Engaging Chinese Students in Teaching and Learning at Western Higher Education Institutions [1 ed.] 9781443897754

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Engaging Chinese Students in Teaching and Learning at Western Higher Education Institutions

Engaging Chinese Students in Teaching and Learning at Western Higher Education Institutions By

Karen Burrows With Contributions by Amy Pearson and Nick Wragg

Engaging Chinese Students in Teaching and Learning at Western Higher Education Institutions By Karen Burrows This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Karen Burrows All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9775-2 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9775-4

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Background to the research Aim of the book Primary research aim Rationale Methodology Chapter One ............................................................................................... 11 The International Student What is an international student Teaching and learning of international students The Chinese student Challenges of the Chinese student Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 31 Culture The impact of culture on education Cultural differences The impact of different provinces Age and respect The perils of plagiarism Visual aids Saving face Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 53 Language Differences in English and Chinese language Tonality Difference between tone and intonation Broken English and translation Colloquial and text speak

Contents

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Plurals Errors in English writing Learning styles Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 83 Attitudes to Learning and Student Engagement Amy Pearson and Nick Wragg A brief history Attitude Teaching, environment and inclusivity Student perceptions on attitudes to learning Practical approaches to enhancing attitudes to learning Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 109 Staff Support in Teaching the Chinese Learner Self-study Teacher training in the United Kingdom Differences between lecturing and teaching Pedagogy in Higher Education Typical methods of teaching and learning in Higher Education Curriculum and assessment design Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 133 Practical Example of Appropriate Pedagogy Primary project Modelling Games Gaming and gambling Conclusion ............................................................................................... 165 Recommendations ................................................................................... 169 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 173 Appendices .............................................................................................. 185

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to thank all the wonderful Chinese students that I have had the pleasure of teaching. You inspired me to become a better teacher and pushed me in ways that might not have been possible if I had not known you. Secondly, I would like to thank my family for their constant support and patience; without you, I would not push so hard to be better. Thirdly, I would like to thank the Higher Education Academy for helping me to display the teaching methods; and finally, I would like to thank my contributors, Nick Wragg and Amy Pearson, for their constant support and for always being there to discuss and debate ideas.

PREFACE

Changing careers in my thirties was no easy task. Deciding to return to university and study for my degree was a daunting challenge; however, knowing how much I had achieved by the end of that study programme inspired me to want to help others learn and so I embarked on my journey into teaching. My first experiences with Chinese students were in my first year of teaching and to say this was difficult (in terms of teaching practice) is an understatement. However, I do believe that being a new teacher helped as I was still ‘fresh’ and inspired with new teaching methods, and worked tirelessly to overcome any challenges in the classroom I faced. Accepting that this wasn’t just about me and more about students’ learning was not easy to recognise, as the focus is on preparing the lessons, writing and marking assessment, and it becomes easy to forget that the whole purpose is the students’ learning and the impact of what you do on the student group. Knowing this made me a better teacher and I learnt the ability to engage any student group because of my experiences with the Chinese students, and it is for this reason that I wanted to produce something practical to help others with their teaching challenges. This book therefore contains debates, case studies, primary research and discussions from a range of sources on a variety of topics relating to the teaching of Chinese students and their learning, with some practical advice and guidance on the best methods that can engage this particular student group. Chapters deal with separate issues of culture and language, breaking these down into smaller chunks that give a far more detailed discussion and analysis than has been found in other literature. Further chapters discuss attitudes to learning, staff support and some practical examples of appropriate methods that have been ‘tried and tested’. The hope is that the reader will find this book useful in terms of providing some advice and guidance on the issues and challenges of teaching and learning in general as well as with the Chinese student, and that from this book, they might be able to adapt their own teaching practice to accommodate students’ different learning needs. The aim of the book is to provide clarity on what the challenges are and then to discuss practical solutions.

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Preface

This book has been challenging but interesting to write. It has enabled me to develop even further as a teaching practitioner in Higher Education and has given me a greater knowledge into my own beliefs and culture and the impact this might have on my students in the classroom. It has allowed me to work with some wonderful people who have also challenged me to think deeper and to question the perceptions I might have, and it has then allowed me to question perceptions others might have. It has been incredibly rewarding and inspirational, and worth every late night. One final thought goes to the publishers who believed that this book would be worth writing and that belief spurred me on to complete the research, and to put together this book in a meaningful and mindful way.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this book is to examine and explore the challenges of engaging international learners in Higher Education (HE) within the United Kingdom (UK) through critical analysis and the evaluation of both primary and secondary data. The core emphasis in the book will be on Chinese learners and on considerations of the impact of teaching Chinese learners who have different languages, cultures and learning styles. The introductory chapter will provide background information about a research project that was undertaken, with a detailed rationale for the research together with the question, aims and objectives of the research. The introductory chapter will also provide a methodology of the project’s research design and conclusions will be drawn throughout the book with appropriate recommendations made for future action following the analysis of the findings of both primary and secondary research. The book is divided into six chapters, and the literature embraces a variety of international sources, including articles, journalism, journals, the internet and textbooks, in order to gather a breadth of evidence for discussion purposes. The first chapter deals with the key question of what an international student is; discussing the Chinese student in depth, some observations on the challenges that this poses for western higher education institutions, and the perceptions that are often associated with large groups of Chinese students who travel specifically to gain a UK, US (or other) degree. The second chapter breaks this down further by discussing and analysing the cultural differences of the Chinese student in comparison to the western student, and the challenges that this presents. The third chapter concentrates on language in a similar way, breaking down the many different intricacies of the Chinese language and the impact this has when teaching higher education topics to a group of Chinese students. The fourth chapter discusses attitude to learning. It was felt that it was important to include such a chapter as it explores not only the expectations of the students when studying at a higher level, but also those of the teacher. The fifth chapter takes on the challenge of what support is available for teachers who may have suddenly found themselves in front of a large group of Chinese students and the potential stress and challenges this might cause. The final chapter offers some practical pedagogical examples of how it is best to engage this group and offers an insight into a

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Introduction

primary research study that ‘tested’ some practical methods. Finally, the book concludes by evaluating the six chapters and offering some recommendations to the sector on the best way forward with regard to teaching the Chinese student.

Background to the research The term globalisation, although difficult to define, relates to the existence of a strong interdependence between nations, especially in economic terms, and the sensitivity of nations to events in the outside world (Dicken, 1998). National economies are integrated into international economies through trade, foreign direct investment (FDI), technology and capital flows. This has led to an acceleration of new technology, communications and easier transportation with an increase in the ability of products, services, capital and people to cross national borders with some ease. Hickman and Olney (2011) refer to workers increasingly competing in an integrated global labour market. The increase in people moving from nation to nation has become commonplace and has forced businesses to change their working practices somewhat. In particular, this has impacted upon the education sector as work skills and training needs to be transferable in order to adapt to the ever changing jobs market. Since incorporation in 1993, colleges and universities have already changed rapidly in the manner in which they conduct their business. This has seen a move towards basing decision-making on business models. This, coupled with the concept of globalisation, has opened up the world of education to new challenges. Sloman (2008) suggests the greater competition, freer trade and FDI have encouraged businesses to think, plan and act globally. Hickman and Olney (2011) suggest, however, that relatively little is known about the extent to which globalisation affects investment in human capital. What is certain, according to the evidence, is that the number of international learners has increased globally. Apfelthaler et al (2006) support this by stating that the past decade has seen a dramatic rise in the international learner. The consequence of globalisation has certainly led to an increase within the US and UK in the number of international learners studying on degree programmes at both honours and post-graduate levels. Daguo (2007) confirms that in recent years, international students, and in particular Chinese learners, have increasingly wanted to study for a degree in the UK, amongst other Western countries, particularly English-speaking countries.

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Aim of the book The overall aim of this book is to explore and analyse the challenges that may have arisen within colleges and universities to integrate these international learners through analysing and evaluating the literature and presenting a practical research project. In addition, the book aims to investigate the different cultures and learning styles of the international learner, with particular emphasis on the Chinese learner. Further areas deemed worthy of research are the engagement of these learners and the impact on the teaching practitioner and pedagogy, in order to adapt to the differing needs of these learners. As previously stated, the focus of this study is to primarily concentrate on Chinese learners as Daguo (2007) suggested that there has been a large influx in the past five years of Chinese nationals who want an English degree, with now as many as 1 in 10 students who are studying in the UK being of a different nationality. Of the students studying from countries outside the European Union (EU), the majority of these are Chinese with approximately 33% studying across the UK. Culturally, there is a vast difference in teaching and learning methods between English and Chinese educational establishments, and this has presented challenges within English colleges and universities. To simply assume that programmes can be delivered in a standard form without consideration for the formative background of the students is a flawed strategy. One of the research aims is to ascertain the extent to which the teaching practitioners of degree programmes have changed and adapted their teaching methods in order to meet these cultural challenges and whether it has been necessary to adapt in order to encourage social engagement of Chinese learners. Education practices across the world may have similarities, but the managing of these teaching and learning practices is in some instances very different. With colleges and universities having to behave in a more business-like manner since incorporation, the need to attract the lucrative market of international students has increased. With the recent fee rises in the UK that universities and colleges are charging, initial studies suggest that the number of ‘home’ students has decreased and will continue to do so. Writing for the Guardian, Shepherd (2011) states that degree applications from ‘home’ students have plummeted 12% due to the fee rise. This has led to the escalation of competition within the education sector, and marketing strategies to encourage international learners have been developed and put into practice. With this change in strategy and the opening up of this sector of the market, the diverse nature of these groups of learners continues to be a challenge for educators and managers of

Introduction

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educational establishments. What is taught and how it is taught has to be more innovative in order to support the growing international market and adapted to meet their different cultural needs. Intentional or unintentional ignoring or ignorance of factors such as societal background, history, cultural differences, attitudes and values, educational background and expectations may impact on the successful delivery of educational programmes to an international student group (Bloy, 2010: 3).

Primary Research Aim The aim of the primary research within this book is to investigate and critically evaluate the pedagogy required within an educational environment to encourage the social engagement and enhanced learning success of Chinese students who are undertaking their first and postgraduate degrees at English Institutions of Further and Higher Education To achieve this aim, the following points describe the key research objectives that shaped the research methodology and methods adopted for this study. Research Objectives 1. An in-depth exploration and analysis of the impact of language and culture on learning styles and teaching methods. 2. Identifying and evaluating the methods necessary for teaching and engaging Chinese learners from the perspective of the teacher and the student. 3. Critically analysing the appropriateness of teaching materials and methods for a cohort of Chinese learners. 4. A practical investigation into the appropriate methods that encourage social engagement in Chinese learners. 5. Providing a comparison of the use of ‘games’ within the teaching and learning of Chinese learners with home students. 6. Provide an analysis of data across Higher Educational Institutions.

Rationale As discussed above, the initial impetus for this study emanated from the researcher’s experience of teaching international learners and being offered no formal training on how to do this, along with consequent conversations with new and other teachers who felt both disillusioned and disaffected by the difficulties of teaching international learners and the

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lack of any training in this area. This compounded the desire to fully understand the drivers and complexities which appeared to be causing so many problems for a number of key stakeholders. These problems included the expectations of the Chinese learners and home students as well as the expectations of the management and quality departments. Various meetings with colleagues from other similar institutions, and involvement in a special interest group (SIG) on this topic area through the Higher Education Academy (HEA) soon established that the problems were not in isolation, as they had encountered the same or similar issues. More recent discussions have provided evidence that this is still the case, and evidence from the SIG has suggested that in a university setting where first year classes had large numbers of students, all of different cultures and languages, it was even more difficult to engage the Chinese learners and ensure that the teaching and learning methods were adequate in order to meet their teaching and learning needs. Much work has been conducted by various theorists establishing the difficulties of teaching and engaging international learners, but research has suggested that despite the number of Chinese learners increasing over the past ten years, there is a limitation to the solutions to this and indeed the management of the change process with regard to teaching and learning methods, and the more recent observations and informal discussions clearly demonstrate that these solutions are still being sought. Through all of this, issues have emerged regarding pedagogy and andragogy.

Methodology As previously stated, this book contains a primary research project that was undertaken in line with a pilot study. The difficulties and challenges of engaging the Chinese student will become apparent over the course of the book; however, at this stage, it is important to make clear the reasons for the pilot study. The nature of the Chinese student is explained in the chapter on culture, along with the issue of ‘saving’ face; therefore, gathering a large amount of data was difficult and challenging in terms of the validity of the answers from the students. As will become clear in the book, questions arose as to whether the students were answering truthfully or whether they were answering in a way they thought was expected. Therefore, the complexity of the nature of the research topic requires the use of qualitative methods with an interpretivist philosophy considered as the first research method. This is due to the difficulties discussed above; if a positivist stance had been taken, gathering large enough amounts of data

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Introduction

proved to be very difficult, and as became clear during the ‘testing’, rich observations which were analysed produced far better results than potentially ‘false’ data if the student had completed questionnaires or tests in isolation. Saunders et al (2009:84) support this choice in stating that the social world of business is far too complex to consider a series of law-like generalisations. The philosophy of interpretivism allows for rich insights into this complex world and the investigation of the Chinese student is certainly a complex one. This view is in direct contrast with the positivistic philosophy, which lends itself more towards the quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. May (2011:40) supports Saunders’ views on interpretivism, suggesting that this philosophy allows research to focus on peoples’ subjective experiences and not on treating them as ‘faulty’; rather, it focuses on how people make up the social world by sharing meanings and how they get on with each other. The researcher is investigating the subjective experiences of Chinese students in Higher Education Institutions as well as the perhaps somewhat biased views of the educators who teach them. The design of interpretivism allows for these experiences to be investigated and evaluated, but also provides an overarching framework that will allow flexibility and sensitivity to the complexities of real life. By adopting this philosophy, the researcher is choosing research methods that emerge rather than the more rigid positivistic method. This is deemed necessary in order to gather as much reliable and relevant data as possible. Further, it is important to explore the subjective meanings motivating Chinese students and their teachers in order to be able to understand them. The research will not start with a hypothesis for all the reasons stated previously. It is not about testing theory; the most appropriate method is to gather this data and develop theory as a result of the data analysis. Therefore, these results and potential theory from the pilot study would provide useful insight into how to gather the quantitative data that is considered more robust and that will allow for generalisations. However, what this study does provide is potential practical solutions to the challenges of teaching Chinese students. This approach is the inductive approach and the first theory is created following data collection and analysis in the initial stages of the study into the teaching and learning of the Chinese student. This approach is appropriate as it enables the researcher to allow for the Chinese student and the teacher’s biases when responding to any questions that they are asked. For example, the respondents will answer the questions based on their own perceptions of the teaching and learning methods used. This approach to the research design relates to the philosophy of interpretivism as it permits the aspects

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of flexibility and sensitivity stated previously. This less structured approach may reveal several explanations and interpretations of the best teaching and learning method for the Chinese student. Easterby-Smith et al (2008) refer to how researchers using this tradition are more likely to work with qualitative data, further supporting the use of this method as the predominant method in the study of the Chinese student. However, allowing for flexibility in the research strategies and data collection methods can create problems as it can be difficult to make a decision on where to go next. The research strategy that is chosen needs to be appropriate to the study and not be constrained to the approach and philosophy that has been adopted because this would not allow for the gathering of the most reliable data. Strategies considered for the study were, firstly, a case study. This method has elements that are appropriate due to the need to gather data that gives a rich understanding of the context of the research. The ability of this method to generate answers to the questions ‘why’ as well as ‘what’ and how’, despite the ‘what’ and ‘how’, has generally related to the survey strategy (Saunders et al 2009) and makes this method extremely attractive. However, although this method may have elements that are appropriate, it lacks the ability to allow the researcher to be part of the research. A more appropriate strategy, therefore, and the second consideration, is that of ethnography, firmly rooted in the inductive approach (Saunders et al 2009). This method allows the interpretation of the social world, and this applies to the study of Chinese students and the way in which they interpret it. Benefits to this method do include the flexibility aspect, but this can be time consuming and there is a need for the researcher to constantly be responsive to change. This strategy relates to another method and a third consideration for the study that will be applied and is appropriate for the study in question, and that is the participant observer. The participant observer becomes involved with the subjects within the study and becomes a part of their community. The participant observer method is chosen for the study because the researcher is a teacher who will need to gather some data through observations and by relating his or her own experiences alongside those of other respondents. However, it becomes far more complex to justify whether the researcher will be a complete participant or an observer as participant. This is because theory suggests that as a complete participant, the researcher is required to become a member of the group. This is all good so far; however, the theory then suggests that the complete participant does not reveal the true purpose of their role to the group. The

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Introduction

observer participant, however, allows the researcher to state their role clearly and be merely a spectator. The researcher will be stating their role clearly but will also become part of the group and this is slightly conflicting, but does support the earlier suggestion that the research is complex and the methods can be mixed to suit the research as long as the methods are appropriate. The data collection methods which are typically used within the ethnography strategy are participant observer, according to Cresswell (1998); however, at this early stage in the study, it is not appropriate to be rigid in using this method alone. The dangers of using this method alone could mean that the data which is collected becomes contaminated if the researcher relies too heavily on his or her own observations. Therefore, a wider use of more mixed methods at this stage would be far more appropriate. Observations, in-depth interviews and questionnaires will be used in order to ensure the reliability of the data that is gathered and analysed. However, there are disadvantages in utilising observations. Although they can provide direct information about the behaviour of the Chinese student and the teacher, it can be time consuming and expensive to carry out. If the observer is the researcher alone, then as previously stated, the element of bias may contaminate the results; however, involving others in the observation process may lead to many different interpretations of what is happening and this can have both advantages and disadvantages. A fully structured observation process would not be appropriate, therefore, as it does not allow for the emerging data that needs to be observed and collected. Should the observation process be too formal, it might provide further bias and the students and teachers might behave differently, which is not in keeping with the inductive, interpretive approach and philosophy. However, the observations do allow the researcher to enter into and understand the situation and the context, and this is important to achieve the desired results for the study in question, but as previously stated, the observed group may behave differently if they know they are being observed and this may fail to deliver the desired data. In-depth interviews will form part of the research design, allowing the researcher to yield rich data and new insights, whilst exploring topics in depth, but again can be time consuming, expensive and may produce a large volume of data that is difficult to transcribe and code. Questionnaires are the final method which is considered appropriate for the study and will be used in the early stages. These are to be used to gather large amounts of data that will be analysed in order to create theory, although it is important to appreciate that questionnaires can have a low return rate.

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To conclude, it is not an easy task to decide on the best methods when designing the research, but the use of qualitative methods can indeed enhance the process and allow the researcher to gather valuable data that will inform the community. The qualitative and quantitative stances both have relevance within the research process; it is up to the researcher to explore the methods and make difficult decisions on which are the most appropriate. For the person researching the Chinese students, the requirement of gathering thoughts, beliefs, feelings and the need to make observations of human behaviour would suggest that the emphasis on the qualitative stance is going to be the one that reaps the best results.

References Apfelthaler G, Hansen K, Keuchel S, Neubauer M, Siow O, Tapachai N and Mueller C (2006) Cross Cultural Learning Styles in Higher Education. International Journal of Learning. Vol. 12 Issue 5, p. 247256. Blaxter L, Hughes C and Tight M (2010) How to Research. 4th Edition. Berkshire: Open University Press. Bloy (2010). The Challenge of Teaching International Students. Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education. 2010. Bryman A (2008) Social Research Methods. 4th Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chalmers, AF (1999) What is this thing called science? 3rd Edition. Buckingham: Open University Press. Cresswell J (1998) Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions. London: Sage Publications. Daguo D (2007) Coping with the linguistic challenges in UK higher education: the use of strategies by Chinese students. Language learning journal 205-219. Dicken, Peter (1998) Global Shift. New York: Guilford Press. Easterby-Smith M, Thorpe R and Jackson P (2008) Management Research 3rd Edition. London: Sage. Hardy M and Bryman A (2004) Introduction: Common Threads among Techniques of Data Analysis. In M Hardy and A Bryman (eds.) Handbook of Data Analysis. London: Sage. Hickman D and Olney W (2011) Globalisation and Investment in Human Capital. Industrial and Labour Relations Review. Vol 64, No. 4. 654. MacNeill P (1990) Research Methods. London: Routledge. May T (2011) Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process. 4th Edition. Berkshire: Open University Press.

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Introduction

Sarantakos S (2005) Social Research. 3rd Edition. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Saunders M, Lewis P and Thornhill A (2009) Research Methods for Business Students. 5th Edition. Harlow: Prentice Hall. The Paradigmatic and pragmatic aspects of choosing a qualitative or quantitative method. Quality and Quantity 28: 233-49. Shepherd J (2011) UK University applicants drop by 12% before tuition fee rise. The Guardian. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/24/universityapplicants-drop-tuition-fees. Accessed 11th December 2012. Silverman D (2011) Interpreting Qualitative Data. 4th Edition. London: Sage Publications. Sloman J (2008) Economics and the Business Environment. 2nd Edition. Essex, Pearson Education.

CHAPTER ONE THE INTERNATIONAL STUDENT

Introduction This chapter aims to explore the concept of the international learner, with a clearly defined focus on the Chinese learner. In order to enable the reader to have a clear understanding of the issues that are related to the teaching and learning of Chinese students in Western institutions, it becomes necessary to explore this concept. The central aim of this chapter is to discuss the general perceptions of the Chinese learner and to make comparisons between them and their Western counterparts. Simonton (1988) refers to the problematic nature of generalisations as being precisely the kind of thing that is interesting. Cronbach (1986) goes further to state that these generalisations are (in this case) specific categories, and with vast cultural discrepancies, as with Chinese and Western students, it perhaps could be implausible to make assumptions. Therefore, this chapter aims to provide a deep exploration of these general perceptions of the Chinese and Western learning preference challenges to set the context of the book, which will then offer potential solutions in its latter half. It will examine the differing learning styles and pedagogical methods and tools used by both Chinese and Western educational establishments. Going further, it will examine the preferred methods of teaching and learning of Chinese students and will enable the reader to have a clearer understanding of what defines a Chinese learner and the challenges they face when studying for an undergraduate degree in Western institutions. According to Scott (2010), individualism is the most important aspect of any Western student in relation to particular learning styles. Controversially, she states that rather than being a harmless fad, learning styles theory perpetuates the very stereotyping and harmful teaching practices it is said to combat (2010: 5). Learning styles theory is widely endorsed across the Higher Educational sector and many institutions carry out specific learning styles testing prior to and during students’ period of study with the honourable intention of creating the most appropriate pedagogical methods to meet each of the particular learning styles. However, it would appear to be more difficult to ascertain the particular

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Chapter One

learning style of the Chinese student in the same way as the Western student due to the cultural differences, as Cronbach suggests above, and due to many other variables such as language issues. Scott (2010: 6) elegantly refers to this: In such a context, even if empirical evidence for the effectiveness of basing pedagogy on one discrete model of learning styles could be found, this cannot be said to provide proof of the efficacy of ‘learning styles’ as they are currently conceived, or misconceived. She goes further to suggest that many learning style models have little to offer in terms of pedagogical design and that they often offer little more than a waste of a teachers learning and teaching time. Therefore, this book does not propose to create a recommended model of teaching and learning for Chinese students; it merely suggests things that need to be considered when teaching this particular group, and this opening chapter aims to introduce the reader to the Chinese/international student. This chapter focuses on several interesting case studies across a range of nations to give a broad perspective at this stage. Although there appears to be an abundance of information on learning styles, pedagogy and issues pertaining to international and home students, it lacks a detailed exploration and discussion of the key issues in teaching Chinese students with regard to the most appropriate and effective methods to encourage engagement, motivation and achievement. Taking this into consideration, it becomes necessary to explore, within the literature, the notion of an international student and that of a Chinese student. Furthermore, worthy of investigation are the issues that arise for a Chinese student when studying within a western HEI, as well as any literature that attempts to provide solutions to these issues, whilst clearly identifying whether these issues are unique to the Chinese student and whether the solutions offered are generic rather than specific to this particular student group. A final point of interest is to establish (touched upon in this section) what support is available for the teachers of this group and whether that support offers a practical solution which is easily transferable into the classroom. This will be discussed in more detail in the fifth chapter of the book.

