Guest-Teaching Chinese, and Learning America

Matt Nager for The New York Times

Zheng Yue, who has been teaching Chinese in MacArthur High School in Lawton, Okla., working with a student, Raymond Veal.

By SAM DILLON

Published: May 9, 2010

LAWTON, Okla. — Zheng Yue, a young woman from China who is teaching her native language to students in this town on the Oklahoma grasslands, was explaining a vocabulary quiz on a recent morning. Then a student interrupted.

The New York Times

“Sorry, I was zoning out,” said the girl, a junior wearing black eye makeup. “What are we supposed to be doing?”

Ms. Zheng seemed taken aback but patiently repeated the instructions.

“In China,” she said after class, “if you teach the students and they don’t get it, that’s their problem. Here if they don’t get it, you teach it again.”

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