During my first semester here, it was very common to receive two homework assignments that were exactly alike along with other assignments that were obviously copied from the internet. During exams, it was common to see students trying to cheat either by sneaking peeks at notes or by "working together" with other students. Coming from attending and teaching at colleges in the U.S.A. where this kind of behavior can get you a failing grade or even expulsion, I was initially shocked, surprised and appalled. Quickly, however, I realized that like just about everything, things are quite different in China.
I've talked with lots of Chinese teachers, students and working professionals about this issue and nobody seems very concerned - plagiarism is pretty much considered the norm and a lot of people do it. My students never considered that it was a big deal to copy from each other or from the internet as long as they turned in the assignment and that it was done "well." Other students lamented that because they are assigned so many papers, it's impossible to do everything in your own words and that the teachers don't read them anyway so it doesn't matter.
Consider also the students' role models. The professors at the university level are pressed to publish constantly. To solve this problem, most just take a paper from the internet or buy an article that is already written and then pay a journal to publish it. Many Chinese teachers have complained to me that the only way to get published in China is to know someone or to pay a lot of money to the publisher. As long as their name appears under the title of a published article, they are in the clear for the next year - it doesn't really matter if it's original research or not. Of course all of the Chinese teachers desperately want to be published in an American or European journal. "They are the best and most difficult to be published in" they tell me and then ask if I have any connections to help them get published in the U.S.
Since it's kind of hard to change the system, we have had to get creative in our assignments and exam design. Now my assignments require personal, creative responses (there's still the problem with students using internet translator programs however) and my exams are all short answer and essay. Doing oral exams or some kind of performance is another option though it takes a lot of time. These ideas help a little bit, but you still get some responses like what one of Sean's students wrote the other day.
For a class assignment one week the student had to describe his or her dream in life and for the next week they wrote about the types of food they usually eat and if their lifestyle was healthy or not. Both of the excerpts are from the same student and make for an interesting comparison. As a teacher, what would you do?
My dream of life is like this: every day I will practice kungfu wearing a white T-shirt at the bottom of a hill with a lot of pine trees. There is a little river nearby the hill. I will build a garden with a lot of strange things. It is very interesting to plant flowers and feed lots of rabbits. I will also plant all kinds of vegetables and medical plants in my garden and I can get to know what plants cure illness. Now I know a little about this. I like medical knowledges very much. I wonder more and more about them. Learning new things is my whole life and I feel rich. I am eager to learn more so I hope someone would like to help me. You are never too young to study things and you are never old to learn things that you like to do. Life is rich in looking for knowledge.
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This made me laugh! :-) I had lots of similar problems in my Spanish classes with online translators. When Spanish 1 kids are using the subjunctive correctly, you know there is a problem. :-) Funny how the second entry is directly off a for-profit website!