What is an International Student? The concept of the international student, and indeed international education and training, is not a new one. As Ashton and Green stated in 1996 (3), there has been an intensification of international competition and the world’s economies have integrated into one global economy. This, coupled with technological advances, has rendered education and training

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of paramount importance in the competitive process. Therefore, before defining the concept of an international learner, it is initially important to understand the nature of education and the importance of theory within education, in order to consider its value in teaching and learning practice. The Higher Education Authority (HEA) for the United Kingdom (UK) refers to the implicit and explicit beliefs that educators operate from as well as educators’ values about education, such as the purpose of education, the nature of relationships between teachers and pupils, and that theory influences our teaching and learning, whether or not this is subconscious. This theory informs our pedagogical approaches, curriculum design and assessment strategies (HEA, n.d. online). What this suggests is that it is necessary to have a deeper understanding of our learners before we can use theory and different pedagogy to aid us in finding appropriate methods for teaching. This is not only essential for home students, but understanding how students learn helps teachers to identify how their teaching practices impact on the learning of students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds (HEA, n.d. online). From a philosophical perspective, it was Nietzsche (1890) who stated that education is often corrupted by educators and that it was necessary to seek the source of great knowledge not from the corrupted interpretations of it from lesser minds. Einstein (1954) furthers this by stating that knowledge exists in two forms: lifeless stored in books and alive in the consciousness of men. Both Nietzsche and Einstein suggest, therefore, that the teacher’s role is vital in shaping the student’s learning, but it should not take away a similar consciousness of freedom for the student to evolve. This means that while theory informs practice, equally, there needs to be freedom for practice to inform theory. The teacher–student relationship needs to be one that allows this to advance as well as promoting inherent flexibility. As Scott (2010) suggests that theory continues to influence what teachers do, regardless of whether it is useful. If these views are to be applied to the issue of the international student, then it could be argued that pedagogic models of teaching are constantly being challenged by the rise of the international learner and diverse student cohorts. Furthermore, and worthy of study, is the international learner moving from a particular style and model of teaching and learning in childhood to another style in Higher Education (HE) in western universities that could be classified as the complete opposite of what they have experienced previously. As Arenas (2009) states, an individual’s personal, social, cultural, economic and political experiences will shape their knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, language, identity and even thinking. This suggests that the way we are taught from an early age is

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Chapter One

embedded and we will have difficulty changing the way we learn; this is certainly worthy of consideration as it alludes towards Bloy (2010) who stated that ignoring the cultural backgrounds and beliefs of the Chinese learner is a flawed approach. Arenas (2009) takes this further and boldly states that this applies to both learners and teachers, placing emphasis on the teachers’ background beliefs and assumptions, and stating that this influences their teaching practices, including sometimes in a negative way. Marriott (2001) refers to the learning style of students and the way these learning styles can change according to the environment, suggesting that not only does the international learner have to contend with their learning styles changing from childhood to adulthood, they have to adapt to moving from their home country to a foreign one where the learning styles are different again. A study conducted by Marriott (2001), although now over a decade old, does suggest that differing learning styles exist and that learning preferences change over time. Therefore, the evidence would indeed suggest that the Chinese learner faces difficulties in transitioning to a Western HEI, and furthermore, the teacher faces difficulties in teaching them due to their ontotheological beliefs. That is the identity of ‘being’ of both the students and the teachers themselves (Heidegger 1969). However, Caruana and Spurling (2007) refer to the research fields regarding the teaching and learning of international students as being limited and disparate. Huisman (2010) emulates this by arguing that there is a paucity of evidence-based and theoretically-informed work; however, research continues to be small-scale and somewhat theoretical. This provides evidence that the study of the practicalities of teaching international learners is limited and therefore further studies are necessary. It is necessary, however, to understand the studies if they have been done by researchers who are also the teachers of international learners, as often these studies are only from one particular viewpoint. Therefore, in the primary project contained within this book, it is important to gather as much evidence as possible in order to ensure that many viewpoints are given on the pedagogical methods of teaching international learners. A barrier, however, to the development of such studies and the necessity of such studies is eloquently expressed by DeWit (2002). It is argued that at the ‘symbolic’ end of the institutional spectrum, universities are becoming ‘active players in the global marketplace’ (DeWit, 2002, p. 227 in Qing (2009)) and that Higher Education establishments are interested primarily in the income generated from the international student. Gundarra (2000) does make an interesting point in that the increase in international students is primarily from wealthy, middle class backgrounds. Furthermore, students from backgrounds such as Chinese tend to study technical and

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business subjects rather than topics in the arts or humanities. Gundarra (2000) recognises that institutions need to take measures that develop an understanding of different cultures at both informal and formal levels, going on to suggest that friendly relationships between staff and students may help to aid cultural understanding and bridge the distance for these students in Higher Education. Qing (2009: 38) goes further to suggest that HE establishments are thin on understanding with regard to international learners and have a prescriptive approach to institutional change that is based on doing the least the market will bear. This emphasises the necessity for such a study into the best techniques to engage and create the most appropriate methods of teaching and learning in order to construct a more integrated, and knowledge sharing approach. Supported by the OCED (2007b), Qing (2009: 39) suggests that although there is more literature on internationalisation, there is a distinct lack of systematic, rigorous enquiries that provide empirically grounded evidence which informs our understandings of the nature, forms and key components of the ‘international, intercultural and global dimension’ in the delivery of quality higher education. And furthermore, Qing (2009: 39) states that it is essential to understand the purposes, practices and experiences of key stakeholders at all levels of the processes of internationalisation, thus suggesting a study that provides empirical and robust data into the most appropriate teaching and learning methods of all international students is warranted. Despite Qing deeply criticising HEIs dealings with international students, according to the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) at their 2009 world conference on Higher Education, there were more than 2.5 million students studying outside their own country. UNESCO further predicted that the number would rise to approximately 7 million by the year 2020. Qing (2009) predicts that the demand for an international education will rise to 7.2 million by 2025. It would appear that the main destination preferences are the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, France and Australia, with the number of international students more than doubling between 2000 and 2007. The US, UK and Australia have the highest number of international students. Prior to entry onto degree programmes, the students are required to sit a language test such as the International English Language Test (IELT). Interestingly, the US had the highest number of international learners until 9/11, when their visa requirements were made stricter. The UK saw this as an opportunity and ‘cashed in’, absorbing the international students. This market continued to be lucrative until the 2008 recession, which exposed bad practice, unmanageable high proportions of

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international students compared to home students, and issues of quality raised by the use of aggressive recruitment practices, thereby supporting comments made previously by Qing in relation to the international student bringing in money for institutions, and therefore the teaching and learning needs of these students are something that teachers will just have to deal with. In 2009, international students represented 21.5% and 15.3% of HE enrolment in Australia and the UK respectively, compared to less than 4% in the US, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Of these international students, one of the largest growth areas has been from China. Chinese students account for more than 18% of the total number of international students (although these figures continue to fluctuate and therefore obtaining an accurate figure is too difficult). Worryingly, though, is the element of fraud in tests and transcripts when applying for courses, but even Chinese students who test high on IELTs can have difficulty reading, speaking or writing English well enough to stay ‘up to speed’ in classroom discussions and essay writing. The OECD (2007b) in Qing (2009: 37) refers to the poor existence of empirical grounded knowledge which fails to offer a nuanced account of new forms of cross-border Higher Education.

Teaching and learning of international learners The QAA (2012) refers to the need to ensure quality in teaching and learning at the HE level in the UK and the use of benchmark statements clearly demonstrates that all students on degree programmes in the UK must meet certain criteria in order to achieve their qualifications. These skills and competencies range from evaluation skills, extraction of data, criticality, analysis and the capacity for independent learning. Wilson and Hill (1994) in Marriott (2001) refer to the capacity to assume different learning styles according to the circumstances, leading to more effective learning. What Marriott (2001) also recognises is that students are diverse in terms of age, gender and nationality and that this diversity can lead to many differences in the way students learn and the ability or attitude to learning, and relates back to Heidegger’s (1969) philosophical works relating to identity. Kosala et al (2011) conducted a study into the different learning styles in HE across different cultures. The study concentrated on three large areas: interestingly, two Asian countries – Sri Lanka and Indonesia – and the European country of the Netherlands. Using an inventory of learning

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styles (ILS), the study by Kosala et al (2011) aimed to highlight the differences and similarities between the groups’ learning strategies, conceptions and orientations. The results of the study showed more differences between the two Asian groups and the Western group, and fewer differences between the two Eastern countries. However, what is noteworthy is that Kosala et al make the bold statement that the controlled learning environment in the Asian countries is what could promote the differences from the Dutch learning style and it certainly supports Mariott’s (2001) view on differing learning styles changing with differing environments. Kosala et al (2011: 313) make a final bold statement suggesting that, [I]n the view of some Sri Lankan communities, grades (end result) are more important than the learning process. Within the higher education context, it is a pity that only some teachers attempt to develop critical thinking skills and argument among their students. Teachers are mostly interested about the content of [the] subject matter, and much less in how students process the information, what strategies they use in comprehending subject matter, and how they may regulate their students’ learning process and understanding.

The Chinese Student This section examines the Chinese student and the impact of the cross border student on Western establishments in terms of adapting pedagogy and understanding the learning differences between Chinese and Western students. Furthermore, this section explores the challenges that this presents to the Chinese student studying for a degree in a Western institution. A study by the International Association of Universities relates to institutions from 95 countries agreeing that internationalisation in HE brings benefits such as more internationally oriented staff and students, and improved academic quality. This is certainly a key factor in modern times, with organisations recognising the importance of the globally aware graduate and the effects of cross border trade. Foster and Stapleton (2012) refer to pedagogical tools such as discussions, student presentations, group work and case analyses as being fundamental, especially when teaching business students. They go further to suggest that pedagogy has been changed by the influx of Chinese students to US and other Western institutions as practitioners try to adapt their practice to satisfy the learning needs of the group presented to them. Tweed and Lehman (2002) in Foster

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and Stapleton (2012) refer to how students and educators may underappreciate the impact that learning styles and changes to environment have, and that fundamental activities (especially in learning business) such as participative activities and experiential learning are the most demanding for the Chinese student. Spence and Valentine (2002: 302) in Foster and Stapleton (2012) state clearly that if in fact Chinese students have difficulty adapting to these pedagogies, it should be no surprise they are essentially Western constructs. Research from a variety of literature into the teaching and learning of Chinese students makes many generalisations about Chinese students. Primary research in the form of focus groups and questionnaires has added further validity to this list. The key factors as listed below: -

They are passive learners They are surface learners They do not enjoy participation They prefer memorisation and rote as a preferred style of learning They like repetition They only value the teacher’s opinion They respect age and position They do not value peer observation or feedback They do not like being singled out and questioned They highly value group harmony

Therefore, if this perception is accurate, it presents many challenges to Western institutions where the pedagogical tools focus more on: -

Challenging learners Deep learning Active learners and participation as a preferred method Enquiry and experientiality as a pedagogy Welcoming both teacher and peer feedback and observation Group and team work Challenging and questioning of both peers and teachers (and the literature/theory)

Although it cannot be claimed that either style is more effective and produces better academic results, there are some similarities in these generalisations as rote and repetition are methods used in both Western and Chinese educational settings (remembering rote learning mathematical times tables and nursery rhymes for example). There could, however, be

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an argument to support in class discussions, student presentations and group work as necessary for certain topic areas such as business (Foster and Stapleton 2012). In a study by Foster and Stapleton (2012: 305), they attempt to gather the students’ perspective on the value of such methods of learning for business studies. The study took place in a Canadian university and used the method of focus groups. They gathered student opinions on four key areas: In class discussions, student presentations, case analysis and group work.

In class discussions Interesting comments relating to in class discussions suggested that the Chinese students did not value peer discussion (supporting the generalisation above) because how can you get information if you just discuss between the students as we are new to the knowledge? Of further interest, though, is the comment that they did value some opinions but only of those older students who had work experience that they could bring to the discussion. Another comment regarding in class discussion is one worthy of further exploration (more on this in chapter 4). This relates to the Chinese student not knowing why the discussion has taken place, what the purpose of the discussion was and what the conclusion to the discussion was, and would appear to be very confusing for the Chinese learning style. This comment suggests that these students prefer explicit delivery of content. The Chinese students prefer their teacher to provide the knowledge and the answer, and they have a preference for this and value it more (again supporting the generalisations above). An additional challenge for the Chinese learner is with regard to understanding their class mates: they speak too fast; they use words the Chinese do not understand and cannot translate (slang). And finally, they have a strange accent that is difficult to understand. Foster and Stapleton’s study, however, did not suggest that the Chinese students were averse to participation but were perhaps hindered by differences in culture and language. Other comments regarding respect support this element, suggesting that the Chinese students are not expected to speak so freely in Chinese classrooms and that they are expected to answer the teacher’s questions but not interrupt them as is often seen in Western institutions. This is disrespectful in Chinese culture. The study did yield that the Chinese appreciated the teachers in Western institutions, though, and that although they were nervous about interrupting and misunderstanding the discussion and questions (see saving face later in chapter 2), they did prefer the teacher–student relationship here as the teacher always seemed

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to respect the student’s opinion. But they did find it difficult to comprehend the ad hoc nature of the discussion, as in China, any topic is generally given to the students prior to the discussion to give them time to prepare. Another challenge is the use of local references. Home students and teaching staff will often use local references such as places and tourist spots or discuss particular cultural hobbies, and this can make the Chinese student feel isolated which therefore reduces engagement and produces inertia with regard to engaging in the discussion. In opposition to this, the Chinese students want to perhaps use their own experiences and examples but find it difficult to explain the background context (Foster and Stapleton 2012). A final point from this element of the study suggests that the Chinese students recognise the usefulness of class discussions and participation and clearly distinguish the differences between engaging in a Western institution as opposed to a Chinese establishment.

Student presentations In this section of the study, students were asked for their opinions on giving student presentations and how these compare to in class discussions in terms of their feelings of comfort in taking part in these activities. Students stated that there were very few formal presentations in China and that these were mostly in classes that explored the English language. The response from the students on the importance of this skill was remarkable. They stated that presentation skills would enable the student to have far more of a competitive advantage when they returned to China to find work as it would help in interviews. However, this did not mean that the Chinese student found presentations easy, with comments including that they take a long time for the student to prepare, for them to then deliver such a short presentation, which was sometimes only ten minutes long, but they did understand the significance of the group work aspects of presentations as much as the individual ones and felt that the skills they learnt were of high value. In comparison to the in class discussions, all students in this study felt that presentations were better for Chinese students as they found in class discussion hard to engage with (Foster and Stapleton 2012).

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Case analysis Despite the lack of engagement in class discussions, the majority of students in this study found that case analysis was an enjoyable and valued activity, as it allowed them to analyse real companies. One comment relates to them being able to apply the theories and concepts they have learnt to real cases. It made them feel professional (p.307) and they favoured modern cases rather than investigating older cases that they felt were outdated and irrelevant.

Group work In this section of the study, students were asked if working in smaller or larger groups outside the lecture or during class impacted on their participation in the case analysis discussion element. This produced a similar result to any student group in relation to working in smaller groups during class time, with comments made about the opportunity to participate and provide more opinions in a smaller group than a larger group, and did not highlight any differences between Western and Chinese students. However, if the Chinese student worked in a smaller group outside of class time, then they stated that they were more confident in participating in a larger group in class. The students in this particular study voiced similarities between smaller group work and the Chinese style of teaching and learning and so felt more confident and comfortable in this setting, with one particular student commenting that (p.308) it is tradition for Chinese students to be low key [rather] than to be in the spotlight. Interestingly, language again came up as a factor in the participation in this particular pedagogical tool, indicating that the Chinese student is often reluctant to speak out as the language is too fast paced and they do not have the time to listen, understand, formulate an answer, translate it back into English and then join in the discussion; often the discussion has already moved on. This leads the Chinese student to feel stressed and unable or even unwilling to participate (language discussed in chapter 3). Similarly, the issue of ‘saving face’ is relevant here, with comments from students saying that they do not feel confident about speaking to the teacher in case they say the wrong thing and then become embarrassed (again, the concept of ‘saving face’ is discussed in chapter 2). The conclusions to Foster and Stapleton’s study offer useful information for those teaching Chinese students in Western institutions, detailing the way in which Chinese students like to be prepared for lessons, and that

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they are not averse to participating in class. Understanding this can aid the practitioner in developing teaching and learning tools and methods that will address the challenges of teaching Chinese students. They refer to Western institutions (in this case, Canadian) as rewarding the display of creative and quick thinking, whilst in China, students are rewarded for preparation and performance in exams. The results of the study did not yield surprising results in that Chinese students favoured methods in which they had time to prepare, such as for case analyses and formal presentations; however, this statement will be challenged later in the book with the primary study findings suggesting that this is not always true. As the authors clearly state in their conclusions, although the study supports the generalisation of the passive Chinese student, the students in this study did want to take part in participative learning as long as they were given time to prepare, and it was found that they enjoyed the ‘freedom of the classroom’, further concluding that Chinese learners are only passive when they feel unprepared, but prefer participation if they are given time to prepare. They enjoyed the friendly classroom atmosphere in which they were encouraged to contribute and the student–teacher relationship in Western institutions.

The challenges of the Chinese learner Rather interestingly, in Marriott’s (2001) study, is that students from Asian backgrounds tend to learn more by ‘abstract conceptualisation’ and ‘reflective observation’ as opposed to the more western preference of ‘concrete experience’ and ‘active experimentation’. What is important, however, is that despite these preferences, students in practice are exposed to a variety of different learning styles and methods of assessment, and this can indeed create difficulties for Chinese learners, particularly as Duff (1994) in Marriott (2001) suggests that although learning style preferences appear stable, attitudes to learning will differ, which is definitely a point worthy of further investigation as it raises questions with regard to whether it is the learning styles that the Chinese students find a challenge, the assessments, or their attitudes to learning. The Chinese student needs to acquire good communication skills and fluent written and spoken English in order to absorb the culture of western academic writing, such as style, structure, referencing and local policy on integrity in academic writing. International students may struggle to write a good assignment because of differences in culture; for example, grammatical and spelling mistakes may hide some of their insightful

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comments, resulting in a loss of their original meaning. It is challenging to navigate the choice of words and format with regard to writing and language is an issue as well, with all of these variables stopping the Chinese students from mixing with home students. This alienates them, stops them from learning about the new culture and making friends. This may cause ignorance and disrespect towards the international students. With the Chinese, challenges may include issues such as an inadequate proficiency in English, unfamiliarity with the native culture, a lack of appropriate study skills or strategies, academic learning anxiety, low social self-efficacy and separation from family and friends. Language is an obvious challenge, but so are different educational backgrounds. The Chinese educational structure focuses on exam-oriented education, so the emphasis is on meeting examination requirements. The lecture is the focus; the belief is that the lecture enriches knowledge and they must listen, as this gives a higher score. This means ignoring group work and practical activities because these skills will not be tested in exams. Chinese international learners have a large psychological obstacle when it comes to debating a subject with their lecturers. With the UK becoming a top destination for Chinese students, this can cause issues, as it is the UK’s way to encourage debate in class. Employers are looking for graduates with good reasoning, communication, inter-personal and leadership skills, and those who are self-motivated and independent. Problem-based learning (PBL) has been shown to be effective in developing these skills and has been regularly adopted by HE institutions in the UK. The Chinese style of teaching, as previously stated, is different, and there is a lack of student-centred learning activities in Chinese learning styles (Chan, 1999 in Huang, 2005). Furthermore, Redding (1990) in Huang (2005) refers to five characteristics attributed to Chinese people, which summarise their thinking and learning. The emphasis is on the perception of concrete ideas, and non-development of abstract thought; on particulars, not universals, with practicalities as the central focus; and on concern for reconciliation, harmony and balance. There is a strong tendency to prefer a passive teaching method, such as lectures and demonstrations. Problem-solving and explorative western methods are not considered by Redding (1990) to be good for the Chinese learner. Instead, the strong preference is on rote learning with the use of written examinations. These do not test the student’s ability to work with others and solve practical problems, and this may mean that the Chinese learner suffers from a lack of creativity and is less likely to explore new directions. This, in turn, can impact on their ability to write critically.

