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news
Classes at sea
slated for summer
By Alex Roman
On-line Forty-Niner
This summer will
mark the first time Cal State Long Beach will offer a language
immersion program aboard the Maritime Academy's training ship,
the Golden Bear.
"A lot of
people don't know that our system, the Cal State system, has
a ship," said John Tsuchida, chairman of the Asian and
Asian American studies department. "In the past, San
Luis Obispo and Pomona were using these cruises to offer math
and science courses."
The California
Maritime Academy became a campus of the California State University
system in 1996. The ship is used as a training vessel for
merchant marines, who must complete actual shipboard practical
training as required by the U.S. Coast Guard who documents
and licenses merchant crewmen.
When Tsuchida and
others in the department learned of the ship's existence and
that it would visit both China and Japan, an idea quickly
came to fruition.
"We want to
send our students to China or Japan to practice their languages,
but it's not easy for students to go for a semester or more,"
Tsuchida said. "We thought maybe this would be a fun
way to do it. It's short term, it's not as cheap as we'd hoped,
but it's about $4,000 which will include 10 units and a two
month cruise."
The summer-session
program will offer students a chance to take two Chinese or
Japanese language courses and two units of maritime safety,
which is required of everyone on the ship, including faculty.
Tsuchida said that
it requires a special sort of person to take part in this
trip.
"It's difficult
to find faculty who are willing to make such a commitment,"
Tsuchida said. "There is no drinking, smoking, drugs
or e-mail. So, you must be in a certain category of people."
CSULB assistant
professor Tim Xie, who teaches Chinese, and his wife Yinbai
Ping are that special sort of people. The couple will take
a team approach at teaching Chinese.
"It's a challenge
to us as faculty because it is the first time we'll teach
this course on a ship," Xie said. "We have not had
any experience with this at all. So we'll also be learning.
For example, we'll be learning to live on a ship for so long.
China has a lot of Internet cafés so we'll be able
to use such places of this kind when the ship ports."
Xie and his wife
have already given the summer much thought and have plenty
of plans for their classes aboard the ship.
"We plan on
traditional classroom teaching. Bringing a lot of CDs, DVDs,
tapes and books to help teach and, if possible, we want to
teach the students how to cook Chinese food," Xie said.
"Also when we get to Shanghai, we would like to ask professors
from there to give students a brief introduction of Shanghai
history and culture."
The trip will take
place this summer between June 20 and Aug. 21. According to
Tsuchida and the Maritime Academy's itinerary, students will
take a charter flight to Honolulu where they will board the
Golden Bear. The ship will make stops in the Philippines;
Hong Kong; Shanghai; Sasebo, Japan and Kona, HI and then return
to Vallejo where the ship is docked.
Everything is ready
for the summer session at this point except for students.
"I think it's
a question of time and money," Tsuchida said. "$4,000
is a lot of money, you must have very understanding parents.
There are certain limits as to when students have to get everything
done, so a lot will have to happen between now and May."
Information on
the trip will be made available during March when summer session
schedules come out. Tsuchida and the entire department are
hoping that the trip is a success so that it will inspire
other departments to use the ship for future classes.
"I think students
will learn if they are serious, Tsuchida said.
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