In this blog post are two articles shared by by INTO OSU’s Chinese Language & Culture Advisor, Alice Wang. We are including both the links to the articles and her commentary on the take aways for teachers.

The first NY Times article, “Chinese, Studying in America, and Struggling,”  highlights some of the struggles that international students from China have while studying in America. As much of our student population is from China, this cultural perspective is vitally important for teachers to consider. Below are Alice’s comments.

Alice Wang: While some international students are struggling at American universities, instructors are being challenged to teach and help them. To achieve success, students must do their part, and equally important, instructors and professors need to understand the difficulties their students face in order to adjust their teaching to encourage and offer support to international students.

In the second article, “Yale’s Most Popular Class Ever: Happiness,” the author describes how a popular class at Yale addresses stress and anxiety by focusing on positive psychology and behavioral change.

Alice Wang: While Yale is offering a course on happiness, I’m thinking it may be meaningful and helpful if our instructors integrate guidance on “how to be happy” into their teaching or as an occasional reminder in class to promote students’ well-being.