ABSTRACT
New teachers lack teaching experience. In grade schools in China, besides acquiring teaching experience through teaching, they also learn knowledge about teaching from the experienced teachers. This learning of knowledge about teaching is done through a system based on a shifu-tudi (master-disciple) relationship. The term shifu (师傅) can be “used to refer to teachers who pass on expertise to others” (Grand Dictionary Editorial Board, 1979, pp. 60–61). Tudiì (徒弟), on the other hand, “refers to people who follow the shifu to acquire certain expertise” (Grand Dictionary Editorial Board, 1979, p. 801). The “shitu” relationship, short for shifu-tudi, is the result of an apprenticeship system that has been described as one in which two people work together, with the more experienced helping and leading the way for the person who is new or less experienced. As is shown by the definitions of the two terms, shifu are considered superior to their tudi.
