SLWIS Newsletter - March 2014 (Plain Text Version)
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CHINESE WRITERS IN THE U.S. CLASSROOM: MARRYING CULTURES OF LEARNING
The United States is a preferred destination for higher education for international students. The Open Doors Report, an annual publication of Institute of International Education (2013) in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, states that there are 819,644 international students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities. This is a 10% increase from 2012–2013. This is also the seventh consecutive year Open Doors reports an expansion in the number of international students. In the mid-1950s, international student enrollment was 35,000, so international education in the United States has come a long way. Although international education may have come a long way, many questions still need to be addressed. How satisfied are international students with the educational services they are getting? How ready are the teachers to teach large numbers of international students? Is international education enrolling many international students and having them study in the existing system designed for domestic students? Or should it create new educational policies that aim to serve the needs of the “newcomers” who have a different culture of learning? Currently, there is an urgent need to create up-to-date educational policies that serve a plethora of needs stemming from differences in the educational backgrounds of students in freshman composition courses. Instructors need to get to know students’ culture of learning because, if students are not familiar with the methods and the approaches a teacher uses to deliver lessons, effective learning may not take place. What is culture of learning? Culture of learning, also known as cultural transmission, is how a group of people learn and pass on information to each other. Learning styles are very much affected by the way socialization takes place in a culture. Cortazzi and Jin (1996) state that the term includes “socio-cultural aspects of key practices, expectations and interpretations of learning” (p. 5). Although each student is unique, students from the same country most probably share a similar culture of learning influenced by their educational background. This educational background is mostly built on the cultural and educational policies of the country of education. This is an important concept for the classroom environment in terms of syllabus design, teaching, and assessment. If there is a mismatch between the culture of learning of a student and the teacher, there may be challenges both for the learner and the teacher. Cortazzi and Jin (1996) claim the importance of culture by stating “it might be a determining factor on what happens in language classrooms and what is judged to successful language learning” (p. 4). Therefore, culture is also a determining factor for second language writers when they are learning to write in new academic contexts and genres. U.S. universities have certain academic expectations of international students, and international students have expectations of their new schools. Yet these expectations may not match. Thus, the scholarship on cultural studies related to culture of learning, an often overlooked and neglected concept, is gaining traction. There is a need to step out of our cultural bubbles and familiarize ourselves with the cultures of students. It is important to acknowledge that it is not an easy practice to learn about each and every student’s culture of learning in very diverse educational settings. It is a challenge, yet we should take a step toward educating ourselves in this issue. Given the increase in the number of Chinese students now studying in U.S. colleges and universities (they constitute 26% of the international student population), an important first step for U.S. L2 compositionists is to educate ourselves about Chinese culture of learning. This study looks into how Chinese students studying in a research university in the United States perceive their own culture of learning and the culture of learning in the United States and how they feel about being in the new system. Rationale International student enrollment at Purdue University has increased drastically since 2010–2011. Purdue University’s (2013) Fall 2012 International Student and Scholar Enrollment and Statistical Report says that the university now has 9,505 international students from 126 countries (para. 3). In 2011, a large number of international students enrolled in freshman composition courses. Chinese students ranked first in this enrollment, with 1,700 Chinese students enrolled. In my freshman composition course of 15 students, 11 were Chinese. At this point, I regret to say I did not know much about the Chinese culture or educational system, so I was wondering how I could teach this group of students effectively. I was an English language teacher coming from a Turkish-American educational background, whereas my students were mostly Chinese students in a U.S. context. This put me in a complex, threefold cultural interaction. First, I decided to take a step toward understanding students’ perceptions to see if they had an understanding of what was expected of them in their previous and current educational settings. By no means do I aim to place cultures into boxes or discriminate one over the other. All I wish to do is to gain an understanding of how students perceive their previous and present culture of learning so that I can be of more assistance to them. The U.S. educational system generally requires students to be assertive and participate in classes, yet Chinese students tend to be on the quiet side and prefer listening. What do students think about these issues? The Project I conducted semistructured interviews with 10 undergraduate freshman composition students on their perceptions on Chinese and U.S. cultures of learning. One student had come to the United States to attend high school and had stayed for her higher education. Because she had spent more time in the United States, she had been exposed to the U.S. education system and culture longer than the rest of the class. She had advanced-level English proficiency. The other 9 students had just come from China and were experiencing the U.S. education system for the first time. They had intermediate to advanced English proficiency. The interview included open-ended questions for further elaboration. These questions, based on my in-class observations, asked students why they were often quiet in class, why they tended not to raise their hands and participate, how they were expected to behave and whether they were expected to participate in the Chinese classroom, how they were expected to behave in class and participate in the U.S. classroom, what the role of the teacher is in the Chinese classroom was, how they perceived the role of the teacher in the U.S. classroom, and in which system they feel more comfortable. At the end of the interview, students were shown the findings of a study called Chinese students’ views about teachers of English in China (Jin & Cortazzi, 2006, p. 105) and they were asked whether they agreed with these views. Findings Chinese students views’ on Chinese culture of learning:
These findings indicate that students are very well aware of the differences between the education system that they are in and the one they come from. They are not responding to the U.S. education system and they are remaining silent in the classroom, not because they do not know the expectations of the U.S. education system or do not care. They are definitely not just “empty vessels” just sitting there. They are just saying, “We like the U.S. education system, yet it is taking us a lot of time to get used to it.” They claim they are enjoying the freedom and expression of speech they did not have back home. When asked about how they felt in their current institution in the interviews, some students reported, “We feel comfortable in the U.S. education system, we like it yet it is taking us a lot of time to get used to it.” They claim they are enjoying the freedom and expression of speech they did not have back home. As Ronaldo (1989) points out, “Thought and feeling are always culturally shaped and influenced by one’s biography, social situation, and historical context” (p. 131), so it is a challenging experience to exist in a new educational setting. Students are “individuals-in-context” who should not be expected to exist separately from their social worlds (Atkinson, 1999, p. 642). Scholars and institutions need to respect this otherness arising from cultural differences. Therefore, it is important that scholars are aware of the cultures and cultures of learning of their student population so that the academic needs of these students can be met in the new environment they are in. Guiding international students will involve creating appropriate pedagogies “to prepare learners to be both global and local speakers of English and to feel at home in international and national cultures” (Kramsch & Sullivan, 1996, p. 211). The feeling of being at home will decrease students’ affective filter, as Krashen points out, making them better learners of another language. When we have “explicit understanding of each other’s culture, this would mean mutual convergence of cultures of learning” (Schumann, 1978a). Such convergence will create a positive learning environment that combines “cultural synergy” (Jin, 1992). This may aid learners to have more motivation, confidence, and interest in learning in the new and unfamiliar education context they are in and may help them become better learners. To make this happen, I propose the following:
References Atkinson, D. (1999). TESOL and culture. TESOL Quarterly, 33, 625–654. Schumann, J. (1978). Social and psychological factors in second language acquisition. In J. Richards (Ed.), Understanding second and foreign language learning: Issues and approaches. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Aylin Baris Atilgan is a PhD candidate at Purdue University, where she currently teaches composition courses to undergraduate international students. She has a master’s in linguistics with a concentration on TESL from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago. Her research areas include needs assessments on international students in the U.S. higher educational setting, designing curricula for multicultural settings, Writing Lab–centered work, second language writing, foreign language education, diversity, and peace education. |
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