American and Taiwanese students get cross-cultural experience

Emma Miller

PROVO -- As Joy Su and 29 other jet lagged Taiwanese students staggered off the plane at Salt Lake City International Airport, she couldn’t have imagined the challenges she would soon be facing. Instead, weary from 15 hours on a plane (Taoyuan to LA then LA to Salt Lake), she climbed on a school bus and made her way to Provo where she would stay for the next two weeks.

That first day she met her host family (which she admits was initially scary, though now she likes them very much), and settled in for the beginning of a 28-day stay in America.

Before she and her Chung-Hsin High School classmates arrived in the United States for the first time, their teacher told them that in America they would learn English, and go on a “culture tour,” says Annie Huang, a student on the trip. She added that the students expected the new experience would be both challenging and fun.

What they didn’t expect was that, just one week into their trip, they would be taking college honors classes at a university they knew hardly a thing about. The BYU Summer Scholars program is a summer camp designed for high school students interested in getting a feel for the university’s prestigious honors program.

“The goal is to offer students a college experience while they’re in high school,” says Rory Scanlon, associate dean of undergraduate education and director of the Honors Program.

It’s an academically challenging program – and the only BYU summer camp with a scholastic focus – and year after year, students and professors alike find themselves encountering new schools of thought and overcoming new challenges. But never before have such challenges taken the form of a language barrier.

“[The] teacher speaks too quickly and we don’t understand what should we do,” admits Joy Su. She then tucks her thick black hair behind her ear and stares at the floor, self-conscious about her English skills.

But this sheepishness is unwarranted; her English is very good. In fact, this is true of all 30 Taiwanese home stay students. They’ve studied for years, and speak the language at a level superior to that of most of their peers. But the simple fact remains that it is incredibly difficult – even for native speakers – to understand the heightened academic language of Summer Scholars.

“We’ve decided this probably wasn’t the best summer camp blend for them … They’re advanced in their own classroom, but they need a mix that’s a little bit different,” says Scanlon, after a conversation with Chung-Hsin’s principal, who visited campus this Thursday.

In many ways, the program has adapted to accommodate the students, just as they have adapted to the unexpected and entirely different world they have been thrown in. Translators have appeared both in the classroom and on the field trip to Temple Square. International students have been transferred out of the college level writing course and into more suitable classes. And sitting together in the Maeser Building, English and Mandarin speakers alike communicate enthusiastically with smiles and laughter, including a mutual obsession of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story”. Taiwanese students Alice and Cindy belted the song at the camp talent show, much to the delight of a screaming crowd.

So while this years’ Summer Scholars have not had the educational experience they initially expected, they still have had an important and genuinely good one. And given his philosophy on education, Scanlon agrees.

“To me, the reason we want to learn is because we want to get out of ourselves and learn about someone else. That’s what education is, right? How can you learn about someone else without them kinda sorta in the room? You can’t really walk in their shoes if you don’t have access to their shoes.”

Summer Scholars has been a surprise, but not a bad one. Instead, it has been a positive adventure for all – a sort of shoe-swapping palooza. Taiwanese students have learned more English than they ever imagined, and in the end, have been able to get the cultural education they were after, learning about LDS culture.

“You pray everywhere,” says Joy Su of what she has learned since her arrival. For a moment she contemplates that, surely thinking back to the prayers at the dinner table, in the 12-passenger van, on the hard floor of Penrose dorm. Then, eyes lighting up, she adds that she has also learned “how to make a lot of friends.”