As very few westerners have ever seen a Chinese or Arab school in progress, it is very easy for them to miss the scene when one says “Chinese school.”
The term has been used to designate an action where an instructor or officer, with a pointer, stands up before an assembled class and taps a chart or org board and says each part of it.
It is very funny to one who knows or has heard a real Chinese school to see the class sitting there silently. This is strictly a Western pattern. This is how teacher does it in Omaha or Cornell. But never in Shanghai!
A Chinese class sings out in unison (all together) in response to the teacher. They participate!
The only Western near equivalent is a German beer hall where the audience choruses items sung out by the song leader.
Chinese School, then, is an action of class vocal participation. It is a very lively loud affair. It sounds like chanting.
In a real Chinese School the response is so timed that although spoken by many voices it is quite easy to tell what answer is being chorused.
It is essentially a system that establishes instant thought responses so that the student, given “2x2” thinks instantly “4.”
For example, the instructor, tapping a big multiplication chart cries, “Two times two.” The class in one voice cries, “Four.” Instructor: “Five times two.” Class: “Ten.” And so on and on and on by the hour.
This gets more complex when, let us say, the maxims of good conduct or the Koran are being taught. In such cases the tablets or scrolls are on the wall. The teacher calls Chapter and verse and the students chant it.
You could teach the Laws of Listing and Nulling, The Auditor’s Code, Axioms and so on in this way.
The tools are the same — an instructor, a pointer, a chart or set of pictures or big scrolls, a class.
There are two steps in such teaching.
A. The Instructor taps and says what it is. Then asks the Class what it is and they chant the answer.
B. When the Class has learned by being told and repeating, the Instructor now taps with the pointer and asks and the class chants the correct answer.
The Instructor himself has to grasp the drill
Here is how it would go on an org bd.
Instructor taps Div 1. “This is Division 1 HCO Division.’*
Class chants, “Division 1 HCO Division.’’
Instructor taps Div 6. “This is Division 6 Distribution Division.”
Class: “Division 6 Distribution Division.”
And so on until all divisions have been named a few times.
Instructor taps Div 1. “What is this?”
Class: “Division 1 HCO Division.”
Instructor taps Div 4. “What is this?”
Class: “Division 4 Tech Division.”
And so on and on. The divisions are then considered trained-in on the Class.
Next one would go to departments. Then to philosophic names of departments. Then to sections. Then one would go to the titles of each division head. Then to dept heads, etc., etc.
If one had a function org board of what each div and department and post did one would go on with the same thing.
A Chinese School drill run for a short period each day will eventually cover an enormous amount of org bd.
Newcomers to the drill have to be schooled-in to catch up or join a new class.
Anything can be taught by Chinese School that is to be learned by rote. The parts and actions are always the same.
There is also a version that uses a text, preferably with a copy of it in each student’s hands. It sounds the same.
One is limited only by what he can put on a chart or even in a text where each student has a copy of the text open before him.
Crude charts are easy to draw up with a felt (heavy ink) pen. The size of a chart is determined by the ability of the students furthest away to see it easily.
Cloud types, pictures to be named in a foreign language, even slides of airplane types, anything can be Chinese Schooled that is to be learned verbatim. And you’d be surprised how many things should be. And if they aren’t the person has a shaky foundation under the subject.
Care should be taken to define strange words. But it is not really a problem or exercise in Word Clearing. It is verbatim rote teaching.
And it works.
And is lots of fun.