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These issues have been greatly exaggerated with a new intake of Chinese learners into western establishments. Part of the Chinese learners’ upbringing is to respect teachers’ knowledge and wisdom. Students would consider it disrespectful to question the teacher. Dimmock and Walker (1998) in Huang (2005) state that these authority relationships between students and lecturers reflect Confucianism and the high power distance in Chinese culture. UK learning styles are different; PBL has been used for over 30 years and students are able to understand their own situations and frameworks. The learner is presented with a problem, situation, query or puzzle and they have to solve it. This is very much a student-centred approach. The assumption is that learning through problem-solving is more effective than memory-based learning. PBL encourages skills such as communication, report writing, teamwork, problem-solving and selfdirected learning. Boud (1995) and Reynolds (1997) in Huang (2005) state that it aids better retention of the acquired knowledge. It empowers students to reflect on their existing levels of understanding and reflects Nietzsche’s and Einstein’s earlier thoughts on freedom within learning. Unusually, despite all the evidence and perceptions of the preferred learning style of the Chinese student, in the early stages of the primary research project element contained within this book, the students were given questionnaires questioning their preferred teaching and learning method, and the class that they felt they had engaged with the most. Out of all the students who were questioned, the results showed a high percentage preferred activity and problem based lessons, which does go some way towards breaking the myth that they prefer rote learning and memorisation. In fact, the results for this type of lesson and the formal lecture scored the lowest. However, perceptions of the Chinese style of learning, according to Huang, are that it can be positive as it allows the individual to know exactly what they should learn. But the downside is that students learn and memorise textbook readings without actually understanding the content, and afterwards, the facts are forgotten because the student never had the chance to relate them to the real world. The perception of PBL is that it allows the student to learn from others and to study on their own, which is necessary in the working world; however, one of the problems could be that some students are not always sure of what they have actually learnt in class. It is the teacher’s teaching practice of PBL that can be a problem in these cases. Chinese learners can be very unsure when given problems to solve. They are unsure of what it is all for, what it all meant and how it applied. Some may be able to discuss the problems with teammates, but they may have obstacles when doing so with lecturers because of the

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element of respect for the teacher, as stated earlier. In China, students are taught to accept what the lecturer is saying, whereas in the UK, debate may be encouraged (Huang, 2005). Students are encouraged to challenge the teacher and offer their own perspectives on the topic area. Therefore, whilst the students might have alluded to a preference for more activity and problem based learning, they might still struggle to understand the concepts being taught; so this might engage the learners more, but perhaps may not really help them learn or gain further knowledge as a result. Age can also cause problems. The Chinese are taught to respect age, and this can be the different age of the lecturer or an older class mate as discussed earlier. Therefore the common theme here would suggest that it is necessary to have a balance between traditional lectures and PBL when teaching Chinese students, in order to meet their learning needs. There has been a significant amount of work that has emerged over the last decade that explores and researches the experiences of international university students, although it has been limited in practicalities, as previously suggested. These studies do, however, identify the many challenges that international students face relating to culture, language and integration. These studies have taken place due to the increasing number of international students studying in the United Kingdom (UK) and the primary research project does further support these challenges. Barron et al (2010) suggest that the increasing numbers may have enhanced the environment, but they also require a much higher level of support. It is further suggested that staff have had to resort to developing their own methods to adapt to the needs of the international learners and have created their own pedagogy based on this experience. China and India occupy the top two places as international contributors to higher education in the UK. These students have vastly different cultures and language barriers that place a great amount of pressure on academic staff. The perception of the types of students from these countries is also interesting; for example, it is reported that East Asian students are seen by some academics as being high achievers, diligent note takers, well disciplined, hardworking, quiet, respectful of lecturing staff, and good attendees (Violet and Renshaw 1999; Barron 2003 in Barron et al 2010; .476). Further studies have reported that East Asian students are preoccupied with assessment, unable to criticise information presented to them from a variety of sources and reluctant to ask questions or contribute to discussions (Burns 1991 in Barron et al 2010). Watson (1999) in Barron et al (2010) further suggests that they are unaware of the conventions regarding referencing and therefore often plagiarise. This is taken further

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by Cortazzi and Jin (1996) in Barron et al (2010), who state that these students were not active in class and unwilling to work in groups, whilst also being shy and passive; all pointing towards Huang’s earlier reflections on the Chinese student, and that reading and writing in the English language is particularly difficult for this group of learners. This can result in academics having to spend more time on marking assessments, and the fact that plagiarism is a problem, as stated earlier by Watson, is further accentuated by the students feeling that the understanding of their learning needs and culture has not been met (Barron et al, 2010). This does go somewhat against the primary research project which suggests that the Chinese student is none of the above (more on this later). A study in 2006 by Turner at the University of Newcastle gives further insight into this element of the teaching and learning of Chinese students. Turner (2006:28) reflects on the previously stated element of teaching Chinese students; on their subsequent understanding and learning needs not being met, by stating that academic equality in the UK is limited; and on the extent to which institutions and the people within them, both teachers and peers, are aware of or equipped to ensure that culturally different student groups receive real equality of access to apparent educational opportunities. Turner suggests, therefore, that it is the institutions and the teachers within them that are the problem, and not the students, who do engage and do want to join in activities but are unable to do so because of the design of the lessons. A controversial point, but certainly one that is worthy of further development. Turner (2006) goes on to state that despite this, the number of students in this category has continued to rise, and as previously stated, now makes them the largest group of international students in the UK. They therefore constitute an important community within UK universities, and as such, they impact on the teaching and learning within these institutions (Turner, 2006). The project Turner (2006:29) undertook was interesting because it examined the pedagogical practices of UK institutions and the impact on international students, comparing this with Chinese pedagogical practices and the cultural influences that these have on Chinese students studying under the UK’s defined parameters of British pedagogical theorising. Turner’s (2006) project consisted of a study of Chinese postgraduate students, all studying and living in the UK, and was a small-scale yearlong study. It effectively examined any influences on their daily lives that impacted on their ability to understand and learn in their academic studies. What was discovered was that the Chinese student appeared to be passive and unresponsive in class, and struggled to meet the conventions and expectations of the UK system. Turner (2006) further reflects that her

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experience of teaching in English in Chinese universities was totally the opposite of this, with Chinese students engaged, actively motivated and achieving better results than their British counterparts. This contradiction certainly gives weight to the comment above relating to the perception of the Chinese student, and the necessity for insights into the best methods of teaching and learning for this particular community, as it does suggest that the problem is perhaps the institutions (as stated previously) and not the students. The clear results from this particular study did focus on the cultural element rather than the language and they do offer some unique research opportunities to consider any connections between the two; however, the conclusions were about the teacher responding to the differences and breaking the social barriers between the student and teacher in order to aid engagement within the classroom, but also to ensure that the Chinese student felt less isolated. The study therefore does not offer a broad enough discussion to identify specific and tangible conclusions about the challenges of the Chinese student, but it does offer some useful insights. Holmes (2004) also offers an interesting study regarding Chinese students’ learning experience in New Zealand. Holmes emphasises the increasing presence of Chinese students in Western programmes of study; however, she goes deeper to analyse the differences in learning styles and intercultural communication. What Holmes does confirm is the opinion of Caruana and Spurling, and the lack of guidance for practitioners in understanding these differences and undertaking the responsibility for the teaching and learning of this particular student group (further discussion on staff support found in chapter five). Holmes further confirms Huang’s (ibid.) views that the Chinese student learns by a system of memorisation, rote and repetition, furthermore suggesting that this offers merely surface learning (Biggs 1996 in Holmes (2005: 295)). This is compared with the Western style of learning as Socratic, where knowledge is generated, or coconstructed, through a process of [the] questioning and evaluation of beliefs. This style of learning differs greatly from Biggs’ surface learning and is described more as deep learning. Such generalisations purporting to the different learning styles of such student groups, however, can be flawed. Zhao (1995) in Holmes (2005) suggests that these generalisations can be helpful, but can fail to enhance an understanding at the level of the individual.

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Summary In conclusion, it would appear that there are an abundance of studies that have been conducted in relation to the issues surrounding the teaching and learning of Chinese students, and what can be agreed upon is that the teachers in western institutions do recognise that there is a problem. Commonalities from the studies further suggest that the Chinese student presents challenges for the teachers in the western institutions due to a range of things such as listed below. -

Culture Language Learning styles Engagement Understanding Plagiarism Limited staff support Criticality Group work

Chinese learners are certainly considered to be unique and many institutions consider them to be a different type of learner when compared to other international students. What has been recognised is that they present distinctive challenges for their teachers, and there are barriers to be broken down from both the teachers’ and students’ perspectives. The subsequent chapters within this book will examine these things in detail in order to offer recommendations on the practical things that teachers and institutions can do in order to promote the teaching and learning of Chinese learners.

References Arenas, E. (2009). How teachers’ attitudes affect their approaches to teaching international students. Higher Education Research & Development, 28(6) 615-628. Barron, P.E. 2003. Issues surrounding Asian students studying hospitality management in Australia: A literature review regarding the paradox of the Asian learner. Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism 3, no. 1:23-45. Bloy (2010). The Challenge of Teaching International Students. Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education. 2010.

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Caruana, V. and Spurling, N. (2007). The internationalisation of UK higher education: A review of selected material. York: Higher Education Academy. Available at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/the_internationalisation_ of_uk_he Cortazzi, M., and L. Jin. (1996). Cultures of Learning: Language classrooms in China. In Change and Language, ed. H. Coleman and L. Cameron, 169-206. Clevedon: BAAL and Multilingual Matters. Cronbach, L.J. (1986) Social inquiry by and for earthlings. In D.W. Fiske and R.A. Shweder (eds.). Metatheory in social science. P83-107 Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Duff, A. (1997) Validating the learning styles questionnaire and inventory of learning process in accounting: a research note. Accounting Education: an international journal 6(3), 263–72. Foster, D. and Stapleton, D. (2012) Understanding Chinese students learning needs in Western business classrooms. International journal of teaching and learning in higher education. Vol 24 No. 3 P301-313. HEA (n.d.) Pedagogic Theory. The Higher Education Authority. Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/internationalisation/ISL_ Pedagogic_Theory. Accessed 22nd June 2012. Holmes, P. (2004) Negotiating Differences in learning and Intercultural Communication: Ethnic Chinese Students in a New Zealand University. Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 67. —. (2005) Negotiating differences in learning and intercultural communication: ethnic Chinese students in a New Zealand University. Business Communication Quarterly. Vol 67 No. 3. September 2004. P294 – 307. Huang, R. (2005). Chinese International Students Perception of ProblemBased Learning Experience. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education. Vol 4. No. 2: 36-43. Huisman, J. (2010). Internationalisation in higher education: Local responses to global challenges. Keynote address at the Inaugural Seminar ‘Internationalisation and globalisation in higher education’, Society for Research in Higher Education International Research and Researchers Network, London, 30 March 2010. Kosala N., Marambe K.N., Vermunt J.D. and Boshuizen H.P. (2011) A cross-cultural comparison of student learning patterns in higher education. Higher Education (Springer 2012). 64: P299-316.

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Marriott, P. (2001) A longitudinal study of undergraduate accounting students’ learning style preferences at two UK universities. Journal of Accounting Education Vol. 11 (1), 43–62. Quality Assurance Agency (2012) Subject Benchmark Statements. Available at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/AssuringStandardsAndQuality/subject guidance/Pages/Subject-benchmark-statements.aspx. Accessed 01/11/12 Qing, L. (2009) Maturity and Interculturality: Chinese students’ experiences in UK higher education. European Journal of Education, Vol. 44, No. 1, 2009, Part I. 37-52. Scott, C. (2010) The enduring appeal of ‘learning styles’. Australian Journal of Education. Vol 54 No.1 P5-17. Simonton, D. 1988. Scientific Genius: A Psychology of Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Turner, Y. (2006) Chinese Students in a UK Business School: Hearing the Student Voice in Reflective Teaching and Learning Practice. Higher Education Quarterly, 0951–5224 Volume 60, No. 1, January 2006, pp 27–51. Violet, S.E., and P. Renshaw. 1999. Chinese students at an Australian university: Adaptability and continuity. In the Chinese Learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influences, ed. D.A. Watkins and J.B. Biggs, 205-20. Hong Kong: Centre for Comparative Research in Education/Camberwell, Victoria: Australian Council for Educational Research Watson, D.I. 1999. ‘Loss of face’ in Australian classrooms. Teaching in Higher Education 4, no. 3:355-61. Wilson, R.M.S. and Hill, A.P. (1994) Learning styles: a literature guide. Accounting Education: An International Journal 3(4), 349–58. Zhao, L. (2012) Interpretation of Chinese overt and null embedded arguments by English speaking learners. Second Language Research: Sage. 28(2) 169–190.

CHAPTER TWO CULTURE

Introduction This chapter considers the impact of cultural differences that is often perceived as a challenge when teaching the Chinese student in further depth. Before tackling the impact of cultural differences between the Chinese educational culture and that of the western student, it is necessary to firstly gather an understanding and knowledge of educational culture and its impact in general in order to apply some of the theories, concepts and educational philosophies to this particular unique group. Hofstede (2001: 9/10) refers to culture as the values, beliefs and symbols that shape human behaviour and goes much further to suggest that culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another, stating that values are invisible until they become evident in behaviour but culture manifests itself in visible elements too, and separating these visible elements into three categories: rituals, heroes and symbols: Symbols – words, gestures, pictures and objects that carry meanings recognised only by those sharing the same culture. Heroes – people, dead or alive, real or imaginary, who embody characteristics that are highly prized in a culture. These heroes then become models for behaviour. Rituals – collective activities that are considered socially necessary in a culture. Hofstede refers to culture as something that determines the uniqueness of the human group in a way that is similar to how personality determines the uniqueness of the individual, and asserts that the two interact, with culture sometimes being identified by personality traits. An interesting definition of culture in Hofstede’s 2001 work is the French definition of culture referring to the training and refining of the mind, which does appear to

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relate to Confucius’ comments on discipline. Stevens (2006) of the University of New York, however, states that the most influential modes of cultural explanation in education are Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Furthermore, Stevens asserts that these classics offer different conceptions of the relationships between culture and education, suggesting that the earlier impacts of culture on education lie in economics, as education was for the ruling classes and children from poorer working class backgrounds were limited in their ability to achieve educational certificates. Stevens further states how Weber held the view that formal education is an important mechanism of status in complex societies such as imperial China. Weber’s (1946) views offer an interesting insight into China’s cultural educational background – often it is the children of the higher classes that are able to travel and study in western universities – adding validity to his point on education being for the ruling classes. Weber furthers debates the topic of how education is a tool that enables equality across society and pushes a nation to modernity. An area for further research (not within this study) would be how that has evolved in China. Nevertheless, it does allow for some observations of how China has sponsored students to travel to western universities to study for degrees, perhaps in order to push forward with its own modernity. Nisbett (2003) refers to cultural diversity amongst learners and suggests that this could be due to deep-rooted cultural values and thinking that can be very difficult to separate from learning processes. Visser (2007) suggests that students expect the learning institution to adapt to their individual cultural learning processes. As has already been ascertained in chapter one, many Chinese students are finding it difficult to adapt to the western university’s culture which is deemed to be so different from their own. What Visser is clearly stating is that western universities have a responsibility to find a way to enable the adaptation and transition in a way that allows the student to feel comfortable in their new surroundings. Nisbett states that if the university is to do the best for the student, then the providers of education need to be far more cognizant of the cultures of their learners and how these cultures impact on their learning preferences. With this in mind, it is also recognised that teachers and providers of education must first have a good understanding of their own culture and teaching and learning practices in order to be able to adapt these to meet the differing needs of their students. One thing that is taught across teacher training programmes is the ability to differentiate in class, and, often, examples of good practice of being able to adapt teaching processes for this purpose can be found in primary, secondary and Further Education

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teachers (more on this in Chapter 5). However, university lecturers in the UK do not need to have any teaching training or qualification, suggesting that there is a lack of emphasis on this. Again, another study could be carried out here as it is evident that times are changing and it would appear that universities are now more mindful of the usefulness of such a qualification. However, this is not the focus of this study and therefore moves the study away from focus. Despite this, it is useful to understand this element in order to relate to Nisbett’s comments on the importance of understanding culture in order to teach across multicultures. If university lecturers have difficulty understanding their own culture and learning preferences, then it would be reliable to assume that they often make false assumptions about particular groups of students, making value judgements about them rather than realising that their behaviour or way of thinking goes much deeper and is actually a manifestation of their culture. For the Chinese student, and following the research from the teacher survey, it would appear that these assumptions and generalisations have been made by the teacher from the focus groups; and that observations in the primary project, discussed in this book and the literature, are made about the nature of the Chinese student that have led to the results below: -

Chinese students cannot speak or understand English well Chinese students do not engage in class debates and discussions Chinese students lack the ability to be critical Chinese students copy large amounts of knowledge from books and the internet but show no understanding of what this knowledge means Chinese students lack the ability to apply theory and concepts Chinese students do not like group work Chinese students do not like speaking out in class

By accepting and understanding their own culture and learning methods, and then having a deeper understanding of the Chinese students’ teaching and learning preferences and culture, some of the above can clearly be disproved (as can be found in later chapters in the book).

The impact of culture on education When gathering data for this study relating to the teachers’ perspective, it became apparent fairly early on that the teachers of Chinese students had a particular view of the impact of culture on the student’s ability to engage

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in the classroom. A small pilot study of 20 teachers of Chinese degree students in UK higher education establishments yielded interesting results. What was clear was the similarity of views from the sample group. Generic questions were asked to ascertain base line information relating to the size of classes and the amount of experience that the teachers have had of teaching Chinese students. This varied from many years’ experience to a few years and average class sizes appeared to be within the 40 to 100 range. One question that was asked was whether the teacher had experienced a time when they felt that their teaching method was not working. Many of the teacher sample stated that their teaching method was fine and they did not need to change it, with direct comments such as ‘it works very well’. A further question was then asked: if they felt that the lecture or seminar was not ‘working’, would they change their method? But as the sample stated clearly that their method always worked, this question became irrelevant for the majority of the sample, with only a minor few stating that, yes, they would alter their method if necessary. Some teachers also commented on how they would alter their marking strategies for Chinese students. However, later on in the questionnaire, the teachers were asked if they engaged the Chinese students and most of the sample stated that it depended. It can only be assumed that they were referring to the teaching method used. This did appear to contradict the earlier answer in the majority sample, and further comments on whether the students enjoyed a lesson and why they enjoyed it yielded answers such as: they could understand very basic English, suggesting that, indeed, the teaching method and language is modified to adapt to the Chinese students. Another commented on using discussions that do not require right/wrong answers as these appeared to engage the students the most, and this is certainly not the result of Neuby’s (2015) study (see below) which discusses how the Chinese culture impacts on their learning by limiting their ability to go beyond their comfort zones if they are required to give answers to open ended questions, instead preferring closed questions with right or wrong answers. Furthermore, the teachers’ questionnaire results suggested that the teachers viewed this particular group as homogenous and that they had determined that the cultural differences certainly impacted on their learning preferences. This cultural stereotype is evident in other research; a workshop in 2013 attended and supported by the Higher Education Academy on internationalisation and, in particular, Chinese students, provided several observations from the 60+ higher education professionals present. The common theme suggested that this group of students has deep-rooted

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educational cultural preferences that have limited their ability to engage and achieve high success in western universities. Further to this, according to Qing (2009), these cultural ‘blinkers’ can promote the barriers that the Chinese student has when attempting to adapt to a different educational culture. In 2009, Qing conducted a small scale study of Chinese students, similar to this one, studying the impact of crossing borders for Chinese students and the ability to adapt to a different culture and learning environment. Interestingly, Qing refers to the findings as learning shock, discussing their first initial experiences of travelling and studying in western universities as a shock which impacts on their ability to socialise and gain confidence in speaking and learning (communicating) in English. Qing also refers to cultural shock, stating that the students in the study had asserted that the teaching and learning environment was very different to what they are used to in their home country. Qing relates this to Hofstede’s (1986) four cultural dimensions, observing that in collective societies such as China, students are expected to learn ‘how to do’, and in individualist societies such as the UK, students are expected to learn ‘how to learn’, with culture playing a very important role in teaching and learning.

Cultural differences It would appear, therefore, that there is an obvious difference of culture between ‘home’ students and Chinese students, and indeed, other international students. The Chinese culture is arguably unique when compared to other students as its origins lie in Confucianism, and the emphasis in learning is on both etiquette and ritual. However, according to Shi (2006), these are stereotypes of the Chinese culture of learning. Shi goes further and suggests that western teachers assume that Chinese students are quiet, respectful and reluctant to ask questions or join in lively debates, and that Chinese students learn by imitating rather than independent thinking. Shi (2006) says that these views depict Chinese students as not learning by analytical thinking and speculation but by being reproductive. This is further stressed in that Chinese students learn by rote or memorisation and lack criticality, because to think critically is against their cultural values and beliefs. However, Turner (2006) (see chapter one) refutes this view with her comment on the Chinese student in their home territory engaging in debate. Despite Turner’s study, the more common opinion is that culturally, the Chinese student does not feel comfortable challenging the teacher’s views, particularly as Turner’s comments refer to the Chinese student engaging in their own Chinese universities and not in relation to how they interact in Western

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universities. The Chinese student, according to Shi, refers to his or her cultural values and these values lie in Confucianism, as it is against this belief system to criticise peers or challenge the writings of others. Liu (1998) cited in Shi (2006) refers to the Chinese student as unwilling to challenge authority. They are therefore obedient to the teacher and look upon them as the embodiment of knowledge, and therefore not to be challenged. However, Shi (2006) states that this is merely a perception by many western authors on the culture of teaching Chinese students, and that Confucianism is a difficult term to define and interpret. Shi (2006) suggests that most western authors interpret it incorrectly and that this could provide further support to Turner’s study (see chapter one) and a study by Cheng (2002), which relates to Chinese students preferring student-centred learning and states that they are willing to engage in interactive and collaborative teaching methods. This element is certainly worthy of deeper investigation, as according to Edwards (2006), the arrival of Chinese students into the UK is coupled with isolation and a host of pastoral issues, particularly loneliness and the cultural differences can lead to misunderstandings and a limited ability to build relationships. Edwards (2006) goes further to suggest that the Chinese learner will actively seek out other Chinese students and that their close cultural practices, such as cooking food and sharing leisure activities can isolate them further and often puts them at odds with home students, therefore making it more difficult to form relationships with others and to engage fully in western university life. This questions whether it is merely a pastoral issue that limits the Chinese student’s ability to integrate and engage both socially and in the classroom. It would appear from the literature that there are many contradictory elements to the cultural aspects of teaching Chinese students and many of the studies draw on personal experience, something that is apparent in this study. What is apparent from personal experiences is that it is not simple to understand the best way to teach Chinese students. The difficulty is in knowing whether the student is having difficulty learning because of language issues or a cultural issue. Once that has been determined, then perhaps better teaching and learning can take place. Interestingly, what Edwards (2006) does suggest is that some of the issues are clearly related to cultural differences which can be explained in Confucianism and British academics’ limited understanding of the cultural expectations of Chinese students. This is further explained in the teacher–student relationship, the Confucian view being very different from the western perspective and leading to misunderstandings on both sides.

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The impact of the different Provinces The above discussions relating to the cultural differences between the Chinese student and ‘home’ students, however, can be seen as fairly broad and it might be useful to consider the differences in the culture of China itself. However, it became apparent during research that the literature holds limited information on the different provinces of China in terms of the teaching and learning methods and any impact this might have on culture. However, this is an important element that is worthy of research, because discussions could arise about the difficulties of teaching Chinese students and the social engagement aspects could be about the provinces in China. For example, perhaps it depends on what area of China a student is from, their background culture and how this impacts on their ability to speak English, engage in class and socialise when learning in a different country. Brock (2009) refers to the differences in economic development between the richer eastern provinces and the poorer, often rural, western provinces in China. Brock (2009) further speculates that this shows a parallel between basic education in China and that the geographical, social and historical factors, coupled with the management factors, mean that education in the poorer areas ‘lags’ behind. This further suggests that the practices in the western provinces are dated and change often never occurs. This could be applied to the socialisation of Chinese learners. If they are being taught using outdated teaching and learning methods that are very teacher-centred and lack participation from the student, this could go some way to explaining the difficulties faced by these students and the teachers who have to educate them in English universities. Matthews (2015) wrote recently for the Times Education Higher about the state of Chinese Higher Education and provided an interesting insight into the Chinese graduate (from Chinese universities). Matthews quotes a Chinese academic, Professor Yong Zhao, who currently works for the University of Oregon, but interestingly originates from the South-western Sichuan province and therefore has ‘first-hand’ experience of these poorer areas in China. Professor Zhao reflects on how the US and UK governments are enviously looking on at the academic advancement of 15 year old Chinese students in maths and science across the international arena, but refutes this, stating that the Chinese education system is ‘authoritarian’, and crushes creativity and any individuality, as it forces students to study for the gao kao, which is the country’s university entrance test. Zhao furthers suggests that the Chinese are obsessed with exam results and test grades, which is rooted in their history. Of most interest in this particular article are the views of Chinese universities and

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the student here; this is most reflective of some of the common issues that are found in English universities with large groups of Chinese students. Culturally, once they no longer have to study for the entry test, the undergraduate in China no longer has the motivation or willingness to study hard. They have achieved what they need to by gaining entrance to a top university, which secures their future success. Zhao recounts how they use their ‘creativity’, instead, to get out of classes without being punished. In this same article, Matthews (2015) refers to a study by the Chinese government across 2,500 students, referring to their lack of individuality; instead of becoming independent learners, they instead become mere surface learners. Furthermore, the students merely rote learnt and memorised large chunks of literature rather than developing a deep understanding, and that this was particularly more prominent in lower ranked universities. This gives far more weight to the debate on whether the poorer provinces have reflected in the culture of the Chinese student and the attitude to learning that they bring. What is most interesting, however, in this particular article, is that the tone appears to be that the Chinese culture does impact on the way in which a Chinese student thinks, but it is very difficult to gather genuine research due to the still secretive nature of this country, despite how far it has journeyed over the past few decades, and that has certainly been a consideration in this study as the difficulties of gaining data, both quantitatively and qualitatively, has been a challenge.

