08/12/09 03:28 Age: 1 yrs
JHF Teachers Make a Difference in Shandong Province
Category: Teaching
Mike and Pam Collier, teachers in Shandong University of Science and Technology, are making significant contributions in the areas of Engineering and English. Mike has co-authored two books with his university colleagues, the second just published this summer. Both Mike and Pam have received teaching excellence awards from Shandong province. All while enjoying a high level of interest and support from students and staff at the institution.
After several decades in the educational world on three continents, Mike and Pam Collier moved to North China in 2007. Previously, Mike was Professor of Electronic Engineering in a university in Zimbabwe, and Pam was Head of English in a nearby high school. They were invited to take up posts in Shandong University of Science and Technology, which is located near the resort city of Qingdao and has a beautiful campus bordered by mountains on two sides.
Mike serves in the College of Information and Electrical Engineering, and is active in a bilingual engineering education project which is part of the government's initiative to produce engineers capable of interacting in both English and Chinese. The project involves teaching certain technical subjects in English with PowerPoint presentations using bilingual terminology. Because of a dearth of English textbooks aimed at Chinese students, Mike has published two textbooks for use by third-year undergraduates in Electronics, Automation and Mechatronics. In each case he has collaborated with a Chinese colleague who has assisted with the contents of the books and the provision of vocabulary lists of technical terms at the end of each chapter.
The books are:
Microcontroller Theory and Applications, Michael Collier and Sun Xiujuan, China Petroleum University Press, 2008.
Electrical Measurement Theory and Practice, Michael Collier and Zheng Juanjuan, China Petroleum University Press, 2009.
Pam is active in the School of Foreign Languages, where she teaches students who are taking English as their major subject. Her classes cover the language, history, geography and culture of the English-speaking world for freshmen and second-year students. PowerPoint, drama, debating and small-group activities are among the methods used. The progress made by students who have never previously met a native speaker of English has been most encouraging, and a number have achieved remarkable fluency within a year.
One of the greatest surprises has been the warm and positive attitude shown by both students and staff. The Colliers feel really welcomed as part of the campus community, and are enjoying the rich experience of sharing their lives with so many new friends. They have been encouraged by the fact that in the past two years both Mike (2008) and Pam (2009) have been awarded Teaching Excellence Prizes by Shandong province.
Both Mike and Pam realise that there is more to education than lecture-room and laboratory classes. Thus they spend considerable time on social and recreational activities with students. They organise hikes into the nearby mountains for students who want to explore the area and practise their English. The Collier home is open for games and film evenings on a rota basis for different classes, and visits to the beautiful Golden and Silver Sand Beaches are also on the agenda.
