Heqing Yin
View the Website of the Project:
EdPassport provides resources for Chinese international students studying in the United States and for American teachers teaching Chinese students. It contains 7 sections and over 20 webpages.
About the Project:
A Brief introduction to my capstone project:
My capstone project aims to provide resources for Chinese international students studying in the United States and for American teachers teaching Chinese students. It covers differences between education in China and education in the U.S., effective English learning methods, other frequently asked questions related to school life or cultural differences, and interviews from Chinese international students and American teachers.
What I did for the project:
Throughout the process of completing the capstone, I reflected on my own experiences being in an international students for over two years, conducted interviews with current MFS teachers and students, watched documentaries and read books related to education, did research on linguistics to understand the differences between Chinese and English and find effective ways to learn English as a second language, and eventually made a website to share my ideas and resources I found useful.
Next step:
Before graduation, I plan to continue my research on education, culture, and linguistics and update new information to the website. I also want to find ways to promote the website to more people and learn from their feedback.
My Experiences:
Why I did the project:
Before coming to the United States, I was in a very test-oriented school in Kunming, a city in China with far fewer educational resources and opportunities compared to big cities like Beijing or Shanghai. I did not know much about the American education system, culture, or educational philosophy. Therefore, I had a very hard time learning how to participate in class discussions, how to write essays, and how to effectively use English in academic settings, how to make friends, etc. I want to share my experiences and resources that I find useful to help more people with similar backgrounds so that they can have an easier time.
You can learn more about my story here.
Obstacles and changes:
The difficulties I had to overcome include doing research effectively, finding the most helpful resources buried in the Internet, and focusing on things that are most important.
Originally, I planned to do the project as a research, but eventually, I decided that summarizing the resources and putting them into a website was more helpful.
Advice for students considering doing a Capstone project:
I highly recommend doing it. This will be a very interesting and meaningful experience. You can choose the topic that you care the most about, and you can do it in whatever ways you want. With the support of your advisor and the MFS community, you will gain practical experiences by starting from scratch, doing things without much guidance, making mistakes, restarting, and improving.
Acknowledgements and Bibliography:
I would like to thank Mr. Sussman for being the advisor of this project, meeting with me every week for a year, checking my progress, giving useful advice to every aspect of the project, helping conduct interviews, checking the content of the passages, correcting grammar issues, helping with the design and formatting of the website, giving advice about English learning, offering book recommendations…This project took much more time than I originally expected, and Mr. Sussman is always so helpful and supportive. The project cannot be completed without his help and advice.
I would like to thank the MFS teachers who designed and supervised the capstone project and participated in my interviews. This is one of the best memories I have from high school, and I am very thankful for having this opportunity and being supportive in a year with lots of uncertainties.
Most part of the project came from my own experiences and reflections. In order to provide the most useful resources, I also learned from the following sources:
Pavlik, Abigail, "Teaching English Language Learners from China" (2012). Honors Theses and Capstones. 69. https://scholars.unh.edu/honors/69
Fu, D. (2003). An island of English: Teaching English in Chinatown. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Chan, A. Y. W. (2004). Noun phrases in Chinese and English: A study of English structural problems encountered by Chinese ESL students in Hong Kong. Language, Culture & Curriculum.
Huang, J. (2005). Challenges of academic listening in English: Reports by Chinese students. College Student Journal.
Eckstein, L. K., Kalaydjian, K. S., Miranda, A., Mitchell, D. A., Mohamed, A., Smith-Palinkas, B., ... Zollner, L. E. (2003). Understanding your international students: An educational, cultural, and linguistic guide. J. Flaitz, (Ed.). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Watkins & J. Biggs (Eds.), The Chinese learners: Cultural, psychological, and contextual influences (pp. 45–68). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Zhao, Yong. Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World. Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Brand, 2014.
Chu, Lenora. Little Soldiers: an American Boy, a Chinese School and the Global Race to Achieve. Piaktus Books, 2019.
Ma, Yingyi. Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education. Columbia University Press, 2020.