Age and Respect Further to this debate, in a recent study in America, Neuby (n.d.) refers to Chinese student culture as still being based on respect for authority, and in the classroom, that authority is the teacher. Neuby further confirms through Chan (1999) that Confucius’ teachings on ethics, moral behaviour and justice are at the heart of the Chinese psyche. Confucius teaches loyalty and courtesy, which is also relevant in the classroom and embedded into Chinese educational culture. Therefore, because a student is moved from a Chinese classroom to a western one, it is reliable to assume that the loyalty, courtesy, respect and moral behaviour will move with them. Learnt patterns of behaviour are not unique to Chinese culture, and therefore culture is about large communities that create new generations of people with foundations based upon the community’s thoughts, behaviours, experiences, values and concepts, which guide them. As stated previously, Hofstede (1994) refers to these behaviours and cultures as having three categories:

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Symbols – relating to verbal and non-verbal language Rituals – socially essential collective activities Heroes – serve as a behaviour model in the culture (Confucius?) Arguably, therefore, these categories defined by Hofstede are the basis for culture. This foundation in Chinese customs and culture further adds to the discussion on whether culture impacts on the Chinese learning experience in western universities, due to the nature of what Hofstede is suggesting: that individuals’ behaviour is learnt from group communities, and culture is defined by that community and its experiences. On this basis, it could be argued, therefore, that if an individual Chinese student were to travel to a western university to study, that experience could alter the culture of that student. This is especially true if the majority of the group’s values are western and dominant; the Chinese student would adapt to ‘fit’ into this new ‘norm’. This could also be more apparent in a young student who has yet to become ‘settled’ into a particular way of life; the younger student arguably being more adaptable and prone to influence from a more dominant collective. However, if a group of Chinese students travel to a western university and lack the socialisation skills, preferring to remain in their dominant group, then the ability to learn new behaviours and share new experiences can become limited, which leads to this group retaining their previous culture and therefore becoming isolated and insular as a group. This does somewhat generalise all Chinese students and it is important to realise that individuals are not all the same; it is merely their cultural foundations. Something it does offer that is important is the ability to have a clearer understanding of the challenges that are faced with this particular group. Furthermore, what does tend to happen if a group to Chinese students arrive at a western university is the formation of subcultures (although this is true of any group of students). What does stand out is the different culture of the Chinese student to that of western students and teachers, and here lie the challenges and problems when attempting to engage and teach this group. This, coupled with the Confucian value of respect for the teacher, has led to subordination in the classroom, which in respect to the western university (especially modern ones) takes the opposite viewpoint, with western universities instead preferring to educate students to think independently and question and challenge the theories and concepts of what they are being taught. To the Chinese student, this is an ‘alien’ concept of learning; it is not for the student to challenge or question what the teacher is saying, but to memorise and repeat, showing respect not only for the teacher, but also for the authors who have created the theories and concepts.

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This makes the students passive observers rather than problem solvers. It is not up to the student to solve the problem, this has already been done in the text; it is up to them to merely memorise large ‘chunks’ of knowledge. Neuby (n.d.: 684) refers to the Chinese students’ expectations of the teacher, that they will define the boundaries of knowledge, control the classroom, provide unambiguous instruction through concrete example and demand performance, further arguing that the teacher may lose legitimacy and therefore respect. With all this focus on the ‘respectful’ way of teaching and learning on the part of both the student and the teacher, it leads to many interesting observations of what the Chinese student thinks, therefore, of the western classroom, where students are often debating heavily, and, through discourse, often disagreeing strongly with what the teacher is saying. The Chinese student might interpret this as a lack of respect for the teacher, that the teacher cannot control the class and is not knowledgeable as the students are not listening but instead openly arguing. It must be extremely confusing for the student to witness this new behaviour and culture, raising questions as to whether this limited understanding of the ‘normal’ western classroom creates further isolation and lack of engagement from the Chinese student; again, especially if there is a group of students who have formed a subculture retaining traditional values and traditions (as these feel more familiar and comfortable), despite being in another country. As Neuby (n.d:684) also states, students are expected to show conformity and respect, practice humility and aspire to accumulate knowledge. Neuby’s (n.d.: 687) study into the Chinese student’s success in western universities offers some interesting insights into the challenges that they face and does provide further validity with regard to the problems suggested in this study. The problems identified in the study (three issues) are as follows: 1. Their expectations of higher education were quite different from what we normally provide 2. They understood the definitions of words but not the meanings of concepts 3. They disliked class participation because they feared being wrong in front of the group This confirms what has already been identified as the challenges of teaching this particular group (in chapter one). Their higher education experience is one of memorisation, a lecture format, and having the teacher as the source of all knowledge who is expected to lecture and

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impart that knowledge while students take notes and memorise answers. It is not necessary to learn concepts as long as the definition of the words is clear; providing an example is enough to show analytical skills and understanding. Class participation does not show respect and instead leads to them feeling uncomfortable and scared of ‘losing face’ (more on this further in the chapter). Silence and passivity is favoured rather than disrupting the class by asking questions, which promotes conflict and would be classified as disrespectful. A similarity in Neuby’s study with the study in the reordered teaching methods because of this preferred learning style of the Chinese students, is the recognition that the students needed to be taught in several steps and stages, the first step being an understanding of the body of knowledge, and learning the words, theories and concepts in order to be able to use this comfortably and not be afraid to say the wrong thing (again ‘lose face’). Neuby then goes on to state that conceptual learning is the second stage of the teaching method, with this having some success as it is similar to the way in which the Chinese are taught in their home country. This study goes further as it takes that conceptual stage into two further parts (more in later chapters). Neuby’s study is important, however, as it does test the success of these methods in terms of exam success. This American study tested the exam results using the two methods: one method was learning by the more traditional methods of lecture, memorisation and the use of objective learning from textbooks; and the second method was learning from in class participation and skill building. The students were given ‘right/wrong’ objective type questions, and more in-depth problem-solving conceptual questions that potentially could have more than one answer. The results clearly showed here that the students had more success using these methods, again adding validity to this study. The conclusion from Neuby’s study was that the students needed to be taught initially as they have always been taught and then to go on to problem solving at their own pace. Neuby concludes that with this flexibility from instructors, Chinese students can adapt to constructivist types of skill building knowledge. Politeness and respect are the ‘norm’ in Chinese culture and are a big part of their expectations of higher education. This enables the student to learn to trust the teacher and respect that they can educate them. It has already been ascertained that Chinese society is based on the teachings of the philosopher Confucius (552-479BC) and this complex system of political and social ethics provides guidance on how the Chinese should value hierarchy, practical morality and respect for age and tradition. If Confucius believed that an ordered society is one that respects

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rank, then it makes sense that the Chinese student respects this hierarchy in the classroom, with the lower level (the student) giving respect to the higher level (the teacher). The rise in tuition fees in recent years in the UK university system has created a move towards the ‘student voice’, where students have much more of an equal say in the goings on of the university. It is considered good practice to include the student voice in all aspects of university, from developing the curriculum, to interviewing and appointing lecturers, providing constant feedback and offering views on improving teaching and learning practice as well as the facilities and resources available. In many western universities, it would appear that the higher tuition paying student has the right to a say in their education and how this is taught. Given Confucius’ teachings, it would show a disrespectful attitude for a Chinese student to criticise (even if it is constructive) the university management and the teachers on their teaching methods. Confucius believed that social order creates a better society where everyone knows their place. Arguably, therefore, in Chinese society and according to the teachings of Confucius, there is an expectation that people will act according to their rank and not necessarily how they actually think or feel. In the western classroom where it is often necessary to express feelings or say what you think directly, this can clearly identify the differences between Chinese and western cultures and encourages the Chinese student to remain insular and unwilling to participate in class discussions, especially those that require them to openly criticise the theories in literature or the teacher (the Chinese would respect these as being correct), as to criticise these would be disrespectful. Despite the Chinese student potentially disagreeing with a theory or concept, it would be unheard of to actually say this. Another aspect of Confucius is the concept of group orientation or collectivism versus individualism. Collectivism is inherent in a Confucian society, whereas in contrast, the western culture openly promotes individualism. With such individualism encouraged from a young age, educational and social policy in the UK under the quality act 2011 even means that it is breaking the law if a teacher or employer were to act in any other way. However, this system of collectivism is certainly apparent in large groups of Chinese students who travel directly from China to study in western institutions. Observations in this study and comments from the teacher research suggest that they tend to cluster together and this provides excellent evidence of why they prefer certain teaching and learning methods (games and group work, discussed in chapter 5). One thing that is certain from Confucius’ teachings is that education is highly respected. The OECD in 2011 refers to the top five countries for 15 year

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olds and academic achievement goes to Confucian heritage cultures for mathematics, and in English and reading, they occupy four of the five top spots.

The perils of plagiarism However, if the above is correct, then Chinese students’ culture and education does impact on their ability to complete assessments in a way that is acceptable to the west. Plagiarism in the west is often considered a violation of the author and considered wrong morally (Edwards, 2006). Davis (2011) conveys the importance of the legal and ethical implications that a lecturer has in making students aware of plagiarism and further suggests that information on cheating and plagiarism should appear in the class syllabus. However, this can create issues for the Chinese student in many ways: firstly, they may not have a full understanding of what this issue means; and secondly, if the information appears in written form, how clear is it and how much they have read of the handbooks or degree information given? Finally, the Chinese culture as already ascertained by Holmes (2004) lends itself to repetition and respect for the author, therefore suggesting that they do not understand that copying is wrong. This would certainly be true if the value system lies on the teachings of Confucius, and therefore Chinese students may perceive this as respectful to the author that they are imitating. Davis (2011) reiterates the need to educate students in what plagiarism and cheating are, and that although the intent may not be there, the need for understanding should be. Insley (2011) states that plagiarism is a reality and where some students plagiarise knowingly and some unknowingly, it is down to the teachers to decide how to deal with the situation. Insley (2011) veers towards three key reasons why students plagiarise in general: firstly, the student is unable to cite correctly. This aspect can be applied to the Chinese student who finds it difficult to grasp the complexities of referencing. The second reason that Insley (2011) gives is that the student leaves their assessments until the last minute and therefore copies another author’s work in haste, failing to give credit properly. The third reason is that students knowingly copy and have a certain amount of arrogance, believing that the teacher will fail to notice the plagiarism. This is where the difficulty lies with the Chinese student. If they have cultural influences, as stated previously, and therefore do not understand the errors of copying and pasting others’ work into their own without the correct citation, then how can a teacher overcome this issue? Furthermore, what about laziness or a priority on

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enjoying western freedom to the detriment of studying, which comes second to shopping in Manchester? This would again certainly be true if the Chinese student has less regard for higher education, due to the emphasis in their culture on securing a place at university rather than what happens when they actually attend the higher education establishment. Okoro (2011) alludes to statistics showing that 90% of students know and understand about plagiarism and that it is wrong and unethical; however, there appears to be little in the literature of statistics on Chinese students’ understanding of this issue. Perrin (2009) in Okoro (2011) refers to different types of plagiarism: whole paper copying, copy and paste, and carelessness. To overcome this, Okoro (2011) suggested ensuring that the students have all information, similar to Insley’s (2011) earlier suggestion; however, this raises questions, as stated earlier, about whether this can be just about information giving, if the Chinese students do not understand or even read the information that they are given, such as in programme and module handbooks. The ‘heavy’ English language here might limit their understanding or even their willingness to read the material. It would appear that, as Okoro (2011) further suggests, using effective writing activities that highlight what is right and what is not acceptable can serve to overcome this issue. This point once again raises questions as to when it is best to do this. Okoro (2011) suggests the start of the semester, but this causes issues if the Chinese learner joins a programme of study in year 2, when the professional skills modules are often in year 1. The institutions and programme managers can only assume that the Chinese student has passed the module in their equivalent year in China and therefore does not need further instruction. If this is the case, then the student will need extra support and this can often be overlooked. Another difficulty with Okoro’s suggestions is with regard to encouraging debate and questioning what the students find difficult about writing. As already ascertained by Zuo (1997), the Chinese students would find this difficult due to not wanting to lose face. Christensen (2011) refers to plagiarism as controllable but not stoppable, stating that given the opportunity, students will cheat. Christensen (2011) does support Okoro’s (2011) earlier suggestions that the students need to be coached in the nature of plagiarism and what they should and should not do, going further to suggest that assessment design is the key to controlling plagiarism. This is certainly worthy of exploration for Chinese students, and the necessity to create assessments that are engaging and individual, that steer away from copying and using textbook cases. An interesting point from Christensen (2011) is in the recommended

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solutions, suggesting that it is important to inform students that as scholars, they are preparing papers that require detail. Perhaps by using the Chinese culture of respect and integrity, this last point could go some way to overcoming plagiarism; however, it does not overcome the cultural aspect of copying being seen as respectful in Chinese education. Ouden and Wijk (2011) continue the debate but raise interesting comments that plagiarism and authorship are relatively new concepts in western culture. Apparently in eastern cultures, it is far less common. Going further, stating that plagiarism is a didactic issue, not a moral one, Eisner (2010) in Ouden and Wijk (2011) suggests that plagiarism is a teacher failing. This point is supported by suggesting that new and senior students need to be treated differently, with differing motivations for plagiarism in mind. It is stated that in the first two years of a bachelor’s degree, plagiarism should be treated as ignorance rather than deceit. This last point would go some way to overcome the previously stated difficulty of knowing when the information giving should end, so if a Chinese student does arrive in year 2 of a degree programme, then they still require support in this area. Furthermore, the assessments should be more challenging and should require analysis and synthesis rather than just listing and documenting. There is some agreement on this for western students, but as previously stated, for Chinese and eastern students this poses more of a problem, particularly if they struggle with analysis and the usefulness of this skill. Hansen et al (2011) present another issue with regard to plagiarism and the Chinese student by suggesting that to prevent plagiarism, there needs to be lots of class time, with activities and engagement in the assessment process between the teacher and students. As previously stated, the teacher–student relationship poses problems with the Chinese student who finds it difficult to speak out in class due to their culture.

Visual Aids Another barrier to the teaching and learning of the Chinese student which relates to culture is the use of visual aids. The Chinese language consists of visual characters and symbols; it is a very visual language, but English is not. Therefore, when trying to engage the Chinese learner, sometimes it is difficult to know if they have understood what is written down or spoken. By adapting the teaching and including visual aids, particularly drawings or getting them to express themselves, this can aid engagement. According to Matthew and Alidimat (2013), a good teacher, especially one teaching students with English as a second language (ESL), draws on a variety of different methodologies to engage and interact with their

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students, and a variety of teaching aids creates a much more interesting and interactive lesson. Developments in technological audio-visual aids have led to an increase in the drive to involve these in the classroom, with some teachers adapting and integrating them usefully and successfully and others instantly putting up barriers, perhaps for a variety of reasons, such as a lack of technical ability, time, or simply because they are comfortable in their current teaching practice and methods. If it works, why try to fix what is not broken? If the Chinese culture and language draws on visual symbols and characters and their teachings often involve creative drawings (especially with girls), then it makes sense that using effective visual methods of teaching and learning will enhance understanding. This has certainly been effective in the teaching of language skills, according to Matthew and Alidmat (2013). However, it must be recognised that using video clips, a favoured method of teaching and learning by western institutions and teachers, is not always going to be effective, especially if the video clip has lots of slang in the language and the speaking is fast-paced, as this can disengage any group of students, not just Chinese students. A study conducted by Park and Bae Son (2009) in Matthew and Alidmat (2013) in a university in Korea suggested that the quality of the education does not depend on these audio-visual aids and indeed on technology, but on the skills of the teacher, the motivation of the teacher and the quality of the teacher. He or she has to be willing to adapt pedagogy and have a positive attitude. Although this study is in relation to teaching ESL rather than being directly applied to teaching Chinese students in western institutions, it is useful as it does provide a valid debate on the significance of using visual methods to engage and develop the learning of the Chinese student. Confucian ideology is often associated with symbols and visual aids. Reid (1987) found that Chinese students preferred visual learning styles, with discussions, lectures and classroom debates in need of some form of visual stimulation in order for them to understand clearly what is being delivered. Although Reid’s discovery is from 1987, it is still relevant to modern Chinese students. Ramalingam (2014) states in a conference paper that the Chinese learner prefers the use of visual aids. Gilakjani (2012) refers to the student as learning at their best when they see the value and importance of the information being presented in the classroom. Therefore it is essential to use a range of methods to make the classroom stimulating and engaging. Reid (1987) goes further to suggest that Chinese students actually favour kinaesthetic styles of teaching and not group work (more

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on this later in the recommendations section). Gilakjani also provides evidence that if language is difficult, the student retains the information better if they learn and associate it with visual aids. Wong (2004) suggests that the literature refers to learning styles being influenced by the student’s culture but that this perception is limited. As it does not examine how the preference of learning style can be flexible, the international student offers many complexities, and although they may have been raised in a traditional cultural method of teaching and learning, when exposed to a variety of different methods, they have the ability to change their preferred method or add new styles to their existing ones. Wong conducted a study in 2004 on whether the Chinese student could adapt and alter their cultural learning style. Interestingly, the results of the study suggested that the Chinese student actually prefers the student-centred teaching and learning method, and found that a more discussion-based teaching method was an advantage to studying in institutions which utilise western methods. This would appear to contradict the perception that the international student, and indeed the Chinese student, prefers lecturing and the didactic method rather than the more interactive lesson. Wong cites Chan (1999), suggesting that this is because the western educator has a lack of understanding of the Chinese student and this would certainly appear to correlate with the teacher research that was completed for this study. Interestingly, this could be due to the Chinese teacher having a lighter teaching workload than their western counterparts and that the Chinese teacher offers more interactive discussion, student support and feedback outside the classroom; therefore the student is expected to sit quietly and listen in class, but then be able to discuss the topic with their teacher outside the classroom. The perception, therefore, of the western teacher is correct; the Chinese student will sit quietly in the classroom, but will be far more willing to engage in discussion outside the classroom as they have been traditionally taught in their homeland. However, Wong did agree that the Chinese student is trained to memorise large amounts of knowledge and then to reproduce that knowledge, which does bring validity to the comment that they are surface learners and lack the ability to be critical, which is favoured in western establishments. What is clear from Wong’s study, however, is that these students do prefer the more practical methods of teaching and learning, and they stress that it leads to much more understanding for them. Wong’s study maybe from 2004, but it does offer some useful insights into the challenges that face international students who travel to study in western institutions:

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You are on your own – the student is suddenly expected to find things out for themselves and not rely on the teacher to tell them everything. Lecture notes – it is difficult for the student to take notes as the pace of the lecture is such that they have difficulty in knowing how to take notes, because this is not something they do culturally. The accent of the teacher and the use of slang in the language also make it difficult for the student to follow. Assignment requirements – the Chinese exam system of memorising and then reproducing that knowledge leads to difficulties in knowing how to write an assignment, where to find the information and how to construct it. Group work – this is not something that they have much experience of in their own culture and it therefore tends to be difficult for them to work with others, especially if they are not as motivated and are unreliable, so they prefer to work individually. Wong also provided solutions to some of the challenges above: Willingness to change – Wong suggested that in the study, the student was willing to learn and adapt to new methods of teaching and learning. Better understanding – a good student–teacher relationship meant that the students felt they got more support and this provided the opportunity for them to tell the teacher what they needed so that the teacher had a better understanding of the students’ challenges. More practice – it is recognised that the Chinese student needs more time to get used to these methods and to learn how to do assignments, work in groups and how to act in classroom discussions. However, in a final conclusion to this particular study by Wong, it is suggested that the teachers in western universities do not need to change their teaching and learning methods; instead, they should have a better understanding of the Chinese students’ challenges, as they will adapt to the new methods within a few months of study. This last point is one that is certainly worthy of further research and dispute as there is a slight contradictory element to it. If the western teacher is to have a better understanding of the challenges that are facing the Chinese student when they travel to study in a western institution, but not to adapt their teaching and learning methods, surely the western teacher would do this naturally once they have a clearer understanding.

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‘Saving Face’ The literature discusses the aspect of ‘saving face’ and personal experience would suggest that this is not just a Chinese issue. Many students are unsure of speaking in class for fear of looking stupid, being disrespectful, or just getting it wrong. Another element worthy of research is to compare English and Chinese students on this issue. Cardon (2006) refers to losing face in Chinese culture as a loss of dignity, prestige and status, which are necessary for maintaining harmony in social relationships and hierarchies. Although Cardon’s (2006) study relates to a series of interviews with Chinese business people, it is relevant due to its comments on the reaction by a Chinese person to losing face, and the impact that this has on their relationships with the people they consider themselves to have lost face with. If this aspect is not taken into consideration by the teacher of a group of Chinese students, then their relationship can potentially therefore become difficult, and the Chinese student may feel less able to engage in the learning process. What is interesting in the conclusion of this study is that Cardon (2006) states that losing of face appears to be short-term and this is contradictory to the general literature on this topic area. However, Cardon (2006) suggests that despite this revelation, it is still necessary to take care when dealing with Chinese people as this can lead to difficulties with relationships, further supporting the issue of the teacher–student relationship and how important this is initially, with any group of students, in retention and achievement in their studies. A further study conducted by Cardon and Scott in 2007 emphasises that there is little that has been written on the issue of losing face in the business world and it would seem that this is also true with regard to writings about losing face in education. However, they do discuss what constitutes losing face in Chinese culture in the business world and these findings can be applied to education. Criticism, no matter how slight, is raised in the study as a reason for losing face in business. This is something that has already been discussed as incredibly important in Higher Education. The western culture has already been stated by Holmes (2004) as emphasising the need for criticality in education. Negative responses to requests are also given as a reason for losing face in Cardon and Scott’s (2007) study and this raises the question of whether the Chinese student will be forthcoming in the classroom if they get a negative response. If a student asks a question or raises a topic for debate, encouraging students to join in the debate is difficult in any culture due to the students’ lack of confidence and fear of getting something wrong. Therefore, they often say nothing. Adding the Chinese culture to this, it

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makes sense that engagement is even more difficult. A final point that can be applied to education from this particular study is confrontation: this is raised as a point that causes loss of face, and is difficult in the classroom setting where often the debate can appear confrontational, particularly if the teacher is attempting to stimulate debate by putting groups on opposing sides of an argument. Zhu (1989) in Cardon and Scott (2007) refers to a study on the many reasons for losing face and three stand out in particular: students unwilling to pay attention to a teacher in class, criticism for one’s poor work and making errors whilst speaking in front of an audience. To provide further support to the issue of loss of face causing a lack of engagement in the classroom, the final point from Zhu (1989) which relates to making errors whilst speaking in front of an audience is particularly interesting if the student is expected to openly present in front of an audience as part of their assessment. Zuo (1997) conducted a study on 31 face loss incidences in China, and once again, two examples stand out: being corrected in front of others, again supporting the difficulties that the teacher faces when asking questions to the group; they need to be mindful of correcting a Chinese student in front of others for fear of causing offence. The second reason is being humiliated and embarrassed in front of others. This reason can be applied to the classroom as it could potentially relate to activities and classroom debates, and the issue of presenting in front of others and not performing at their best. This loss of face not only causes embarrassment to the Chinese student, but potentially impacts on their grade for this particular type of assessment.

Summary In conclusion, it would appear that culture does play an important role in education. It is often difficult to separate deep-rooted cultural values from learning processes and the Chinese student does have a strong cultural heritage in Confucianism which often lies in rituals. However, there is clearly an argument surrounding whether it is the western universities that have to adapt to accommodate the influx of Chinese students: whether it is their responsibility as they have accepted these students onto a range of study programmes and therefore the students’ expectation is that they will be able to complete the programme; or whether the western universities do not have to adapt their teaching and learning, but instead just need a deep knowledge and understanding of the issues and challenges with this group. Edwards refers to it being a pastoral issue rather than a lack of ability and that the perception of the Chinese student is often flawed. Other arguments state that it is the teacher’s ability to understand their own practice and

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culture in order to be able to adapt to a newer, ‘different’ group of students, and this would certainly be supported in teacher training classes, where new teachers have difficulty in adapting practice to meet any student group. This practice is learnt through the experience of teaching different groups and a willingness to adapt. The Chinese behaviour therefore goes much deeper than the perceptions and instead is a manifestation of culture that teachers do recognise, but they potentially do not always do anything to adapt. China has certainly pushed forward its own agenda on modernity by encouraging students to travel abroad to study and Qing refers to this as a phenomenon which can potentially create learning and cultural shock for the Chinese student. However, it could be argued, therefore, that this is also a cultural and learning shock for the teachers in western universities. Finally, what the studies did mainly confirm is that Chinese students are a different group to what they would normally teach. From the students’ perspective, the environment is different to what they are used to; and in China, they ‘learn how to do’, but in the UK, they ‘learn how to learn’, and this is the challenge that must be addressed if this group is to confidently achieve in their studies in the western universities.

