gradually they form a passive way of thinking. to make things worse, they lack the ability to solve problems. Obviously, this method do harm to students future. With the arrival of the globalization of economy, it is advocate students to develop their creative mind, foster their inventive learning habits and encourage them to learn on their own. In this way, students can develop their independent decisions, interests and opinions. We might predict that only those with a free spirit, creative mind and proper skills are likely to succeed in competing in the global job markets.
Based on my personal experience, my parents are surprisingly unanimous about my further study abroad. I can see they don’t want their only son to leave home, but for a better education opportunity, they support me whole-heartedly. I am very grateful to have such parents, and their love motivates me to work harder and to realize my dream. However, there are some disadvantages of studying abroad. Firstly, it is difficulty for international students to communicate with native people. For example, international students cannot catch what the professor said in the class because of the limited foreign language. Then, they will miss lots of important information. What’s more, foreigners are always afraid of talking to others. Therefore classmates will misunderstand what we said or even ignore us. Secondly, Students need for Belonging in the School Community. Previous research has shown that ethnic minority students generally feel less at home in their educational program compared to their fellow students from the dominant culture. For example, Asian student feel less strongly that they belong in a program than white American students (Hurtado and Carter 1997; Johnson et al. 2007). The reason
