Several McCallie students were in for a surprise Tuesday morning -- they had to practice their broken Chinese in front of several native Chinese teachers.

Five principals from schools in Wuxi, China, a sister city of Chattanooga, sat in on a class in Chinese at McCallie, observed the classroom and helped students translate their homework.

On Tuesday, the educators visited several local schools, including Girls Preparatory School and Baylor School, to learn more about America's education system through the Chattanooga Sister Cities Association.

"We want to do more exchange programs," said Gao Xiao Fang, principal of Wuxi Foreign Language School, "and develop the relationships, to let Chattanooga know about our education and us know (more) about them."

McCallie Headmaster Dr. Kirk Walker gave the educators a tour of the school, highlighting the writing center and the foreign language department.

"These types of meetings can only make us better," Dr. Walker said.

The Sister Cities program in the United States began in 1956 after a White House summit on citizenship diplomacy in which President Dwight D. Eisenhower called for an exchange among people from different communities.

The international organization represents 694 U.S. communities and more than 1,700 communities in 134 countries, according to Sister Cities statistics.

Chattanooga has five sister cities, and Wuxi is one of the oldest, going back about 30 years, said Bob Edwards, coordinator of the Wuxi exchange of Sister Cities of Chattanooga.

"We were only the third American city to have a Chinese sister city, and now you see the results of that effort," Mr. Edwards said. "It's taken almost 30 years, and we now have educators going back and forth (studying each other)."

When the Wuxi educators approached Mr. Edwards to visit Chattanooga, they told him they were "searching for cooperation" with education officials here, he said.

Both countries have had exchange programs in the past, and Mr. Edwards said Wuxi officials probably will send a group of students next summer to study in Chattanooga.

This trip was to allow some of the educators from Wuxi to establish relationships here and meet with officials, including Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Dr. Jim Scales, Ms. Fang said.

"We want to get to know each other," she said.