University boosts academic ties

Canadian professor helps young scientists communicate with the world, Zhu Lixin reports.

Some 24 years have passed since Murray Sherk started work at the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei, the capital of East China's Anhui province, as a language teacher.

On the eve of China's 65th National Day last year, Sherk attended a banquet held by the Chinese central government for hundreds of high-level foreign experts working in China.

The invitation the Canadian professor received marked the sincere appreciation of both the Chinese government and the university for the contribution he had made to improving the communications competence of his science students.

With the progress of the Chinese education system and the help from foreign language teachers, more and more Chinese students are now able to speak English, but for some, such as the USTC students who dream of becoming internationally prominent scientists, daily communication is only the first small step of what they need to achieve.

Helping them progress further is a task Sherk has been devoted to for more than 20 years.

The holder of a doctorate in computer science from the University of Toronto, Sherk was a professor in his field at the University of Waterloo in Ontario before he came to China in 1991, while in his early 30s.

That year, China's State Bureau of Foreign Experts, the State Education Commission, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the US-based English Language Institute in China started a book series on English for scientists, working alongside six key universities in China, including USTC.

It was that project that brought Sherk to China as part of the writing team.

"The invitation came because I have the science background, while I was also interested in seeing if that background would be useful here," Sherk said.

USTC then invited Sherk to teach one of two English courses on computer science, but he soon found the course only taught computer terms in English and looked for a chance to teach his discipline.

When a colleague who taught computer science asked for six-week's leave, Sherk offered to be his replacement.

Defining his mission

He said that when he taught the students easy materials in English, they had no problem, but when he taught them complex material in their second language, "it was too much for all of the students except for one, who is just a genius".

"China did not need me to teach computer science. There were many excellent computer scientists and educators in China", he said. He decided teaching science students practical English usage would be a better use of his time and skills.

"The way I can serve the students in China is a combination of my science background and my native English ability."

Sherk and his Chinese colleagues at the English department in the early 1990s designed a course that is now called Academic Communication, which aims to improve the students' abilities to give oral presentations in English at international conferences.

The course is available to master's level and PhD students, as they are more likely to attend such conferences than undergraduates, to share their research results with the world.

"Over the years, with some colleagues' great help in developing this course, we now have a very polished course to help the students raise their level, however good they are," he said.

At the end of every semester, Sherk listens to his students' final exams, during which they present research papers of their own or papers from international journals. "For me as a scientist, it is fantastic to listen to these presentations, which are all about cutting-edge research in the world. It helps to keep me up with the progress in different areas."

Drastic changes

In the early 1990s, when Sherk started the course he still teaches, his students fell into two categories.

"There were young students who had good English but bad research skills since they had just started their scientific careers, and mature students in their 40s and even 50s who had being doing good quality research for 20 or 30 years but were very bad in English.

"So at that time, there was really a split between these two types of students. Now my students seem much more even. They all have good skills in English," he said. There are also big changes in other aspects."When I first came here, there was nearly no Internet connection available to students. I heard that somewhere in the physics department, they had a connection through Shanghai, and the international affairs office had a line to the outside world. But nobody was allowed to use it except for official business."

In his early years in China, Sherk said, he once asked a student to predict how long it would be before the average USTC student would be able to use the Internet for research, as was usual in North America. The student thought it would take at least 10 years.

"Only about five years later, students here were combining their money to buy computers, and online dialogue became available. It just got better and better," he said.

"The development speed of China is rapid, but in USTC, a top science and technology university in the country, the speed of development has been tremendous."

Staying current

During his time in China, Sherk has also spent two years studying Chinese and three years teaching at two other universities, including the faraway Tibet University. He also spent a total of four years back in Canada, teaching computer science at the University of Waterloo. "It is a good idea for native English language teachers to go back to their home country to pick up new idioms to get used to how people are using language again," he said.

Sherk said his purpose is to make sure his English is still standard. "Because when you listen to so much Chinglish, it starts to sound normal. Here in USTC, they want a very high standard, so I have to keep my own standard high.

"When I am in China, I get homesick for Canada, but when I am in Canada, like in the summer, I get homesick for USTC," he said.

Contact the writer at zhulixin@chinadaily.com.cn