References Brock, A. (2009) Moving mountains stone by stone: Reforming rural education in China. International Journal of Educational Development. Vol. 29 Issue 5, p.454-462, 9p. Chan, S. (1999). The Chinese learner—A question of style. Education + Training, 41(6–7), 294–304. Edwards, V. (2006) Meeting the Needs of Chinese Students in British Higher Education. The University of Reading. Available at http://www.academia.edu/183804/Meeting_the_needs_of_Chinese_stu dents_in_British_Higher_Education. Accessed 3rd April 2013. Gilakjani, A. (2012) Visual, auditory, kinaesthetic learning styles and their impacts on English language teaching. Journal of studies in education. 2(1) 104-113. Hofstede, G. (1986) Cultural differences in teaching and learning, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10, pp. 301–320. —. (1994) The business of international business is culture. International business review. 3(1) 1-14. —. (2001) Culture’s consequences; comparing values, behaviours, institutions and organisations across nations. 2nd Edition. London: Sage publications.

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Qing, D. (2009) Maturity and Interculturality: Chinese students’ experiences in UK higher education, European journal of education 44(1) 39-51. Matthew, N. and Alidmat, A. (2013) A study on the usefulness of audiovisual aids in EFL classroom: implications for effective instruction. International journal of higher education. 2(2) 86-92. Neuby, B. (2015) Chinese student success in an applied academic environment, Journal of public affairs education. (18(4), 683-693. Nisbett, R.E. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and westerners think differently...And why. New York: Free Press. OECD (2011). The PISA 2009 Profiles by Country/Economy available at http://stats.oecd.org/PISA2009Profiles (accessed 10/04/15). Reid, J. 1987. The learning style preferences of ESL students. TESOL Quarterly, 21/1, 87-111. Shi, L. (2006) The Successors to Confucianism or a New Generation? A Questionnaire Study on Chinese Students’ Culture of Learning English. Journal of Language, Culture and Curriculum. Vol. 19:1. Stevens, M. (2006) Culture and Education. New York University. Turner, Y. (2006) Chinese Students in a UK Business School: Hearing the Student Voice in Reflective Teaching and Learning Practice. Higher Education Quarterly, 0951–5224 Volume 60, No. 1, January 2006, pp 27–51. Weber, Max. 1946. The ‘Rationalization’ of Education and Training, pp. 240-244 in H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, editors, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology New York: Oxford University Press. Wong, J. (2004) Are the learning styles of Asian international students culturally or contextually based. International education journal. 4(4) 154-165. Visser, J. (2007). Learning in a global society. In M.G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of distance education (2nd Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

CHAPTER THREE LANGUAGE

Introduction This section relates to the issue of language and how this impacts on the teaching and learning of Chinese students. It is first necessary to consider the challenges of language for all students in general and then to apply these challenges to the Chinese student to clearly identify the issues that can arise. Simply put, language is defined as communication of thought and it can take place through a variety of spoken words, gestures and written forms. Students and teachers have to master an effective way of using language in these forms throughout their teaching and learning. However, this is just one of many challenges facing students who are new to university; these are challenges that impact on all students. For example, students may have financial difficulties or they may have never have had to manage and organise their own finances before. Students also have to learn lots of new technical language terms that they will need for their studies, including theory. Students have to learn to deal with the social side of university; there can be a lot of pressure on students to embrace the student union and activities that go with it. Students are often put into groups with other students from all different kinds of backgrounds, cultures and nationalities, and they often have to live in accommodation with strangers for the first time without parental support. Therefore, being able to communicate effectively is an essential aspect of university life if the student is to integrate into the new social and learning environments, and this is not without challenges. Many students feel unprepared to study at the higher education level, with anxieties about what is expected of them from their teachers and especially the assessments they have been set. Students who have English as an additional language have all of these challenges and come to study in western English-speaking universities, with language as an extra challenge as well.

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As previously stated, the use of technical and academic language that is used in textbooks and journals is often very difficult for home students; for example, if they are studying law, the language is indeed littered with terminology that students have perhaps heard at university for the first time. The topic area research methodology can prove a real challenge with regard to students becoming used to using the language with confidence and gaining a clear understanding of what some of that key terminology means, whilst then also being able to critically evaluate and analyse this terminology, and then apply it. From a teaching perspective, teaching this language is also a challenge, ensuring that the students are clearly able to understand the words and then how they can apply them to their assignments and tasks. Now, put this into an international context and consider the international student having to translate the word in order to try and understand it, and then also having to understand how to apply this in context; this is a real challenge. Often, the word cannot be translated into the home language of the student and this adds an additional dilemma for both teacher and student, both for the teacher who is trying to find examples and provide simple explanations for the student, and for the student who is trying to use this language confidently and in their assessments. Experience demonstrates that most students (not just international ones) have a tendency to do several things in this situation (of course, there are many students who do understand and use the language effectively). 1. Avoid using the word altogether 2. Use the word, but find a basic definition and then do nothing else with it 3. Attempt to apply it, by coupling it with an example and not always the most appropriate example, then reference anything they can find with that word in it Chinese students do all of the above and they often also copy and paste large amounts of information that has the word in it, but they do not always show any understanding of what they have just written or said and therefore limit their ability to actually put the word (or even theory) into context. In presentations especially, experience shows that many Chinese students repeat large amounts of literature that they have just learnt and read from a script or recite from memory. It is quite possible for most people to recite, in another language, something that they have learnt from a song or a script, but this does not mean that they actually understand anything of what they are saying.

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Therefore, as educators become faced with a far more diverse student group, it is necessary to consider language when teaching so that the problems and challenges as highlighted above are minimised and the student is able to use the language effectively and confidently. It is therefore the responsibility of the teacher to address these difficulties, and recognise the different language difficulties of their student groups, and with the current changes to the HE education system in the UK, this makes the issue of teaching and learning far more reaching. The university has the responsibility to ensure the students are getting the best education and that they achieve. The issue of understanding is important for this and furthermore, it aids retention, so if the management teams wish to retain numbers and continue to recruit internationally, this is clearly an important issue. However, it has been very difficult to find appropriate literature on the subject of language difficulties in learning in higher education; although many things have been written concerning language, they are mostly generic and lack specific detail, with the majority of them being in regard to learning and teaching English as a foreign language. This is not necessarily appropriate for a study such as this one, as it is more important to consider how the difficulties in language are impacting on the students’ ability to achieve high grades and this is with particular regard to the Chinese learner in a western English-speaking university. However, it was Vygotsky (1978) who stressed that interaction was necessary for cognitive and academic language development, and furthermore, that students learned more in terms of language skills and thought processes by interacting with a more knowledgeable peer or expert. He believed that social interaction is the foundation of all learning. If the Chinese student does have difficulties with the social engagement aspect when coming to study at a western university, then this would go some way to making their language learning, and indeed, learning the colloquialisms of the country or region to which they have travelled, much more difficult. The student therefore has the challenge of learning slang and local terms on a social level, but also of having to learn the technical language, which may be even more unfamiliar, in the subjects they are studying. This would suggest that having a good ‘grasp’ of the language is necessary not only for understanding what is being said, but for the social interaction aspect; without this, the student will not learn in any depth, or they will perhaps not learn in a meaningful way. This would further suggest that for any student without any understanding or basic knowledge of the language skills in that subject area, there would always be a limited depth of knowledge. As previously stated, this is even more important for any student learning in a language that is different from their own. According

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to Brooks and Thurston (2010), there is a strong foundation of research that indicates that social interaction supports second language acquisition. Furthermore, social interaction encourages the second language learner to develop the ability to construct meaning into their second language. It would appear that Chinese learners have some difficulty with the social interaction aspect, and therefore this supports the difficulty they have in providing depth of knowledge, critical evaluation and analysis in their assessments. Brooks and Thurston (2010) also suggest that the fault lies with the teachers, who have a tendency to deliver teacher-led didactic lessons and fail to give opportunities for language development and social interaction. This would certainly apply to the previous chapter on the cultural aspects of Chinese students and how these impact on the engagement of the Chinese learner. As already ascertained, the social engagement of students is an essential aspect of university life and this is particularly useful in topic areas such as research methods, where discussion and peer assessment appear to improve the knowledge and understanding of the student. By discussing in group work, students can guide each other and learn more in depth about this particular topic area. As previously stated, the language in some subject areas is very difficult, with words that are often not used in everyday language. For a student learning in a different language, often there is no translation for some of these words. For example, in the teaching of research methods, terminology such as positivism, interpretivism and phenomenology are not recognised or translatable in the Chinese language, therefore when teaching groups this topic area, observations provide evidence that they do not translate, as the students will discuss amongst themselves in their home language and this will be littered with these unfamiliar words and phrases. In research especially, the need to discuss the most appropriate method with peers or teachers is a useful teaching strategy which is used by many teachers of this subject, and being able to use peers to provide criticism that can then be applied to the research planning process yields more valid and positive research design results. If the student struggles with the language, and often when a student struggles with the language they will omit these words from their assessments, this can impact on their overall understanding, and indeed their grades. Students in general will omit a theory or word that they do not understand, or they will put it into their work but it will lack the context it requires, or they will merely copy and paste a definition. For Chinese students, this can lead to a further limited ability to achieve higher grades in western institutions, and surely it is the responsibility of the teacher to ensure that the students are engaged

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in the knowledge and understanding of the language of the topic they are delivering. Perhaps rather than it being a failing of the teacher, what this highlights is the fact that teachers need more support in how to deliver to students learning in a second language and to engage them in the more social aspects of the English language. The easier option may be to just ‘get through’ the lesson as best as possible for the teacher, with little thought to the student and their understanding, particularly with larger groups. However, there appears to be some contradiction on whether a more interactive lesson helps with language and social engagement. Jacob et al (1996) in Brooks and Thurston (2010) reflected on a study of the classroom interaction of sixth grade English language learners (ELL) in a social studies class, and found that ELL students participating in collaborative groups did not interact much in these groups. However, Foster (1993) in Brooks and Thurston (2010) concluded that students were more likely to interact when the activity required the group participants to exchange information in some way. This is something that was tested during the primary research project discussed within this book (further details can be found in chapter 6). This area is more complex than culture, as the literature discusses language and the difficulties for international students, but fails to break it down into the necessary components. The Chinese language has many differences to the western language, but it is more than just speaking differently. Having a good understanding of the differences between Chinese and English is important for any teacher if they are going to engage and enable the student to gain a deep knowledge and understanding, and often Chinese students come into university with limited English in terms of social skills. They may have learnt English in their home country and speak it very well in its ‘purest form’ but how many English people actually speak English correctly? The different dialects and use of slang that litter the regional areas of the UK can prove problematic to the international student. This is not the only issue; if another international student or teacher from, for example, Latvia is also speaking English as a second language, then the Chinese student can often find this difficult to understand as the Chinese language relies on tone and this is discussed further in the next section.

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Differences in the English and Chinese language According to Hong-Xu (2014: 10) the Chinese language (emphasis on Mandarin here) is a non-alphabetic, monosyllabic and tonal language. Furthermore additional differences between this and the English language are areas such as phonology, semantics, syntax and morphology. Phonology – Chinese phonology consists of vowel and consonant sounds but does not have some English sounds, such as th, x, q and soft g, and as Hong-Xu (2014: 10) further states: Given that Chinese can be analyzed only at the syllable level, CSELs would find it hard to understand these phonological concepts: 1) phonemes (beginning, middle, and ending); 2) onset and rime; and 3) multiple syllables. Hence, CSELs need additional time and assistance in order to master such tasks as blending phonemes to make a word, segmenting a word into phonemes, and breaking a multi-syllabic word into individual syllables.

Semantics – There are similarities to be found between Chinese and English semantics; however, the Chinese language has more words with multiple meanings than English. In the English language, each meaning would have a single word and this can quite easily cause confusion as the learner might have to master many different words spelled the same but all with different meanings; or spelled differently and with a different pronunciation and meaning. An additional difficulty in Hong-Xu’s study is that of the ‘catchphrase’, which comes under the semantics (play on words) of the English language. For example, raining cats and dogs or are we on the same page, are expressions used in the English language. Morphology – this relates to the structure of words with the smallest unit in English being recognised as a morpheme. This is then supplemented by prefix and suffix, adding to the confusion, as these do not exist in the Chinese language. Syntax – relates to the rather complex area of grammar in the English language which is considerably different from Chinese grammar, the latter considered as being much simpler. English grammar relies on verbs and sentence structure for the sentences to have the right meaning and the element of negation means that not all words are in the same place in sentences, so whether it comes after or before the verb is particularly confusing.

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Hong-Xu (2014) summaries her study by stating that in order to be able to teach students whose first language is Chinese, it is useful to learn about the language. Whilst Chinese might be difficult to learn, it is still possible to learn about the language. Furthermore, this is no different than teaching any other group as it is always necessary for the teacher to consider the students’ background and learning style, if teaching and learning are to be effective. Therefore a key aspect of teaching Chinese students effectively is to break down the components of the language that cause particular problems such as tonality, broken English and translation, and plurals, as can be found in the next section.

Tonality Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken tonal language in the world (Li et al, 2012: 1353) and there are four lexical tones within this language. This is unlike consonants and vowels, which are considered in linguistics as segments. Tones are therefore considered suprasegmental and this relates to their acoustic attribution extending over more than one speech segment. The Chinese language is therefore a tonal language: tones are used to differentiate word meanings and the Chinese determine what is being said depending on the inflection of tone in a word or sentence. For example, if an English person were to ask a question, the natural thing to do is to raise the voice at the end of the sentence. This can be difficult for a Chinese student to understand, as they may not realise that the rise and change in tone indicates a question being asked. Therefore, the issue of whether they are not answering questions because of respect or cultural differences could merely be because they did not recognise the sentence as a question. This can be emphasised if the pace is too quick; if an English person or teacher asks a question and does not use a ‘slow’ or steady pace, then the question can be lost in translation. For a Chinese student, the quick, animated style of the English person can be very difficult to understand; this, coupled with the local dialect and colloquiums can make it impossible for a Chinese student to follow what is being said. When taking tonality into account, it is necessary to keep the tone even and the pace slow for the Chinese student. This may encourage more interaction. Tonality is an interesting element of any language and worthy of further exploration as it can be used for a multitude of things, such as, asking a question or making a statement. The right tone can command and can be used in classroom management. Once again, this area is under-researched, and particularly with regard to Chinese students, there does appear to be some literature on tonality and style in teaching in general but a lack of

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anything as specific as the earlier suggestion. Kenman (2007) refers to the necessity of communicators in business and academia in sending messages that are understood pleasantly and effortlessly. This relates to and supports the question of whether the Chinese student is not engaging for cultural issues or because they do not understand what is being said because the tone and style of communication is something they cannot decipher. Kenman (2007) further states that texts often deal with tone and style, but in a very limited manner, and these texts do not provide extensive explanation and drill. This explanation and drill aspect is particularly relevant to this area of study as Kenman (2007) explains the exercises he has devised and uses in aiding student learning, and his evidence is practice based. He refers to tone as the politeness, positivity, friendliness, and the you-attitude, and good style as the succinctness, active voice, conversational register, and personal constructions (Kenman, 2007:306). These are not entirely the same as what may occur for the Chinese student, but there are certainly some similarities. What is apparent in terms of differences here is that Kenman refers to tone and to the style of written work and communication. What is worthy of research is the tone and style of vocal work with students and particularly Chinese students. Liu et al (2011) conducted a study regarding the use of tone in a tonal language, but again, the study related to learning the Chinese language rather than teaching Chinese students from an English perspective. Further strengthening the argument for research into this area, however, and what was interesting in this study, was the use of both the tone of the words when learning coupled with the visual patterns and numbers that were used to stimulate memory when learning to recognise the tones, which is something that will be discussed later with regard to the Chinese language being a visual one and the use of visual aids within teaching and learning. Denton (2008:1) does however, refer to the teacher’s language, i.e. what we say and how we say it, as being the most powerful tool a teacher possesses and that it permeates every aspect of teaching. (Chaudhry and Arif 2012). Knapp and Hall (2009: 10) indicate the complexities of the subject, suggesting: [I]t is not easy to dissect human interaction and make one diagnosis that concerns only verbal behaviour, and another that concerns only nonverbal behaviour. The verbal dimension is so intimately woven and subtly represented in so much of what has previously been labelled nonverbal that the term does not always adequately describe the behaviour under study.

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Denton (2008:1) declares that language, and therefore tone, can lift a student’s motivation to the highest potential or tear it down. Furthermore, it can aid in building trusting relationships and developing respect, or it can provide an arena for discord and distrust. Arguably, if this is true of a native English-speaking university, then what can be said of teaching students who use a tonal language? If the power of language is such that it can shape how students, think, act and overall how they learn, when we do not understanding this aspect of English students, how can we begin to understand how to teach a Chinese student? This study by Denton (2008) is the most relevant literature to this study that was found, but, again, although the comparisons are immense, the study was about English native speaking students and younger students, when the area for research here is Chinese students learning in an English environment and in HE. However, an interesting point from Denton’s study was in relation to using the right tone when trying to be direct with a student; for example, using a straightforward, even tone enables the student to understand and feel safe and respected. Another relevant and interesting point was the knowledge of when to be silent and not to do the work for the student. When a teacher has asked a question, by continually talking, they do not give the student the opportunity to answer the question. This is particularly true if the student is nervous about answering (see the part on ‘saving face’). This again can occur if a teacher is asking a question of any student, but perhaps for a Chinese student, they need to digest the question first, ensure that they have the right understanding – arguably tone can help with this – and then answer the question. They therefore may need more time to answer and a teacher should give them this time. This is worthy of much deeper research and also the issue of whether they need even more time because not only do they need to digest and understand the question, they then need to be able to produce an answer in English, which takes time. A less experienced teacher may feel that the Chinese student is not engaging or lacks ability in speaking and understanding English, when perhaps it is merely that they need longer to process the information. Further research from McBride-Chang et al (2008) states that from a study conducted on the way English and Chinese children learn, the English child recognises phonemes whilst the Chinese child is more prone to recognising lexical tone. Phonemes in the Chinese language are therefore due to the differing tones that the child learns, and often, one word with several inflections of the phoneme can have several different meanings. In the English language, phonemes that have similar sounds but are not the same words at all can be especially difficult for Chinese students to learn. Furthermore, couple this with different accents, such as the American

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‘twang’ or perhaps a strong Liverpool one, and the student has even more difficulty understanding what is being said. This is another area worthy of extra study and could give reasons for the Chinese student finding the English language difficult to understand in terms of tone and inflection on the sound of words. Stress, inflection and intonation patterns are different and some English phonemes do not exist in the Chinese language. In English, the stress or tone is used to show emotion and not to give a different meaning to the word. Although it is useful to remember that the Chinese language does have many different dialects, the Chinese language is not only a tonal language, it also uses symbols or characters called the Logographic system rather than an alphabet. This can create even more difficulties for the Chinese student when writing in the English language. Chinese characters belong to the hieroglyph writing system and English belongs to alphabet writing. Below are five major differences according to a Chinese at home website (n.d.). The reasons for using these five quotes, which are presented verbatim, is that they ironically demonstrate all of the issues raised previously in this section, and by explaining what the differences are, the author of this website interestingly also demonstrates them in the way that they are written. See below: 1. English emphasizes on the structure, whiles Chinese focuses on the meaning. In English, several meanings can be expressed clearly with complicated structure in just one sentence. In Chinese, a sentence is usually short with little modifier, or it will cause confusion in meaning. This demonstrates how language can be given a different meaning with the arrangement of the sentence and the tone in which the sentence is spoken. 2. When expressing the meaning, long sentence is regularly used in English and short sentence is used in Chinese. From point one above, we could conclude that English sentences are usually long and Chinese sentences are usually short. One should “Get the meaning, forget the words” in Chinese learning. 3. It has many clauses in English sentences which are often separated in small sentences in Chinese way of expression. In an English sentence, except some modifiers, it has a lot of clauses which makes a sentence much more complicated. In Chinese, one meaning is usually expressed in separated sentences connecting with comma.

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4. In English people use pronouns a lot, but in Chinese people often use noun. In English, people not only use “we”, “you”, “she”, “they”, but also use “that” and “which” to keep a sentence wellstructured and clearly, and avoid repeat meaning. Due to short sentence structure, a pronoun is commonly replaced by a noun in Chinese expression. 5. The passive voice is often used in English expression; In Chinese, one usually uses the active voice. The passive voice is widely used in English, especially in some scientific articles. For example, “It is (always) stressed that...” is generally expressed as “People (always) stress that...” in Chinese. (Chinese at home, n.d. online.) Despite this being from a website and therefore of potentially less valid and reliable use, what these five major differences do demonstrate is that there clearly is a difference between the two languages that significantly impacts on the understanding of the Chinese person. Noticeable elements here in the above five points are that the writer is Chinese and has made the same mistakes in writing which this writer suggests usually happens when a Chinese person is trying to write in English. Note that there is a major difference in the English grammar and short sentences that the author suggests. Furthermore, note how the author often misses plurals (see section below) and how this is commented on here. Finally, the use of ‘broken’ English is clearly evident, and when read aloud, this makes the sentences sound ‘clipped’ short. It is possible to imagine a Chinese person saying them with the common accent that Chinese people tend to have when speaking English.

Differences between tone and intonation This is a very complex subject and often people make the mistake of mixing tone with intonation, but they are different. Linguistics is cluttered with things such as semantics and phonetics which rely on the stress and volume of the word, whereas intonation relies on fluctuation. This is the downward or upward spiral as already discussed by McBride-Chang et al. Furthermore, as previously stated, the western tone relies heavily on emotion, and in some instances, on ‘drama’. In fact, studying voice and tone are key components of any performing arts school, where learning to use the tone of one’s voice to imitate emotion is essential when acting in character. Fluctuation of the tone in the voice can alert a person to when somebody is upset, angry, happy, or even being sarcastic. All of these emotions easily translate in the English language for English-speaking

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people (i.e. those who have learnt English as a first language). Language is therefore a key component of communication, and by using a fluctuating tone, it can be possible to say something different to the original meaning of the words which have been spoken. With this in mind, it is easy to identify how the Chinese student can become quite confused by this, as their language is tonal and they have learnt to read the different tones in order to understand the words. With the western way of adding in emotional fluctuations, it is possible to understand why they often become confused and perhaps do not reply to a question as they did not understand it as a question. The countries associated with tonal languages are China, Japan and Thailand; whereas the rest of the world tends to be associated with intonational languages and uses pitch semantically in order to communicate. Countries such as this include the UK, USA and Germany. Tone and intonation can therefore shift the whole meaning of the sentence. The main differences, therefore, between tone and intonation are as follows: x Tone is the attitude or how somebody sounds whereas intonation is the rise and fall of voice, sound or tone. x In languages, tonal languages make use of fixed pitch targets for differentiating each word, unlike intonational languages which use pitch semantically, e.g. the use of the right word stress to convey a question (Differencebetween.net: n.d. online).

