The CATESOL Journal

Interpersonal relationships are established among teachers and students in education settings. This phenomenon takes on special meaning in a foreign language classroom, particularly for overseas teachers. Learning a new language brings new knowledge and new possibilities into students’ lives. Understandings experienced and gained in these classrooms go beyond linguistic comprehension and social activity to the very being of the person. Understanding is not something grasped or possessed. Rather it is a mode of our existence in the world. This dynamic aspect of foreign language teaching is of critical importance when Western teachers work in a country that follows a very different ideology from their own. The students in China bring their own history and worldview to the learning of English. It is the foreign teacher’s responsibility to not only help a student learn new concepts and language but also learn how to live out a meaningful life in a country that places expectations on students arising from very different political beliefs.