language, and other barriers

This is a really interesting Los Angeles Times story on Zhao Yan Feng, who is teaching at Dorsey High School in South Los Angeles as part of a join program that has sent dozens of Chinese instructors to the United States: In L.A., his own wall of China. He's on a two-year assignment to teach Mandarin at a school where test scores are well below the state and national averages, two-thirds of the students live near the poverty line and most have had very little exposure to Chinese culture. It sounds like he had no idea what he was getting into. And he has had it rough. But little by little, he's been making progress. You really have to hand it to the guy, making the best with what he's got. Those kids must learn their Mandarin.