‘Broken English’ and Translation Another aspect of the Chinese language is that it does not translate in the same way into English; for example, the sentence structure is different and therefore it can be difficult for a Chinese student to understand when an English person talks in a way that would be considered ‘normal’. Observations suggest that the Chinese tend to speak in a way that sounds like ‘broken’ English and therefore, by that same logic, if the English sentence is broken up and spoken as the Chinese student would say it, for example, saying the sentence back in a ‘broken’ way, then the Chinese student will understand better. This is another element that is worthy of far deeper research than this book alone can cover, but yet again, there does appear to be limited literature in relation to this. However, Linderman (2005) devised a study on how native English speakers from the United States (US) use ‘broken English’ when constructing sentences to talk to other nationalities, the study included the Chinese learner. Interestingly, the study refers to the discriminatory nature of the use of ‘broken English’,

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but it did discuss the differences across the nations that were studied as being influenced by socio-political relationships, which could apply to the issue of culture and the limited socialisation of the Chinese student with other students or teachers within the university setting. Linderman (2005) stated that Chinese students often faced the worst type of discriminatory and often negative use of ‘broken English’ from their peers or teachers when being taught in an institution in another country. Furthermore, Linderman (2005) described this as being linguistically prejudiced and therefore using this method can be considered controversial; the argument would be whether it works or not. If it does work, then by not using this method, there is potentially some lack of inclusion rather than the issue being about discrimination. The issue of translation mentioned earlier and the need for ‘broken English’ would contradict what the study by Linderman suggests. However, the way a sentence is structured can affect the meaning of the sentence and the words. Arguably, if the Chinese way is different to the English one, then this may cause problems with understanding, particularly when ‘slang’ and colloquialisms are also placed in the sentence, which is something that was mentioned earlier. This would also link to the study by McBride-Chang (2008) into the way in which children learn, and that English children learn by the use of phonemes and the Chinese by lexicon. This is supported by Konopka, A. (2012) who studied sentence structure, the way a message is understood and delivered, and at which point lexical items are retrieved. Hopp (2004) argues that the first language and the sentence structure of the student heavily influence the learning of the second language, something which is certainly worthy of research in Chinese students and evidenced by McBride-Chang (2008). Zhao’s (2012) research found that the influence of sentence structure can create processing difficulties and although the student can learn to adapt to the different structure, it takes time. Zhao’s (2012) study is applicable to the discussion so far and even goes as far as to provide examples of the way in which the Chinese structure sentences differently to the English, and how, to the native English speaker, this sounds like ‘broken English’. For example: John says that he likes Tom Xiao Zhang say that he like Lao Wang (Zhao, 2012:173).

The more different from their own language, the harder learning is for the Chinese student. To compare, it makes sense that a native Spanish

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speaking student would find it easier to understand Portuguese. Similarly, Central and Eastern European native speakers, such as those in Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, find similarities in their languages that enable them to find learning each other’s languages easier. One of the key areas that cause problems for Chinese students when they are speaking the English language is pronunciation. This could be due to the monosyllabic element of the Chinese language, with each character only having one syllable. Students may also find it hard to blend consonant sounds and add a vowel, which causes the sound to appear short and clipped, giving that ‘broken’ English sound. Furthermore, as previously stated, the word order can create difficulties. Dates and names are written in a different order to the English, and often, the Chinese tend to miss a verb in a sentence which adds to that ‘broken’ sound; for example, he is home becomes he home. There does appear to be a lack of research into whether the use of ‘broken English’ can be used effectively as a teaching and learning method. Studies seem to revolve around the language learning of Chinese students rather than using it as a teaching tool. However, studies such as an American one by Baimei (n.d.) can be useful in discussing the impact of language and the difficulties faced by Chinese students in interpreting what they are learning. Baimei’s study refers to a group of students who were first surveyed to discover the issues there were in language learning strategies. The study did this via a questionnaire and received a good response rate of 572, making the research fairly robust. From the research, it was clear that the Chinese student struggles with cognitive, megacognitive, memory and social strategies. Interestingly, the study revealed that because the students spend the majority of their time with mechanical exercises, which Baimei states are vocabulary (multiple choices), grammar and comprehension, etc., this does suggest that they lack the social element to learning language, i.e. slang and colloquialisms, and generally, all speakers of English as a first language will constantly litter their conversation with informal speech. This is then transferred to the classroom, with both teachers and peers utilising slang (as previously stated) and colloquialisms within their speech. Often the teacher will use examples to explain a particular concept or theory, which is often one they are familiar with, and probably from their own country and surroundings. Therefore, observations would suggest that in order to engage Chinese students with these examples, it would make sense to use Chinese examples, as they would then be familiar with them and would potentially find them more accessible and useful in explaining the theory (something discussed earlier).

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For example, in a business topic, it might be useful to discuss a British company and apply it to a theory, such as marketing strategy and Asda (a British based supermarket, owned by the American firm Walmart). This could just as easily be changed to a Chinese supermarket in order for the Chinese student to have a better understanding. This does potentially mean more research and work for the teacher, but it would be useful for the teacher of such a subject to understand these examples anyway. Baimei’s study does state that because of these difficulties, the students tend to use compensation strategies and this leads them to have a lack of knowledge and understanding; instead, they use guesswork and inference. The study also concluded that the students rely on electronic sources to carry out this guesswork, allowing them more freedom to find information from the internet and mobile sources, but at the same time giving them more freedom to not need to have that deeper understanding. A very interesting reflection here is the theory that Chinese students are very good at memorising, but also that they no longer need to memorise because they can find the information online at their fingertips. Furthermore, they resort to rote learning and it proves ineffective as it could mean that the student becomes involved in a vicious cycle of rote learning, forgetting and then rote learning again, only using the short term memory and not developing deeper knowledge that is retained in the long term memory. A final point from this study is that the students have been trained to work as automatons and therefore they have real difficulty when they have to study at a foreign university, as they have to learn to work independently, and converse with others for group work and with their teachers. They have more time at university, but they do not know what to do with it; instead, they are awaiting instructions rather than exploring for themselves.

Colloquial and Text Speak (the new modern language era) Denison (2008) refers to written English and therefore ‘proper’ English as missing important elements that are only spoken. Academic language, therefore, is expected to be written in its standard format, the ‘correct’ way. For any student who is studying English as a second language, or indeed studying on a postgraduate or undergraduate programme, the importance of writing English in this ‘correct’ and standardised way is indeed an expectation and any student who does not conform will perhaps be marked much lower or find feedback comments suggesting that colloquial language is not acceptable in academic work. However, it is a fact that colloquial and ‘everyday’ conversational language is littered with

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slang, phraseology and semantics. However, this language cannot be ignored and indeed certain ‘modern’ terminology is finding its way into the English dictionary, such as twerking and selfie, which are clearly modern colloquialisms. Textspeak is another addition to the Oxford English Dictionary, with the language finding itself shortened, such as the word seriously being shortened to srsly. Therefore this raises the question of whether textspeak will become the ‘norm’. There are limited studies presently in relation to this topic area, but there are many online discussions with the general consensus suggesting that this is how language evolves. There is an abundance of evidence to validate this, as ‘old’ English from Chaucerian and Shakespearian times is no longer spoken in the way that it clearly is within their written works. It was Shakespeare himself who led the way for language to evolve: if he did not have a word for what he wanted to say, then he made one up. We have Shakespeare to thank for bump, castigate, majestic and road, all commonly used words in the English language of today, and certainly these words would be considered to be acceptable in an academic piece of work. Furthermore, Shakespeare invented the word critical an essential element of any academic debate. What all this demonstrates is that the English language is ever changeable, and it is littered with phrases and words that are constantly being adapted and used in different ways, depending on who is using them. This places far more added pressure on the Chinese students who have probably only been taught ‘standard’ English. They are therefore then placed into a situation where they are hearing spoken English which has all of these text words, colloquialisms and phrases integrated within it. Other suggestions from a variety of online forums on this topic suggest that textspeak will indeed become the ‘norm’ and already they are seeing two different languages emerging: language that is used in a formal sense, and language that is used in an informal sense, with textspeak fitting into the latter category. Many advocates of the English language see this as ‘butchering’ it, whilst others understand that this is how language evolves and it will become normal in a more formal setting in our lifetime as this digital native generation grows up and accepts it more readily. Interestingly, one member of an online forum states that there is nothing wrong with textspeak as it is like any other form of communication and is appropriate as long as it gets the message across. This could give further support to the use of ‘broken’ English; however, the user then goes on to say that what makes it difficult is that there is not an accepted list of what constitutes textspeak and therefore without a formal list, how is everyone going to understand. The colloquial aspect of textspeak means that it is not something everyone can translate and this is

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therefore indeed a worry, as one would imagine, for any English language teacher, particularly a teacher of ESOL. Many online discussion forums on the topic appear to share the consensus that textspeak undermines the English language. A poster in 2008, created by the local authorities to connect with students, caused controversy over its content and the apparent lack of ‘correct’ English (see poster below). The article featured in the Daily Mail (2008 online) (UK newspaper) refers to how 5,000 posters like these were put up around schools across London in the UK using textspeak in order to connect with young people. The paper states that the posters using modern textspeak have dismayed traditionalists; however, those responsible for the posters think that this is the best way to ‘get through’ to youngsters today, thus fuelling the argument over whether this is the language of the future. Campaigners, however, state that this is a waste of money and that it should be written in formal English as this then encourages children to read and write in the correct manner, stating that the use of textspeak lowers standards and sends out the wrong message. Perhaps with the difficulties that different nationalities already have when learning the English language, they have a point, but this does not exclude the fact that this language is spoken and written regularly by thousands of people on a daily basis. Examples of Chinese students using such terminology and slang in their academic assignments can be found, with one such student using ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ and using slang terminology such as ‘if you know what I mean like’ in their academic writing. Furthermore, the student was very proud of their ability to write and speak like ‘regular’ English people, clearly providing evidence of how confusing it must be for ESOL and indeed Chinese students to learn and use the English language. It would depend therefore on the individual marking criteria of universities as to whether or not they will penalise a Chinese student for including some incorrect grammar, slang and abbreviations in their written work. Research from an internationalisation interest group organised through the HEA and from some teacher questionnaires that were sent out after the interest group’s work, suggest that the majority of teachers modify their marking for international students, particularly Chinese ones, as they recognise that this group of students often do make grammatical and spelling mistakes in their work. Therefore the marking is more geared towards the content, structure and overall intuition of the teacher rather than checking academic rigour in this sense. Controversially, this could cause major upset for home students or other western students who might feel that they are disadvantaged as the expectation is for them to write in formal English when international and Chinese students are given some form of remission

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(Source: Daily Mail online: 2008)

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for making these types of mistakes. Are universities therefore being slightly hypocritical and could they potentially be accused of having double standards? It would appear that universities at a senior level are not approving such measures, but the staff at ground level are taking the decision themselves, as the pressure is on to pass and see these students progress (as they bring in high revenue). Without this remission and ‘double standard’, perhaps the numbers passing and progressing (achieving) would be far lower, which would impact negatively on the universities’ statistics, including their Key Information Set data (KIS). However, that is a question for a much more controversial and potentially difficult research project. What this does all suggest, however, is that the Chinese students do find language difficult anyway, without the added element of modern phenomena such as textspeak.

Plurals According to Jia (2003) in ACTC (2009 online), one of the difficult aspects for Chinese language transition is the formation of English plurals. Furthermore, ACTC refers to this perhaps because of the different morphological and syntactic features between Chinese and English. Norman (1988) in ACTC (2009) refers to the Chinese language as pictographic in origin, meaning that the language is ideographic with each symbol representing a word rather than a sound as in the English language, which is phonographic. Furthermore, the Chinese language is far less complex than the English and this provides evidence of the difficulties that the Chinese student faces when transitioning to the English language. These difficulties then become even more complex when unfamiliar academic words are used in HE. The Chinese language does not use plurals in the same way as English; rather, the Chinese language forms sentences and puts plurals in a contextualised manner and this is what determines whether it is a plural or not. It is assumed that the Chinese person will understand that it is a plural because of the context of what is being said and that the use of a plural word (as is common in the English language) is not necessary and is therefore not used. For example – there are some student in the classroom – the use of students is not necessary due to the context of the sentence and the determiner is the word some (TCTC, 2009). The Chinese language has no plurals. In a personal experiment regarding this element, when writing the word ‘mice’ on the board, the Chinese students failed to understand the word and scrambled desperately with their translators to try and determine what the word meant; when writing the word ‘mouse’ on the board, all of the students

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understood. Thus it is possible that the Chinese student may find it difficult to understand an English speaker when they fill their conversation with plurals and this is again worthy of research. However, it is almost impossible to find valid literature that discusses plurals in such a way that would add to this discussion. Most of the academic papers only discuss language in its more complex form and for the teachers who were observed and interviewed, and participants of in study, it was far simpler than this (see example of ‘mouse’ versus ‘mice’ earlier). However, Jing et al (2006) refer to the difficulties that Chinese students face when dealing with English plurals. Using important contributions by Brown (2000), Lightbown and Spader (2009) and Odlin (2003), Jing further refers to transference as being one area of difficulty for Chinese students when they are learning the English language – and in particular, plurals – discussing how it is the learnt language behaviour from the native language that then targets the new language and how this transference is what can cause these issues. This point is perhaps due to the different morphological and syntactic features of Chinese and English. Chinese is therefore simpler than the English language as it has less of what is known as morphological inflections. This is where prefixes and suffixes play an important and significant grammatical role. The Chinese language does not use these inflections; instead it is more contextual (as stated previously) and context is built so that sentences that follow on from the original contextual sentence (that has the determiner) will allow the student to assume the plural rather than it being present in the sentence as in the English language. Most plurals in the English language are formed by adding the morphemes ‘s’ or ‘es’. Another means of changing a word to its plural form is by replacing a vowel in the middle of a word: such as ‘man’ to ‘men’ (Jing el at 2006). What Jing also states, which is increasingly more confusing, especially for ESOL students, are words that require no change to be singular or plural, such as: ‘fish’. The table below, taken and adapted from the study by Jing et al in 2006, demonstrates the differences between Chinese and English plurals. The areas that present challenges are emphasised as the Chinese students have a tendency to miss the morpheme. This creates the clipped, ‘broken’ English sound that was discussed previously and is often associated with the lack of the sounds ‘s’ or ‘es’. They make these errors due to the rules of their native language which they are then transferring to the new language. Of course, this topic is much larger than is discussed here, but what it does offer is an insight into the key challenges that Chinese students face in terms of learning the basics in the English language, and

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furthermore, then being able to present oral and written work to a standard required in higher education. .

Table 1 – The Formation of Plurals in Chinese and English Chinese

English

The use of a numeral before a noun

The addition of the morpheme –s or -es

The use of a determiner before a noun

The changing of one or more internal vowel(s)

The use of a suffix -men after a person-related noun

The use of the same form for singular and plural

The contextual indication of a plural meaning

The application of the rules of foreign plurals to English words

Errors in English writing The difficulties in discussing and researching the Chinese language are often due to the lack of literature available on certain aspects and therefore it becomes a type of ‘jigsaw’ with regard to trying to piece all of the clues together to form a valid and reasonable conclusion. These pieces originate from a variety of sources, and, as is mostly the case in this study, they are from a variety of written peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed articles and text books, plus primary research from discussions, focus groups and observations, supplemented with some personal experiences. One area where there does appear to be a limited amount of peer reviewed literature is on the topic of the Chinese language being a pictorial language. Wenzel (2010 online) asks whether this matters and suggests that this does mean that the Chinese are often analogical rather than logical. Wenzel also refers to the language as isolating. The nature of the symbolic aspect of the written language is not always the same as the spoken version and this would explain why Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese speakers can converse on paper but not necessarily when speaking. What can therefore be taken from this is that the core differences between this more symbolic language and the alphabet, used in most western languages, make it easy for the Chinese student to make errors in their English writing. Zheng and Park (2013: 1343) produced an interesting study relating to the concept of the errors in English writing which are often made by Chinese

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and Korean students. The study adopted Kim’s (2009) error classification system and categorised the errors into four subcategories: misinformation, omission, addition and other. The research suggests that error analysis is a useful tool in identifying the issues that these students face in writing in English and therefore aids the teaching of the English language. As many observations and studies suggest that the Chinese student has great difficulty with the English language both orally and in the written form, this area of study has accelerated in recent years, due to the large number travelling to study in western universities and consequently the difficulties that non-language teachers have in teaching not only the core topic areas, for example, research methods, but also English as a second language. What is happening in many institutions is that lecturers have needed to take on a second role as an English language teacher in the classroom (although they are often untrained to do so) and they have had a role in producing meaningful feedback for this group. In Zheng and Park’s study, a total of 168 essays were analysed for errors, with a total of 3,241 errors found in total, emphasising the enormity of the problem. The results of the study in each of the four subcategories (adapted from Zheng and Park) can be found below:

Misformation Further categorised as noun misformation, verb misformation and article misformation. The ten most common errors that were found were in relation to verbs, prepositions, ill-informed sentence structures, tense, nouns, verb inflection, subject verb agreement, articles, adjectives and adjective forms. The study produced some interesting examples below: 1) If one [a] person always lie [lies] to other people, others will fell [feel] hatred. (CE 30) (Article misformation, subject-verb agreement misformation, verb misformation) 2) For instance, many couples end up in a fighting [fight], because they are not experts at hiding personal thoughts. (KE 25) (Noun misformation) 3) For [From] my standpoint, it is very important to tell the truth in the relationship. (CE 67) (Preposition misformation) 4) In [On] the other hand, always telling the truth may hurt others. (KE 45) (Preposition misformation)

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5) As time went by, he became a [an] introvert [introverted] person and [was] still stupid [reclusive]. (CE 10) (Article misformation, adjective form misformation, omission of “be” verb, awkward expression) 6) Sometimes saying [telling] a lie is a kind of self-protection. (KE 33) (Verb misformation) 7) Most of time, honest [honesty] plays an important role in our life. (CE 6) (Misformation of noun form) 8) In my opinion, the true [telling the truth] is very important.[,] Because [because] lie is someday revealed [lies are usually revealed]. (KE 4) (Misformation of noun form, fragment, single and plural form) 9) For example, some business information are [is] extremely important for our groups. (CE 2) (Misformation of subject verb agreement) 10) Telling the truth [In telling the truth], we must be honesty [Honest]. (CE 22) (Ill-formed sentence structure, adjective misformation)

Learning styles (the Chinese language as a pictorial language) Other issues in the errors in writing English can be down to the lack of understanding by the teacher on the visual aspect of the Chinese language. It would appear that the use of visual stimuli would enable a Chinese student to potentially develop a much deeper knowledge and understanding. This is not too dissimilar from the learning styles studies suggesting that some learners prefer visual, audio or kinaesthetic styles of teaching and learning. Ghaedi and Jam (2014: 1232) refer to modern day language learning as different, as now the teacher must take advantage of the student’s individual learning styles and preferences, their past experiences in learning language, their linguistic attitudes, their personalities, perhaps even their view on life. This study clearly puts the onus on the teacher to accommodate the different nationalities and not on the student to adapt to the different teaching in a different country. This is an interesting perspective but not an unusual one in lower level teaching. Many teacher training programmes that are aimed at students from primary to further education teach how important it is to accommodate differentiation in the classroom and that the teacher must build pedagogy that takes into account all differences and that can engage all students. This is certainly a daunting task, especially to those new to teaching; however, a good teacher training course will provide insight into and guidance on how to do this. What is obvious is that there is no requirement

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in higher education to have a teaching qualification, although this is now something that UK institutions are requesting as desirable. Many application forms for jobs in universities request a teaching qualification or the desire to achieve one within a set period of time. Furthermore, if the applicant has a HEA fellow status, then this is considered enough for them to teach at this level. However, this can create issues for the teacher who may not have had any previous training and could potentially send a message that at the higher education level, anyone can teach. There are many problems that can be identified here and in the previous chapters, discussions are around the lack of support for teaching staff. Understanding learning styles can therefore be an advantage to a teacher as they can then adapt their lesson planning and teaching methods to meet the needs of the students and find the best way for the student to learn and adapt to meet that method. Ghaedi and Jam (2014) relate learning styles to motivation in a meaningful way, stating that no student will learn well unless they are motivated to learn in a consistent way. Motivation provides the stimulus to keep them learning, often during tedious subjects and learning processes. Again, clearly placing the onus on the teacher for this consistent motivation, and an interesting aspect of the study by Ghaedi and Jam, is that they emphasise that the student needs to have a good understanding of their learning style. How is this possible, therefore, for Chinese students? If the student were to take the usual learning style ‘tests’, would this be a true reflection of their learning preference? Taking all that we now know about the Chinese student’s culture and language differences, would the Chinese student unwittingly answer the questions in these tests in a true way? This in itself does raise more questions than it answers and would be a trial to research in a meaningful way. This makes it even more difficult for the teacher of this particular nationality to be able to determine any valid learning style from such tests, and instead will have to rely on observation and perhaps trial and error. Reid (1995) in Ghaedi and Jam (2014) separated the learning styles into three categories: cognitive, personality and sensory. These three are fascinating in relation to the teaching and learning of Chinese students due to several factors. Cognitive – as previously discussed, the element of memorisation and rote learning that is in Chinese students’ cultural educational background. Reid breaks this down further, stating that within this category, there are analytical learners. This description could be applied to the Chinese student, as an analytical learner see only parts and not the whole relationship. This could be due to the rules of their own language (the

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symbol written versus the conversational and spoken) and how it is much more difficult to understand the grammatical elements of the English language. Personality – the perception that this race is introverted and lacks engagement. Reid states that introverts prefer reading, reflection, and learning by theoretical exploration. Sensory – the pictorial and cultural aspects of this race and how this impacts on teaching and learning. Visual learners prefer reading over learning and can learn large sections that they store (this certainly can be applied to the Chinese student). However, Reid states that they struggle with understanding lectures and conversations without any visual support. A fascinating study by Kuo et al (2014) discusses grouping students together based on their learning styles. The study took part in Taiwan, which does share some cultural aspects with the Chinese. What makes this study fascinating is the grouping notion, raising questions as to whether this grouping method can be transferred to Chinese students, and, quite controversially, instead of having mixed classes where all nationalities are present, separating the Chinese students and grouping them. Whilst in the western classroom, it is essential to promote active equality and diversity – and research from teachers and from a HEA internationalisation workshop on this topic ‘gasped’ in horror at the suggestion – really, it becomes more an issue of whether this group is actually being disadvantaged by the need of western institutions to be seen to be as accommodating and nondiscriminatory. By grouping the different learning styles and culture, plus the language of the Chinese students and teaching them separately, this is potentially a form of positive discrimination and would therefore enable the teacher to focus more clearly on ensuring that this group of students are being taught at the correct pace and style for their particular learning needs. Ming-Lei (2011) refers to how learners will do better if they are not forced into environments that make them uncomfortable. Furthermore, that the teacher is responsible for meeting the needs of the individual students, again, as previously stated, is an impossible task for a teacher if they have so many different learning styles within any one group, but also if they must then deal with different languages, cultures and nationalities. MingLei conducted a study of preferred learning styles in Chinese universities and concluded that Chinese students preferred visual learning styles, and that this is probably because of their cultural heritage. Furthermore, MingLei stated that it could also be due to the pictorial nature of their written language, and that these learning preferences cannot be changed easily, so

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expecting the Chinese student to ‘just’ adapt to the western way of teaching and learning potentially creates the problems that exist. Interestingly, in Ming-Lei’s study the results demonstrate that the Chinese also prefer a tactile, kinaesthetic style of learning and like to be hands-on, creating and taking part in activities that will enable them to gain a deeper knowledge and understanding, which fits well with the teaching method discussed in chapter five. Overwhelmingly, the results demonstrated how the students preferred independent learning and found the teachers’ lectures ‘boring’ and long. Foley (1999) in Moayyeri (2015) suggests that understanding learning styles helps learners to improve interaction in their educational environment. Moayyeri studied Iranian students and the impact of learning style on language learning, and whilst this might not obviously yield results for Chinese students in a similar manner, the study does offer an interesting aspect for discussion because of the nature of the objectives in this study; the objectives being to determine language style preference, the dominant learning style and whether or not the learning style influences their language achievement. The study is particularly interesting as it does mirror the study by Ming-Lei, and had Ming-Lei researched the same objectives at Moayyeri, this might have provided a deeper insight into the impact of learning styles on language in the Chinese students. What all of these studies fail to express is that despite all of these ‘difficulties’ for the Chinese students in using the English language effectively, what they are attempting to do is difficult and to be admired. Moving thousands of miles away to a ‘strange’ country, with another language and culture should not be underestimated. Helping those students to integrate and settle into their new environment should be at the forefront of the receiving education facility. After all, this could call into question the ethics of taking money for a service when concerning whether that service is ‘fit for purpose’. Interesting questions can be raised here relating to whether Higher Education is perceived as a business and therefore the same as any other business. In the UK, universities have to adhere to legislation under contract and consumer law. The student is buying a service and effectively signing a contract, with clear terms and conditions, but if they do have difficulty translating some of the language, do they fully understand those implied terms? This potentially presents these HEIs with a dilemma as they are therefore responsible for providing that education to an effective standard. On Manchester University’s website in the UK market, their provision to the Chinese students is as ‘a home from home’. Other articles can be found on American websites such as the Global Post referring to the unethical admissions officer practices in

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China, who enable Chinese students to ‘cheat’ their way onto university programmes, by providing entry essays, and ‘fixing’ transcripts. Furthermore, the article refers to the universities being aware of this but still allowing them entry because they are full cost students, meaning they pay full cost, are not reliant on student loans and instead usually pay upfront regardless of whether they pass or not. As previously stated in previous chapters, in the UK, they must pass a version of the English language test to a certain level in order to gain access to a degree programme. However, Further and Higher education facilities are not allowed to assess the students for these tests and therefore the students must go to an external assessment centre, whereas universities have the power to assess internally, and although there is no suggestion that there is anything unethical happening here, the tests are written and assessed by the university staff and therefore the students can receive more concentrated teaching in order to gain the higher scores. Many universities are also offering pre-degree courses to the lower scoring students and providing extra English lessons as well until they are able to pass the entry requirements, which does make good business sense. However, taking students with the lower scores in this way means that, potentially, these students are perhaps not capable of gaining a high overall degree and therefore it becomes a question of the ethics of this practice.

