Tracing the Canada–China Sister Schools’ Reciprocal Learning Practices in Synchronous Communication: A Case Study

This chapter shares the journey of two groups of high school students, one from Beijing and the other from Toronto as they were engaged in a sister school partnership with their English teachers’ (Ling and Teresa, pseudonyms) guidance. For six months, Ling in Beijing and Teresa in Toronto worked collaboratively with the support of graduate research assistants (GRAs) from Beijing Foreign Studies University with Dr. Luxin Yang and GRAs from OISE/University of Toronto with Dr. Jim Cummins to gather their students from both countries to communicate with each other and thus sought the answers of what are teachers’ and students’ learning from one another as they work together (Connelly & Xu, 2019, p. 638). As part of Xu and Connelly’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Grant Project, this Canadian Chinese Sister School Network aimed to understand the possible reciprocity for bilingual and cross-cultural education (taking English as a medium for communication) activated by a co-designed transnational project.