Nanjing University Course Asks Students to Call Strangers to Build Confidence

An unusual classroom assignment

A course at Nanjing University is asking students to call strangers and interview them by phone to develop their social skills.

The course challenges the traditional Chinese value of keeping a low profile and following the mantra, “do more, speak less”.

At the top-tier institution in Jiangsu province, eastern China, former television producer and director Xu Kai launched the course, “Oral Expression”, in 2015.

Over the years, it has become one of the students’ favourite public courses.

Students must speak to strangers

The course’s most unusual assignment requires students to call a stranger at random and conduct an interview over the phone.

The task is intended to give students practice in oral expression while asking them to move beyond the more reserved social behaviour associated with the traditional ethos described in the course’s account.

Several students have posted on social media about how difficult they found the assignment.

The reactions underline the challenge built into the exercise: students must initiate a conversation with someone they do not know, rather than simply speak before classmates or complete a conventional classroom task.

By making an unfamiliar phone conversation part of a university course, Xu’s class places confidence-building and social interaction at the centre of its public-course offering.

Source: South China Morning Post