Summary This chapter provides conclusions on the limited studies available for Chinese students who are studying a degree in another language and in a different country. Although there are studies to be found, as demonstrated so far in the previous chapters, these are focused on other elements and do not focus specifically on language differences that do impact on the students’ ability to study effectively. Instead, the studies on language appear to be about language learning rather than topic learning in a different language. It is clear, however, that home, other international and Chinese students all have some language difficulties when starting university, and they can struggle to communicate and use technical language; therefore, this is not an isolated problem for Chinese students. What is clear is that the more diverse the group, the more difficult it is for the teacher to find ways to ensure that all students are engaged in learning and understanding the potentially technical language. This could suggest that perhaps lessons need to have an element of language development in them. Language is a very complex subject, more so than culture, due to the complexities of the language breakdown, which must be taken into

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account in order to understand clearly. Therefore not everything could be discussed here; this chapter merely contains small elements, but it does suggest that language is certainly a ‘hot’ topic in relation to the Chinese student. The differences between the East and the West can cause many challenges, specifically the tonal element of the Chinese language and that Chinese words have multiple meanings compared to English. The current perception does seem to remain that the Chinese student has a lack of ability to understand and speak ‘good’ English, when the reality is that maybe the student just did not understand the technical terminology or was not given enough time to consider what was being said. A final note in this chapter is in relation to the use of ‘broken’ English as a method of communication. It would appear that this has caused controversy in the literature about whether this method is discriminatory or not; however, finding the most appropriate method of communication is surely more important.

References Baimei (n.d.) Language learning strategies: Use and training for Chinese learners. Valley Voices. Boffey D (2008) The £3,000 ‘txt-spk’ poster that ‘undermines English teaching. Daily Mail online. Available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1050941. Accessed 27th May 2015. Brooks K and Thurston L (2010) English Language Learner Academic Engagement and Instructional Grouping Configurations. American Secondary Education 39(1). Chinese at Home (n.d.) Five major differences between Chinese and English languages – Grammar. (Online) Available at http://www.chineseathome.com/index.php?option=com_content&view =article&id=321%3Afive-major-differences-between-chinese-andenglish-languages-grammar&catid=63%3Achineselanguage&Itemid=193&lang=en. Accessed 16th April 2015. Denison D (2008) Clues to language change from non-standard English. German Life and Letters 61:4 0016–8777 (print); 1468–0483 (online). Differencebetween.net (n.d.) Difference between tone versus intonation. (Online) Available at http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-toneand-intonation/ Accessed 5th May 2015.

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Hong-Xu S (2014) Addressing linguistic differences in literacy instruction for Chinese Mandarin speaking English learners. The California Reader. (47) 3. Ghaedi Z and Jam B (2014) Relationship between learning styles and motivation for higher education and EFL students. Theory and practice in language studies. (4) 6 p. 1232-1237 Gu F, Li J, Wang X, Hou Q, Huang Y and Chen L (2012) Memory traces for tonal language words revealed by auditory event-related potentials. Psychophysiology. (49) 1353-1360. Hopp H (2004) Syntactic and interface knowledge in advanced and nearnative interlanguage grammars. Eurosla Yearbook 4: 67–94. Jing L, Tindall E and Nisbet D (2006) Chinese learners and English plural forms. Regent University. (1) 3. Kenman L (2007) Tone and Style: Developing a Neglected Segment of Business Communication. California State University: Long Beach. Kuo Y, Chu H and Huang C (2014) A learning style based grouping collaborative learning approach to improve EFL students’ performance in English courses. Educational technology and society. (18) 2 p. 284298. Linderman S (2005) Who speaks “broken English”? US undergraduates’ perceptions of non-native English. International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 15 Issue 2, p.187-212, 26p. Matthews D (2015) Assessing China’s Academic Orbit: The Times Higher Education online. Available at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/assessing-chinasacademic-orbit/2/2018805.article. Accesses 6th April 2015. Ming-Lei S (2011) Experimental study of Chinese non-English students’ overall learning style preferences. US-China education review. 346354. Moayyeri H (2015) The impact of undergraduate students’ learning preferences (VARK Model) on their language achievement. Journal of language teaching and research. (6)1 132-139. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wendall C (2010) How Pictorial is Chinese? And does it matter? Online: available at http://wittgensteinrepository.org/agora-alws/article/view/ 2861/3446. Accessed 29th May 2015. Zhao L (2012) Interpretation of Chinese overt and null embedded arguments by English speaking learners. Second Language Research: Sage. 28(2) 169–190.

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Zheng C and Park T (2013) An analysis of errors in English writing made by Chinese and Korean university students. Theory and Practice in Language Studies. (3) 8, p.1342-1351.

CHAPTER FOUR ATTITUDES TO LEARNING AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AMY PEARSON AND NICK WRAGG

Introduction The well-known adage that alludes to the proposition of ‘when the student is ready, the teacher will appear’, beautifully simplifies the complexities of this chapter. Attitudes to learning depend on so many interrelated variables, and the focus of chapter four is to explore these variables and present possible and tangible ways forward for the instructor/teacher in engaging the learner/student. This is both a practical and discursive chapter; the very nature of the theme is an impossibly wide remit, and there are many axes on which it could be explored. There are also many potential starting points, such as to what extent do traditional cultural beliefs influence attitude to learning? Does the classroom context matter? How does the ability of the teacher to interact with the class or individual affect the setting of performance goals? Just as the complexities vary, so do the students. Lao and Chen (2010;1098) caution against taking a ‘broad-brush approach’ in assuming the ‘homogeneity of the Chinese students’, as differing variables may include regional boundaries, socioeconomic factors and educational background. Generalisation is to be avoided, they say, but we are faced here with multifaceted layers. On this basis, the relationship we try to present is one of symbiosis; learning cannot happen within a vacuum, and many factors including environment and personality contribute to a successful outcome. Successful to whom? Whose ‘attitude’? How does this link to ‘learning’? These are all questions of context which will be addressed in the chapter.

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A Brief History Language and learning present a complex landscape, and are inextricably bound. In many cases, Chinese students will be learning English as a second language as well as studying a degree programme as discussed in previous chapters. So learning in this case has both a primary and secondary function, and the effect of this on attitude cannot be underestimated. Imagine, for example, a Chinese student on a business degree; the technical aspects of the business terminology, along with the degree content, are being assimilated alongside the development of proficiency in the English language. Various plates will need to be kept spinning to achieve proficiency in all areas, and it is an easy argument to suggest that in the struggle to achieve this, there may be an ensuing impact on the students’ self-esteem, confidence, and attitude. And this linguistic challenge for the Chinese student is a relatively new occurrence. The development of English as a language of choice within China began, as Garrott (1992) noted, “[I]n 1978 with the implementation of an ‘Open Door Policy,’ [when] English-language study was once more not only permitted but also encouraged in China. Though English-language study in 1978 was not absolutely new to the nation of China, it was absolutely new to millions of Chinese students.”

To dwell on how a nation proactively embraces and implements the holistic learning of a second language is impressive on all sorts of levels. The cultural implications and complexity of such a process have to have an impact both societally, and individually – the latter in this case having been explored in chapter three – but attitudinally, it is important to bear this aspect of ‘newness’ in mind throughout this chapter. What the student is being asked to do is attain a multi-dimensional level of competence, balancing task with process. Within these constraints lies the process of communication. Learning a new language superficially distorts the communication process, and detracts from the core attitudinal issues. It would be far too easy to suggest that a Chinese student, new to the UK, learning to adapt to subcultures within a British university as well as the demands of a degree programme, is more likely to experience huge shifts in attitude to learning simply by being who they, and where they, are. Communication, per se, is at the centre of effective learning, but also involves individual values and commitment, relationships and power (Tian and Lowe, 2013). Where there is disaccord between these issues, communication can be both a problem and a solution. Attitude may

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therefore depend on not just the proficiency of language skills, but on the whole communication process between both the organisation – with its cultural norms – and the teacher, with their own beliefs, traits and ability.

Some Thoughts on Attitude As alluded to previously, this is where the researcher is spoilt for choice. One starting point is to consider what the individual can do to enhance their own attitude. To see attitude in this way is to acknowledge that it is something that belongs to us, as individual human beings, and is therefore under our control. This is the territory of writers such as Frankl – ‘to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances’ and recognise the personal choice we have over how we adapt to what is unfolding around us at each moment of each day. This is the internality of attitude. Tlifarlioglu and Delbesoglugil (2014) in ‘Questioning academic success through self-regulation, self-esteem and attitude in foreign language learning’ examine the key relationships between the aforementioned variables. These intangible imposters of confidence, self-regulation and self-esteem are valuable in the construction of scaffolding towards the ‘right’ attitude. What is recognised as being ‘right’ is bound by the complex rules of both our concept of the self and the group. Socialisation teaches us that we adapt to ‘fit in’ to society, that the process of learning to do what we deem to be ‘right’ by society is through making appropriate choices on how we behave in relation to other members of society. The educational learning environment, with codes of practice that govern behaviour, which could be something as natural as note taking in a lecture or contributing to a seminar activity, is also a key regulator in how, along with learning a subject, the student understands how to interact with the teacher and colleagues. Within this process, the individual student may also consciously or unconsciously take on the attitudes or norms of a group in order to feel accepted. This kind of social inclusion is a basic human desire, and to what extent this is achieved will influence selfesteem and confidence. The student who may struggle with English as a second language; the introvert; someone low in self-esteem and selfconfidence; all these factors will influence attitude to learning. Alongside the process of socialisation are the development of the self, and the notion of a sense of ‘I’. The psychology of this is vast, but cannot be ignored or disassociated from the notion of attitude. Socialisation indicates that we adapt, but within us is a sense of who we are, of a constant, that may change through experience and as we grow; deep within us is a ‘blueprint’ of our personality, and in existentialist terms, this determines how we

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choose to behave and what attitude we choose to adopt when relating to life’s unfolding events. So in writing a chapter on attitude to learning, these delicate and philosophical features of ‘who we are’ and to what extent we choose who to be, and how to act, will always be inherent and determining of any practical conclusions. Bearing this in mind, the choice of the narrative within this chapter is to accentuate, where possible, the positive nature of how to create an external environment that constructively influences the internal perspectives. Part of this external environment is that of the role of the teacher, who can significantly affect a student’s self-esteem and self-regulation, and the issue of teacher influence and of being an adequate role model are explored further in this chapter. The attitude of the teacher is important as they are responsible for creating a positive correlation between the variables, both inside and outside the classroom. Responsiveness to the external environment, such as changes in societal needs or government policy, does need to be taken into account. This helps to transfer threats to weaknesses in order to aid students and institutions, and it also helps to future-proof resources and decisions. This may be through appropriate curriculum design, or by promoting as a role model the very attributes required from the student, such as high selfesteem and positive attitudes. However, most importantly, the teacher will have an awareness of not only how they can influence, but also an awareness of the learner’s psychological readiness to learn (Tlifarlioglu and Delbesoglugil; 2014). A simple example of both an attitudinal approach linked to themes of curriculum design and teacher competence is found in Garrott’s research (1992), titled Preferences and pet peeves of Chinese college students – apposite for the purposes here. This included a survey on attitudes where Chinese students declared a preference for classes that were ‘more interesting’. Perhaps this is not a surprise – what student worldwide does not desire this? – but it is worth considering reinforcing the principle that “what strikes some students as delightful may strike others as deplorable. In such a case, a variety of carefully chosen methods seems advisable. Strevens (1988) speaks of an eclecticism that contributes to ‘informed teaching’.” (Garrott 1992;14). Stating what appears to be the obvious is often platitudinal, but within the simplicity lays a certain rigour; the way lessons are taught impacts on a student’s attitude, and each student is different. Therein lays the challenge for the teacher, to engage the student and create an environment that is productive in shaping appropriate levels of positive attitude. It sounds simple, but it isn’t, and labelling ‘positive’ in terms of a desired outcome is dangerously

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intangible in an environment that insists on measurable progress and results. Measuring personality is fraught with difficulty and to a large extent hardly removed from phrenology or astrology. Research suggests there are many ways forward but no panacea, which is fundamentally stating the obvious. If the theme of socialisation is extended, and we accept that we wear as many masks as we have personalities in any given situation, then from a teaching perspective, we act the role of a teacher. The student has expectations of how a teacher should behave, and the teacher reciprocates by offering the necessary performance. Hains – Wesson (2011) supports this by referring to teaching as that of an actor, a performance, assisting student engagement. Giving further support to the teacher being responsible for the engagement of students, however, this does suggest that the teacher needs to fully understand their students’ differing teaching and learning needs in order to create the right conditions to engage them. Tauber and Mester, 2007; and Murphy & Walls, 1994, in Hains – Wesson (2011), suggest that teachers who express enthusiasm towards their subject matter and therefore encourage teaching and learning engagement use performance skills naturally, going further to suggest that teachers who use performance skills in class have greater success at engaging students, stating that eye contact, vocalisation, spatial awareness and passion within the classroom also promote retention of the subject matter. Hains – Wesson (2011) refers to a study by Murphy and Walls (1994) in which they videotaped four professors and analysed their behaviour in class, concluding that the experienced pedagogical styles of the professors displayed performance techniques that novice teachers do not. These skills, therefore, are not necessarily naturally present but are learned. In Hains – Wesson’s (2011) study, there is limited reference to a higher number of absenteeism in students whose teachers lack performance techniques and therefore their attitude to learning is different, preferring distance learning, or online resources. This emphasises the issue of student choice, and much can be made of the correlation between engagement and attendance. Students often vote with their feet if dull sessions are being delivered, depending on the academic subject. The ‘right’ student attitude would of course be to look beyond the performance and at the content, but the two facets are inextricably bound, and the point is made repeatedly that learning should be fun in order for learning to take place. Further reports in this study suggest that students prefer face to face time from an experienced lecturer who displays performance techniques to online learning. Results from the study suggested that students found it better to

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concentrate in lectures in which the lecturer was able to engage the students. Support for this again comes from Garrot (1992;10) who identifies, using attributable student quotes, some recognisable methods of dubious teaching effectiveness, or a ‘lack of informed’ teaching, suggesting support for student centred learning (SCL) and a move away from a cultural stereotype of learning: x “Deadly memorizing without understanding,” x “Teacher-centred method is the least effective,” x “Teachers speak all the time in the class, leaving no chance for me to practice,” x “In the whole class we study the same thing without any humour and activity.” One question that this raises is whether a dull lecture is more productive than online learning. If students fail to be engaged, for whatever reason, why bother? Certainly within HEIs there is an increasing insistence on adopting a blended learning strategy for programmes, with a minimum of online content; however, the same problems apply in this case. If a student is not motivated to attend a lecture, then attitudinally, they are likely to also not access online teaching resources. In some cases this will be true, and in others not, but this uncertainly is the theme of the chapter. However, within Hains – Wesson’s (2011) study, there were also comments from the students on the better understanding attained in face to face lectures. The comments suggested that online delivery presented too many distractions and furthermore too many notes that did not necessarily make any sense. Overall, the students’ comments in this study particularly picked out a lecturer who was able to transfer knowledge but entertain at the same time, within a lecture/face to face format. With students commenting that it depends on the lecturer as to whether they attend or not due to their performance in the classroom, then this presents new problems worthy of researching, and this does raise questions as to whether the lecturer has the ability to do all of these things. In a recent publication by the HEA titled Engaging home and international students: a guide for new lecturers (Scudamore; February 2013) – a journal from the body representing higher education – there is some exploration of key qualities around the structure of a successful lecture in terms of:

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List learning outcomes and keep referring to them. Use signposts to show where you are in the overall structure, frame sections to clarify their start and finish, and highlight key points. Speak clearly, facing the front and provide (and refer to) a glossary of new terms. Use a mix of audiovisual materials and presentation styles. Ask questions and set tasks to keep students thinking. Collect answers to tasks and adapt lecture content according to the understanding demonstrated.

(Scudamore 2013: 16)

They identify some practical applications, but there is no identification of the intangible aspects of student engagement. This is not a criticism, but there seems to be a trend in research away from the immeasurable, and a lack of informed debate on the influence of what we call the ‘ephemeral self’. It seems that educational culture and target related pressures do not lend themselves to such niceties. Finally, a further interesting point in this study is that vocal ability and use of voice were rated as 100% important, suggesting that tonality is equally important to performance and engagement within the classroom. The students stated that the voice helped them pay attention in class with students not wanting to attend or pay attention if the voice is monotone or the lecturer stands and reads from notes. This certainly supports Edwards’ (2006) suggestion that culture plays a large role in the difficulties that Chinese students find when studying in a western establishment. Holmes (2004) raises an interesting point that reflects Denton’s (2008) study into the tone used within the classroom and whether this aspect impacts on the attitude of the learner. In Holmes’s (2004) study, one student participant referred to the many different accents in the classroom and not being able to understand the differing dialects; and furthermore, that confusion arose when the lecturer departed from their overhead projector and attempted to enrich the lecture with examples and humour. This was further exacerbated by attitudes to learning and writing critically, with little understanding of the term. The suggestions are that this is a form of

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criticising the author or even the teacher, which is unheard of in Chinese culture, and therefore their attitude is to not attempt this for fear of losing face, or showing a lack of respect. This is problematic in western establishments, where to get the higher grades associated with an honours degree, it is necessary to critique; this adds weight to the necessity of finding a teaching method that allows for the understanding of criticality without it impacting negatively on the culture of the Chinese student. Methods such as these would allow for the Chinese student to critique whilst participating in an activity, to enable them to show a deeper understanding and the intellectual engagement required. Holmes’s (2004) study concluded with this important element, emphasising the need for teachers to have a better understanding of the complexities of Chinese culture and attitudes, and that the onus should be on the teachers to adapt, and not the student. A final note from Holmes (2004) states emphatically the need to research further into this topic area, in order to equip HEIs with the tools needed to teach this unique group. Development is a core principle of education (Woodward and Pearson, 2013). Ultimately we need to determine what should be considered as appropriate and worthwhile knowledge, in order to ensure student development, engagement and reputation. So how does one approach the aforementioned concept of ‘informed teaching’? Lea et al (2003) refer to the need for an ‘outside in’ approach in which the customers’ (the students) expectations are researched and serviced. This is certainly necessary in order to deal with the unique methods required when teaching Chinese students. Lea et al (2003) discuss the move towards more student centred learning approaches and a push towards ways of thinking that emphasise the students’ responsibility and activity in learning. This active learning style, rather than the passive one, is common amongst educational establishments in the UK; however, it is not the same in Chinese culture where the emphasis, as previously stated, is on Confucianism, and the memorisation style of teaching and learning. Yet the combination of memorisation and learning does not have to be mutually exclusive. Ho and Hau (2008) suggest that this is a common underlying assumption and that apparent rote learning represents both memorisation and understanding of approach, as discussed in chapter two. Student centred learning therefore arguably allows for a deeper and greater understanding, with an increased amount of student autonomy but with an associated interdependence between the teacher and the student, as opposed to dependence on the teacher (Lea et al, 2003). However, dependence continues to be placed on the teachers’ instructional practices creating a suitable environment for SCL. Lau and Chen (2013) consider

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the theoretical perspectives of SCL (or self-regulated learning) as including strategy, meta-cognition, and motivation, which can be added to the growing list of variables. Attaining, maintaining and applying these strategies may lead to an optimisation of learning processes, but each are influenced by the interaction between environmental and personal factors, similar to the paradigm of the social versus the self which was identified previously. A range of external environmental factors impact significantly on internal personal factors, and these include aspects such as class size, room layout, temperature, and a whole range of environmental minutia that may affect the sensory equilibrium of the student in relation to concentration, engagement and attitude to learning. In conclusion, Lea et al (2003: 2) suggest that although a student centred approach is advertised within HEIs, there is a common gulf between rhetoric and reality. Quite simply, the HEI states that in practice they apply a student centred approach, but in reality they do not. The suggestion is that the teacher centred approach prevails due to the pressures placed on teachers within these establishments and therefore less time is devoted to creating innovative teaching methods. This arguably leads to questions on attitudes to learning being passed from the teacher to the student. If the teacher lacks the right attitude (due to whatever circumstances), then how can the student be expected to develop the right attitude to learning?

