This post describes my Western Culture course and exam.
Culture course
Although the course is called “British & American Culture” you will see from the exam questions (below) that my focus was on the USA. The course was only 17 weeks and I preferred to describe the US in detail rather than talk superficially about two countries; also the USA is, realistically, of much greater importance to China.
The following table shows the structure of the course this semester. I covered the "building blocks" of culture first (geography, economy, history, political system, religion), and then described many day-to-day aspects under Way of life.
Table 1: Structure of Western Culture course
Week
|
Topic
|
Week 1
|
Introduction & course outline
|
Week 2
|
Geography of the USA
|
Week 3
|
Economy of the USA
|
Week 4
|
History of the USA #1 (to 1799)
|
Week 5
|
National Day holiday
|
Week 6
|
History of the USA #2 (1800 – 1899)
|
Week 7
|
History of the USA #3 (1900 – 2014)
|
Week 8
|
Review #1
|
Week 9
|
Political system of the USA #1 (Constitution)
|
Week 10
|
Political System #2 (Parties, voting, elections)
|
Week 11
|
Religion
|
Week 12
|
Review #2
|
Week 13
|
Way of life #1 (Sport, pets, cars, guns, crime)
|
Week 14
|
Way of life #2 (Inventors, stock market, etc)
|
Week 15
|
Way of life #3 (Education, food, housing, etc)
|
Week 16
|
Review #3
|
Week 17
|
Final exam
|
Attendance was very good - over 90% - which usually indicates that the students liked the course.
In the last lecture I asked the students what topic they had found most interesting. Here are some of their replies:
Table 2: What did you find most interesting?
Name
|
Topic
|
Name
|
Topic
|
Name
|
Topic
|
Stallion
|
Economy
|
Tim
|
Guns
|
Theresa
|
College
|
Sunny
|
Checks & balances
|
Ian
|
War of Independence
|
Carlos
|
3 branches of govt
|
Snow
|
Guns
|
Emma
|
Food
|
Alice
|
Food
|
Tom
|
Civil War
|
Thea
|
Religion
|
Zero
|
Religion
|
Lucky
|
Thanksgiving
|
Monkey
|
Civil War
|
Katherine
|
Sport
|
Octopus
|
Sport
|
Dora
|
Religion
|
Candice
|
Pets
|
The exam
The final exam on Western
Culture for DM1401 was held 7 – 9pm on Sunday 3 January 2016. Yes, you read right: SUNDAY night. Chinese students (especially Double Major
students) don’t consider weekends special – they are just normal work days.
PART 1 comprised
20 Multiple Choice questions; PART 2 comprised 20 True/False questions; PART 3 comprised
30 fill-in-the-blank questions; and PART 4 was 3 written essays (6 questions to
choose from).
To give you a feel
for the types of questions, here are the first 5 questions in Parts 1, 2 &
3. Part 4 shows three of the essay
questions (they had to answer 3 out of 6 options).
PART 1: Multiple
Choice
1. Who is known
as the “Father of the Auto Industry”?
A. Thomas Edison; B. John D Rockefeller; C. Warren
Buffett; D. Henry Ford
2. How many
children does Kobe Bryant have?
A. 1; B. 2; C. 3;
D. 4
3. Which team
won the NFL Super Bowl in February 2015?
A. New England Patriots; B. Seattle Seahawks; C.
Denver Broncos; D. New York Giants
4. From which
country was President Obama’s father?
A. Kenya; B. USA; C. South Africa; D. Indonesia
5. How many
delegates attended the 1787 Constitutional Convention?
A. 35; B. 45; C. 55; D. 65
PART 2: True /
False?
1. Amendment #13 to the US Constitution in 1865
abolished slavery.
2. Kobe Bryant has scored the most points of any
player in NBA history.
3. Thomas Edison and Mark Zuckerberg were friends.
4. The Mississippi is the longest river in the world.
5. In 2014 the USA produced more crude oil than China.
PART 3:
Fill-in-the-blank
1. Elephant is the symbol of the __________ (name) Party.
2. President Obama was first elected President in ______________
(year).
3. Tom Brady’s NFL nick-name is ___________.
4. The Berlin Wall was pulled down (opened up) in _______ (year).
5. Osama bin Laden
was the leader of the __________ (name) terrorist group which attacked America
in 2001.
PART 4: The
following were 3 of the essay questions. Students had to choose three of six
options and write at least 100 words on each topic.
A. Benjamin Franklin was the
signatory of 4 important documents in early USA history. What were they, and what was the significance
of each? Provide some details of his life.
B. Explain what caused the Global Financial
Crisis (GFC), and what happened to the American economy. Why didn’t China suffer as much as the USA?
C. Describe voting in the USA. Who can vote?
When are elections held? What were the turn-out rates in the 2012 and
2014 US elections? In your opinion, why
don’t more Americans vote in elections?
…
How did you go with these sample questions? Would you have passed?
The answers are:
PART 1: 1 D; 2 C; 3 A; 4 A; 5 C.
PART 2: 1 T; 2 F; 3 F; 4 F; 5 T.
PART 3: 1 Republican Party; 2 2008; 3 Tom Terrific; 4 1989; 5 Al Queda.
PART 4: A - Benjamin Franklin was a signatory to the Declaration of
Independence (1776); the Treaty of Friendship with France (1778); the Treaty of
Paris (1783); the new Constitution (1787). B – the bursting of the property
bubble caused by the sub prime crisis, etc; C - the turnout rate in the 2012
election was 58.2% and 2014 was 36.4%.
It was an “open
book” exam – students could take in any paper materials, including copies of my
lectures (ppts). Perhaps a bit generous, but I didn’t want the students to
spend hours and hours memorizing all the dates and names and facts; it was more
important that they developed a general understanding of the subject.
A total of 68
students sat the Culture exam. Three got
all the Multiple Choice answers right; two got all the True / False answers
right; although none got all the Fill-in-the-blank answers right, three got 29 out
of 30 right.
Seven students failed
the exam (10%). It always surprises me when students fail an open book exam –
but you still have to know where to find the information quickly - I guess they just
didn’t take it very seriously.
...
So ends another semester, Next week Vera & I will "head south" for the winter break. We'll return in time for the beginning of the second semester on 29 February 2016. That will be our final semester, as we will finish our teaching careers in July 2016.
Best wishes, keep well and keep smiling.
Alex & Vera Olah
English teachers at the China University of Petroleum, Qingdao
www.upc.edu.cn
Saturday, 9 January 2016
...
