An ORT Strasbourg teacher believes she may have found a way to help her students gain vital work experience in China.

About half of International Trade teacher Marie-Anne Ratsch’s students have chosen to learn Mandarin as part of their post-high school course. The course requires students to spend at least two months abroad in an internship. But Mandarin’s complexity means it can be difficult for students to gain the proficiency required to work at a Chinese business.

But thanks to what she has learned through her participation in a tour of Jiangsu province organised by the Alsace-China Education (ACE) Association, Ms Ratsch may have come up with a solution.
Together with ORT Strasbourg English teacher Veronique Boin and 10 representatives of five other Alsatian schools Ms Ratsch visited 10 schools in the densely populated and highly industrialised province on China’s eastern seaboard to make lots of contacts with a view to increasing cultural, academic and pedagogical exchanges.
They also visited ORT Strasbourg’s partner in the region, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, which has 22,000 students on campus.
“The Chinese were much friendlier and much more open to make contacts than I had expected,”? Ms Ratch said. “The schools we saw were well equipped and gave us many ideas. I hadn’t expected to make exchanges with China but now I’m in email contact with so many people and will gladly encourage my students to go there to do internships.”?
But for many students, learning one year of Mandarin before undertaking the required foreign internship does not give them the practical language skills necessary to work in a Chinese company.
Thanks to her new contacts, Ms Ratsch says it may be possible for interested students to undergo an intensive language course in China during the long summer holiday immediately preceding a work placement.
Another way of overcoming the language barrier may lie in the hands of foreign companies operating in the region, particularly in Suzhou where an industrial park has enticed 79 Fortune 500 companies to invest in 125 projects at an intensity amounting to $1.7 billion per square kilometre.
“I was astonished by how many foreigners, especially English, are living and doing business there,”? Ms Ratsch said. “So those students who are unable to acquire a practical level of Mandarin in time for their internship may be able to do it China using their English language skills.”?
This could also be a new opportunity for ORT Strasbourg students who have not until now shown a particular interest in China.
“It’s difficult to find internships in the UK. In fact, opportunities don’t exist in Europe. Every company we approach says the situation is too unstable, they don’t know what state they’ll be in tomorrow. We didn’t have this problem two or three years ago. So our students have had to seek opportunities in North America and Dubai “ﾓ and now China,”? Ms Ratsch said.
With a GDP last year of $500 billion and an economic growth rate of 12.4 per cent, Jiangsu province looks set to provide many more such opportunities well into the future.
In the meantime, Ms Ratsch said her trip to China would inform the development of the practical marketing course she teaches.
“The contacts I’ve made will absolutely help me in formulating my course,”? she said. “Next year I want to introduce some research and marketing projects set in China.”?
Four years after it signed a cooperation agreement with Nanjing Tianjiabing High School (a relationship superseded last year by the link with Nanjing Xiaozhuang University) ORT Strasbourg now has a sufficient quantity and quality of contacts to enable student exchanges as well as staff exchanges, according to Ms Ratsch, although no date has been set for the first of these.
“I hope that some of our contacts will come to Alsace in November for “ﾘChina Week’ so that we can speak further about doing something together next year involving students,”? she said.
Together with ORT Strasbourg English teacher Veronique Boin and 10 representatives of five other Alsatian schools Ms Ratsch visited 10 schools in the densely populated and highly industrialised province on China’s eastern seaboard to make lots of contacts with a view to increasing cultural, academic and pedagogical exchanges.
They also visited ORT Strasbourg’s partner in the region, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, which has 22,000 students on campus.
“The Chinese were much friendlier and much more open to make contacts than I had expected,”? Ms Ratch said. “The schools we saw were well equipped and gave us many ideas. I hadn’t expected to make exchanges with China but now I’m in email contact with so many people and will gladly encourage my students to go there to do internships.”?
But for many students, learning one year of Mandarin before undertaking the required foreign internship does not give them the practical language skills necessary to work in a Chinese company.
Thanks to her new contacts, Ms Ratsch says it may be possible for interested students to undergo an intensive language course in China during the long summer holiday immediately preceding a work placement.
Another way of overcoming the language barrier may lie in the hands of foreign companies operating in the region, particularly in Suzhou where an industrial park has enticed 79 Fortune 500 companies to invest in 125 projects at an intensity amounting to $1.7 billion per square kilometre.
“I was astonished by how many foreigners, especially English, are living and doing business there,”? Ms Ratsch said. “So those students who are unable to acquire a practical level of Mandarin in time for their internship may be able to do it China using their English language skills.”?
This could also be a new opportunity for ORT Strasbourg students who have not until now shown a particular interest in China.
“It’s difficult to find internships in the UK. In fact, opportunities don’t exist in Europe. Every company we approach says the situation is too unstable, they don’t know what state they’ll be in tomorrow. We didn’t have this problem two or three years ago. So our students have had to seek opportunities in North America and Dubai “ﾓ and now China,”? Ms Ratsch said.
With a GDP last year of $500 billion and an economic growth rate of 12.4 per cent, Jiangsu province looks set to provide many more such opportunities well into the future.
In the meantime, Ms Ratsch said her trip to China would inform the development of the practical marketing course she teaches.
“The contacts I’ve made will absolutely help me in formulating my course,”? she said. “Next year I want to introduce some research and marketing projects set in China.”?
Four years after it signed a cooperation agreement with Nanjing Tianjiabing High School (a relationship superseded last year by the link with Nanjing Xiaozhuang University) ORT Strasbourg now has a sufficient quantity and quality of contacts to enable student exchanges as well as staff exchanges, according to Ms Ratsch, although no date has been set for the first of these.
“I hope that some of our contacts will come to Alsace in November for “ﾘChina Week’ so that we can speak further about doing something together next year involving students,”? she said.