Teaching Physics in China

LeTourneau University in 2017 established a partnership with the Chinese Jilin Normal University in Siping, China to exchange faculty members. Jilin Normal University desires its students to receive instruction from native English speakers who bring innovative and interactive teaching methods into the classroom. Since their spring semester is from March through the end of June, this allowed me to finish the semester here at LeTourneau this last spring and travel to China to teach the last 8 weeks of the semester at Jilin Normal University. I taught two courses, calculus and physics, to the same group of 82 freshmen all majoring in electrical engineering. I found that the students were capable in written English, but most had very limited practice with conversing in oral English. This required me to adjust my approach to foster more interaction with the students. Hoping to capture student interest, I discussed the recent news of China's landing a probe on the Moon's far side. In general, the students found space exploration fascinating. I chose to make ``Mission to Mars'' the theme of the remainder of the semester for each physics lecture period. Putting students to work on various aspects of a space mission led to more engagement with the physics concepts and more practice in speaking English. This appeared to accomplish the purpose that Jilin Normal University had in mind. I returned from China this summer with a deep sense of satisfaction.