Some thoughts on teaching, environment and inclusivity In support of the argument for a positive attitude by way of engagement, Doyle (2012) writes with regard to the use of performing arts in the classroom as a tool for such engagement and motivation. Furthermore, Doyle (2012) advocates the need for critical thinking in order to equip students for the business world after their studies, emphasising the importance of harnessing learning and innovation skills. Doyle (2012: 41) goes further to suggest that the ability to design, develop, write, and create are all a part of the highest level of intellectual behaviour according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. Thus, it is expected that the encouragement of students’ creativity in the classroom will lead to higher order thinking. A final point from Doyle (2012) on this is to raise the question of the student’s personality type in determining their attitude to studying; this is certainly difficult with a group of Chinese students and all of the previously mentioned issues this raises. However, with the comments made regarding respect, saving face and the impact on the family if the

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Chinese student fails to pass their degree, perhaps personal goals impact on the attitude to learning. Hester (2012) refers to a lack of connection between personal goals and academic goals as being a reason for disengagement. A factor to consider within this is the nature of the tasks that are set both in class and pastorally, where the nature of the task in class – its stretch and challenge – influences the students’ higher order thinking and subsequent engagement. It seems an obvious point to make, but too often it is missed as a strategy. And the linkage between a student’s use of knowledge and strategy in class is transferable to personal goal-setting, which may form part of a tutorial programme for student improvement. Furthermore, students fail to understand how certain modules they are learning apply to their future career goals and this lack of importance leads to a lack of motivation in particular topic areas. Staff are constrained by issues of efficiency and effectiveness, the efficiency in which benchmarks are met within an allocated resource (ultimately achieving more with less) and the effectiveness of the graduates which are produced. Villegas (2011) in Doyle (2012) suggests that this form of expression allows autonomy in students and motivates them to participate, linking directly to Hains – Wesson’s (2011) use of performance skills in the classroom and suggesting that it is important that the teaching method used is one that encourages engagement and motivation to learn. Both state that motivation and engagement in the classroom is essential for a student’s achievement. What was interesting is that Doyle (2012) suggested that by giving students something which they can relate to in the class promotes success in engagement. Additionally, Zhang and Kenny (2010) identify that activity participation is key to motivation and ultimately progression within programmes. For students who do struggle to maintain their own momentum, tutors can set smaller tasks and deadlines, ensuring they receive some encouraging feedback, and this can help differentiate between home and international students, ensuring overall engagement of the cohort. Another potential tool is the addition of materials such as transcripts, which are helpful to the whole student group, potentially increasing engagement and attainment. Transcript inclusion is a useful and time effective teaching method as it allows all students to have a note base and builds an awareness of interconnectivity, giving a map of the lecture as a resource. For tutors, it allows a full consideration of language choice to allow the building of module-specific terminology while reducing language barriers. While accompanying resources facilitate access for a range of students, the number of these needs to be considered to reduce overloading. This could then have a negative impact on some

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students, and as such reduce inclusivity. Resource choice and creation need to be considered holistically as it is a balancing act in terms of meeting student needs. The strong and accurate analysis of a task alongside preparation is key to producing an effective solution or output (Hicks, 2004; Pinto, 2012). Considering copyright, accessibility and pedagogy allows resource development to be based upon a holistic appreciation of the student, institution and legal requirements. Added to this interesting debate are the thoughts of Lee (2012), who conducted a study on the most appropriate pedagogy for the engagement of students in an English class; certainly useful in this discussion due to the criticality necessary when teaching English, and relevant in the case of Chinese learners learning English as a second language. Lee (2012) contrasts monologic discourse with dialogic discourse, suggesting that monologic refers to the single authoritative voice, the teacher’s, which controls all dimensions of the classroom, with dialogic which extends the teacher–student dialogue and allows for the students to express their thoughts in debate, which in turn allows for a deeper understanding of the topic area. This method of teaching and learning supports classroom debate and discussion coupled with group activities which engage the student and aid criticality. However, this study did raise potential problems that can be applied to the Chinese student, particularly if the classroom has a mix of different nationalities, in which a small handful of students tend to dominate the discussion and activities. Therefore, many students do not engage, which is certainly true of the Chinese culture and saving face, alluding to a lack of joining in and speaking out in front of others. Previous thoughts already suggest that Chinese students group together and feel more comfortable this way. This may be an area that stands out when finding solutions to the problems of engaging this particular group, but is presumptuous in the assumption of stereotyping groups of students of any nationality with homogenous cultural traits. The cultural background of the student in relation to the educational system is in essence a societal factor. Lau and Chen (2013) highlight an example in relation to curriculum design and language between Hong Kong students and mainland Chinese students, suggesting that the pace of educational (and social) change and differing learning approaches to teaching – traditional memorisation and passive learning versus SCL, or mechanistic to humanistic and student centred – critically alters the learning dynamic and impacts greatly on student attitude. Ryan and Louie (2007) suggest that HEIs’ attempts to internationalise the curriculum rarely explores the usefulness and

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appropriateness of pedagogy used and that the common response is merely a token with ‘add-ons’ which Ryan and Louie (2007) refer to as superficial. Hall and Saunders (1997) in Lea et al (2003) conducted a longitudinal study over a period of six years that explored an active learning approach, using questionnaires, quizzes, student presentations and continuous assessment rather than the traditional lecture and final examination. Student participation in this study increased, as did grades and motivation, with 94% stating that they would recommend this teaching method over traditional, conventional methods. It would seem, therefore, that active learning creates a more positive attitude to learning than more conventional methods. Mindful of this particular teaching and learning method, applying it to Chinese student is not without problems. Holmes (2004) supports the earlier comments of Biggs (1994) and Cooper (2004) that the Chinese student learns by memorisation, rote learning and repetition, and suggests that the active learning method which is advocated by Lea et al (2003) is contradictory to their preferred learning style. Li and Wu (2015) identify that active learning could not only enable Chinese learners to achieve the course-intended outcomes but could also advance their attitude, knowledge and learning skills, hence active learning is an effective method of teaching mixed nationality groups. Ballard and Clanchy (1991) in Holmes (2004) labelled this approach as a conserving attitude to learning. This study in 1991 suggests that this topic area is not a new one and yet the same problems remain in 2013. Holmes (2004: 296) goes further to explain that the typical attitude to learning in western establishments is Socratic, where knowledge is generated or constructed through a process of questioning and evaluation of beliefs, with critical thinking skills and problem-solving considered to be important. Ballard and Clanchy (1991) in Holmes (2004: 296) refer to this as an extended attitude to learning. However, Holmes (2004) does allude to Biggs’ (1994) earlier suggestions that Chinese students do seek to understand and reflect and that further studies suggest that at some stages, all students are dependent on the task and display different approaches. However, Holmes (2004) does confirm the Confucian link and that the teaching approach is teacher-led with the re-enforcement of teacher and student roles, thus avoiding loss of face and a lack of challenging of ideas and themes. The western style of questioning, interrupting, volunteering answers and seeking clarification is often seen as bold and immodest (Holmes, 2004: 297). Importantly in Holmes (2004) is the suggestion that this communication disadvantages the Chinese student and that the attitude to knowledge and power may also further disadvantage them in a culture that

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rewards assertiveness and highly verbal students. A further point from the findings section of this study suggests that the Chinese student did not know how to involve themselves in discussions. This is an allencompassing problem that links directly to perception and attitude. The perception of the ‘quiet’ student may be one of lack of interest, lack of engagement, or lack of confidence, but this not an exhaustive list. Is the student quiet in one class but not in another? How does the module topic influence the response? To further the example of a business student, an accountancy module may illicit a response that is very different from a module about human behaviour or marketing. The level of student confidence or enjoyment is likely to be strongly linked to the topic, and the level of understanding will undoubtedly be a motivating factor in whether the student joins in debate. The fear of saying something wrong or ridiculous in front of peers and the teacher is, for many, a step too far, and so the default setting is to remain quiet, and hope that dignity and saving face is maintained. This links directly with the concept of inclusivity. The talented teacher will ensure that all students are included in discussions and made to feel safe within the classroom environment. A further reason for a lack of engagement may be that the student has wider support needs and inclusivity criteria, which, while identified as an embedded professional value (Butcher et al, 2010), can be overlooked due to lack of awareness. Hockins (2010) suggests that many university lecturers have a limited awareness of inclusivity requirements. This inclusive perspective is important in the light of the widely accepted constructivist approach that has emerged within Higher Education, which emphasises the role of the learner being actively involved in the learning process, i.e., he/she constructs his/her own knowledge on the basis of prior experiences, unlike previous educational viewpoints where the responsibility rested with the instructor to teach. All students need to be aware of this expectation, with the management of student expectations (as evidenced by QAA benchmarking expectations). The Tomlinson Report (1996) argued that for inclusion to work effectively, it must be seen to apply to all learners. This can be achieved readily within an effective learning environment and is applicable in both FE and HE environments. In addition to this, students can utilise software to add coloured tints (which can help dyslexic students) and increase text size (helpful for those with additional sight requirements). It is imperative these self-help skills are taught to all students. It is important to note that most Chinese students do not declare additional needs due to cultural

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norms, but a positive organisational/tutor attitude to creating an inclusive environment could potentially overcome this. How this is achieved is a continuing challenge for higher education. In a dynamic and changing environment, there are a range of conflicting factors that both support and detract from the ideal of a student feeling valued in this way. The structure of an educational establishment, with a bias towards either the academic professional or the administrative process, or some balance in between, is one influencing factor. The organisation will have interventions in place for inclusion, with study support, counselling, and pastoral care at many levels. In some institutions, some of this may be done by tutors; in others, the support is complementary to the academic prerogative. Depending on organisational culture or strategy, the adequacy of systems, financial constraints, or the willingness and flexibility of the individual, these two forces can work together for the betterment of the student, or they may, under differing circumstances, work against each other. If a student lacks persistence in accessing inclusive support, or lacks the confidence to pursue assistance, then attitude to learning cannot help but be diminished. Both tutors and the organisation need to perform an important balancing act to ensure that students feel their needs are recognised and met without highlighting differences or feeling alienated by the process.

Student’s perception on attitudes to learning This balancing act of ensuring an effective inclusive environment impacts on the attitudes of all HE institution students, regardless of nationality. Regional and institutional differences within NSS (National Student Survey, 2014), HEA (2015) and HEPI (2015) data highlight how some institutions are managing their multi-cultural campuses well and how others are not. Those where internationalisation has impacted negatively upon their data are often hindered by the cultural make-up and socioeconomic status of the region as well as potentially poor strategic planning to support the transition of all students into a multi-cultural learning environment. Within the new funding model in HE, institutions are setting higher targets for international recruitment due to the income it generates; in some cases, these have been met with skepticism by home students. This needs to be managed effectively to ensure an appropriate collaborative learning environment for all students. One-in-four students think international students need more attention from lecturers (26%) and slow down the class due to language issues (25%) but

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two-thirds disagree that the presence of international students reduces the quality of the academic discussions (65%) (HEPI, 2015).

An internationally diverse student body has many benefits for the students themselves and for higher education institutions as a whole. The HEPI results above show that students agree that there are many positive impacts on learning from studying alongside international students. The report identifies that the rich mix of cultures, tolerance and understanding, which an international experience fosters, helps prepare students to contribute as global citizens, although while the majority of students are aware of these benefits, within poorer areas, the number who see international students as having a negative impact increases. Staff and home student attitudes are influenced by the political environment where there is conflict over reducing migration while increasing the growth of education as an export. Equally, international students benefit higher education staff. Without a healthy number of international students, it is likely that some courses would become uneconomic to run; graduates would have a more limited outlook and classroom discussions would be excessively mono-cultural, reducing the effectiveness of teaching. HEPI (2015) and HEA (2015) surveys suggest that the student body believes that international students work harder than home students. Within this data, it was non-EU students who believed the strongest that this was the case, which could suggest bias in the results. Equally, it must be identified that working in a second language requires more time allocated for work. Within self-reported HEPI–HEA (2015) data, home students on average worked 30.29 hours, EU students 32.26 hours and non-EU students 30.73 hours on their studies. This would suggest that in terms of time, European students work the hardest. Arguably, selfperception and the perception of others can be quite different to the reality. Within a formed cohort, there would be an expectation for students to conform to a similar work ethic, but this does not appear to be the case, suggesting that while we have cultural diversity and that this is beneficial, students still like to work within their cultural silos; it is rare to see mixed home and international student friendship groups. International students readily identify the benefits of working in a culturally diverse environment, especially in terms of future employment. It is likely that they chose to attend a UK institution for this reason. With home students, the decision making process may have been less robust due to the progression targets of their respective colleges, ultimately impacting on

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their awareness of the benefits of working with international students and concentrating on the challenges rather than the benefits. The speed of the class and ensuring all students feel equally valued is a challenge for staff; preparation and appropriate delivery methods offer tools which can address this. Unfortunately the attitudes in relation to the slowing of classes and the requirements of international students are the legacy of a previous lack of infrastructure and flawed entry requirements, or a lack of integrity within recruitment methods for international students. As the resources and infrastructure develop to support international students through their degrees, hopefully this data will improve, with all students perceiving a fair and beneficial international classroom. At the institutional level, the responsibility of ensuring completion and success has been placed with the tutors and schools, but a new holistic approach is starting to emerge, with universities offering summer schools and pre-sessional years to ensure that non-EU students have the appropriate language skills to succeed. Also, additional tailored support sessions and resources have been put in place, but access to equivalent support has been assured for all students. Addressing the additional needs of international students while ensuring a fair system is an important balancing act which impacts upon all stakeholders, be it staff with an increased numbers of international students within their tutorials, or students in mixed seminar groups. The effects of internationalisation on staff are determined by the number of international staff members. Different nationalities communicating with a shared second language can cause difficulties, but it also offers benefits. For example, reducing the feelings of isolation for a minority student group as a staff member of the same nationality will potentially be able to identify distinct strategies as necessary. There are regional differences again with regard to the perceptions of being taught by international staff, with mainly an agonistic opinion overall. This suggests that students have not considered the potential benefits or challenges of being taught by staff from abroad. There are important differences in the attitudes of home students and international students. International students appear to be more aware of the benefits of learning within a multi-cultural environment; this awareness is likely to come from their consideration of learning within a UK institution. International students allocate more time to their studies,

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which is acknowledged by home students, although international students are still perceived as requiring more input than home students, which could be deemed as unfair. Staff need to manage these attitudes but they need to be supported by institutions which need to facilitate the internationalisation of their own staff, while offering resources to develop strategies to support all students with their differing requirements. Again, this is a balancing act. Educators are expected and required to facilitate the personal development of students, facilitating the updating of their personal values and beliefs; attitudes to learning and working with others is an aspect of this. This is achieved by utilising appropriate teaching methods for the requirements of the cohort.

Some thoughts on practical approaches to enhancing attitudes to learning According to Scott (2010, 5) individualism is the most important aspect of any Western student in relation to particular learning styles. Controversially, she states that ‘rather than being a harmless fad, learning styles theory perpetuates the very stereotyping and harmful teaching practices it is said to combat’. Learning styles theory is widely endorsed across the Higher Educational sector and many institutions carry out specific learning styles testing prior to and during students’ period of study with the honourable intention of creating the most appropriate pedagogical methods to meet each of the particular learning styles. However, it would appear to be more difficult to ascertain the particular learning style of a Chinese student, for example, in the same way as a Western student due to the cultural differences. Scott (2010, 6) refers to this: ‘In such a context, even if empirical evidence for the effectiveness of basing pedagogy on one discrete model of learning styles could be found, this cannot be said to provide proof of the efficacy of “learning styles” as they are currently conceived, or misconceived’. She goes further to suggest that many learning style models have little to offer in terms of pedagogical design and that they often offer little more than a waste of a teacher’s learning and teaching time. Coffield et al (2004) offer further alternative viewpoints, questioning the importance of learning styles. While learning styles are not absolute, the literature still identifies that a range of resource types are required. For example, an online environment lends itself to facilitating the needs of a wide range of student requirements, due to its versatility; for example, combining audio, visual and kinaesthetic formats,

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allowing for differentiation as identified in the Warnock Report (1978) and aiding individual learning (Pask, 1976; Kolb, 1984; and Honey and Mumford, 1986). While the Warnock Report is centred on additional needs, the ideas around education being the same for all but the pathway is applicable to all students and levels. Despite some earlier criticism of online learning, as a practical tool for learning, it is worth considering some of the benefits in terms of offering feedback to enhance both learning and attitude. In a well-designed and delivered online experience, cultural boundaries and differences among students disappear; everyone is international (Chalmers et al, 2004). Both classroom and online feedback needs to be as explicit as possible, using hyperlinks, clear language and examples, and it is important to consider how difficult it can be to use and receive critical feedback effectively when working in isolation, either due to online learning or reduced social groups. Smith and Wood (2015) highlighted that they had been unable to identify a successful manner in which master’s students could learn to give and receive critical feedback effectively within an online environment; they found that it was imperative to bring the students together physically. The phrasing of feedback needs to be explicit with all online students in the same manner as with international students in the classroom. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case. Students benefit from this explicit and specific feedback, but it is a challenge for tutors, students and institutions to ensure that feedback is communicated and received as intended, to enable learning. Within an online environment, it can be challenging to identify the values of students and distance travelled; identifying the distance travelled can be overcome by having several formative assessment points, which also help to clarify expectations. Another key advantage of incorporating the use of virtual learning environments (VLEs) is the availability of administrative tools (JISC, n.d.); for example, tutors can check which students are engaging with the VLE, and which resources are being utilised. Resources which are underutilised could be refreshed and students could be prompted as required. This additional resource range can aid Chinese students due to their technology preferences, and allows them to set their own pace, which cannot always be done in a mixed classroom. Tutors need to facilitate blended learning, which can be challenging due to a ‘lack of knowledge [in designing] courses with technology’ and a ‘lack of confidence to use technology in teaching’ (Arabasz and Baker, 2003). While the challenge for tutors is the difficulty of engaging learners online, active participation is a key aspect of online learning, which can benefit

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international learners arguably more than their British classmates. Alongside the use of administrative tools is the benefit of asynchronous discussion forums which allow students and tutors to engage in and review written online discussions at times that are convenient to the individual. This is especially useful for international students due working times, preparation times and the general differences of students. Although discussion forums have benefits, there are also challenges as many of the subtleties of verbal communication are lost, as previously discussed, and misunderstandings cannot be quickly and easily corrected, which can lead to problems (Salmon, 2013). The use of additional resources offers a benefit due to their size; the completion of manageable chunks helps engagement and momentum. Students who return home for holidays can continue with their work via the VLE. A key challenge with the use of VLEs is to seek clarification that online students need to ‘admit’ they need help, whereas within a classroom, a Question and Answer element can be used easily to check understanding/engagement. Importantly, Chinese students often find it easier to ask questions online rather than within the classroom. Successful online learning is no different in terms of requiring individual qualities and traits, as of those needed in the classroom environment. The variable remains the same – independent learning, self-esteem and motivation – but as highlighted, this can be eroded by loneliness which impacts on academic performance and satisfaction. The challenge of reducing feelings of loneliness can be overcome by the use of social interaction, a benefit of online learning due to its asynchronous nature (Vakoufari et al, 2014; Salmon, 2013), albeit only if the response times are appropriate to the needs of the learner. This suggests that the opportunity to also take part in synchronous communication is important. Both tutors and students need to be able to embrace blended online learning in order for it to be successful. Action learning offers a practical teaching method for delivery to mixed and non-mixed nationality groups. It requires students to undertake practical activities which require engagement and communication, and can facilitate access to theory in practice. While there are obvious advantages here for all learners, especially as it meets the needs of a range of learning preferences, the development of this method can be time-consuming and burdensome as identified by Sims (2006); thus, staff need time to undertake resource development. The resources of institutions influence the attitudes of staff; training and time is required in order to facilitate the needs of international students in a proactive manner. Internationalisation

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as a bolt on causes stress and anxiety for academics, which damages their performance, which is potentially the root cause of poor student feedback in some institutions. As Li and Wu (2015) report, most studies on the effectiveness of active learning are undertaken in Western contexts, thus it remains unclear whether such a learning strategy could be transplanted effectively to Chinese societies, where students’ learning styles, teacher–student relationships, and the teachers’ image and lecturing styles are greatly different from those in the West. Empirical studies assessing the use of active learning in teaching business management to Chinese students are lacking. Only a few have mentioned its application to students doing hotel management at college level (e.g. Sivan, Leung, Woon, & Kember, 2000), social work (e.g. Lam, 2009), nursing (e.g. Yuan, Kunaviktikul, Alunkin, & Williams, 2009) and pharmacology (e.g. Wang, Hu, & Xi, 2012). Active learning has been found to work well especially within mixed groups, within UK institutions. Chinese only groups do require further clarification of requirements when first introducing the concept of active learning, as this is likely to be a technique with which they are unfamiliar. Active learning can be achieved in several forms such as field trips, the production of journals, and game playing (Burrows et al, 2015). Chapter five offers further discussion of practical methods to engage international students. The students will require preparatory resources before the class. This will allow international students the time to ensure an understanding of basic principles which can then be challenged and responded to within active learning. A challenge for both the teacher and Chinese student is that a good teacher is expected to ‘provide clear guidance for students rather than letting them flounder when exploring themselves’ (Chan, 2001, 183). This goes against the requirements and philosophy of active learning, whereby students need to ‘flounder’; tutors cannot give simple answers. Students are expected to question, take responsibility for their own learning and report back on their experiences. International students may need more time to contemplate issues with which they are not familiar, although, equally, students who may have been raised traditionally and who do not have a lot of life experience also require this additional time to consider the application of theory to reality. This brings us back to student expectations and the requirements of the tutor. International students require this additional time to process between languages, but home

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students must be aware that they should be using this thinking time effectively in relation to their own needs. Active learning offers a useful tool to develop overarching programme learning outcomes, such as group work, and discussion and understanding of the wider world, thereby facilitating students to meet employability criteria. It allows all students to undertake their own analysis of a situation, which is something that Chinese students do find difficult due to their previous educational experiences. Development of this analysis allows for self-development, which impacts upon the attitudes of all students taking part in active learning.

Summary Brookfield’s Four Lenses (1995) puts the student at the heart of decision making, but this is often from a parental viewpoint, which could be compared with consequentialism ethics (Bentham, 1789). Academics are concerned with the effects of their actions; when a change is made, the effect on student output is considered. Whereas Brookfield (1995, 40) asks academics to consider ‘the students’ eyes’, academics must draw on their own experience as learners to ‘become aware of the paradigmatic assumptions and instinctive reasonings that frame how we work’. Ultimately, this is a comment on the nature of the teacher as being caring about PDP and self-development, as a main conduit through which the student’s attitude can be influenced. A chapter on student attitude cannot hope to be exhaustive or definitive, and while the influence of the teacher in creating the correct climate is profound, ultimately, attitude is the responsibility of the individual student. To end with another adage, ‘when the student is ready, the teacher appears’. Old, overused, but nevertheless true.

References Arabasz, P. and Baker, M. B. (2003) Evolving Campus Support Models for E-Learning Courses. Educause Center for Applied Research. Available from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/EKF/ekf0303.pdf [Accessed January 2015]. Bentham, J. (1789) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Brookfield, S. (1995) Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. SanFrancisco: Jossey-Bass. Biggs, J. (1994). What are effective schools? Lessons from East and West (The Radford Memorial Lecture). Australian Educational Researcher, 21, 19-39. Burrows, K., Pearson, A. and Wragg, N. (2015) Methodology building examples and meaning in Higher Education. [Seminar] HEA Teaching Research Methods in the Social Sciences, HEA, 21 May. Available at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Teaching%20Researc h%20Methods.pdf [Accessed 18 June 2015]. Butcher, J., Sedgwick, P., Lazard, L., and Hey, J. (2010). How might inclusive approaches to assessment enhance student learning in HE? Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education, 2(1) 25–40. Chalmers, L., Dibiase, D., Donert, K., Hardwick, S. & Solem, M. (2004) Internationalizing Online Courses and Degree Programs in Geography. Position Paper for the International Network for Learning and Teaching (INLT) Post-IGU Workshop in Glasgow, Scotland 2004. Chan, C. K. K. (2001). Promoting learning and understanding through constructivist approaches for Chinese learner. In D. A. Watkins & J. B. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 181–203). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong. Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., and Ecclestone, K. (2004) Should we be using learning styles? What research has to say to practice. [Online] The Learning and Skills Research Centre. Available at http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/LSRC_LearningSt yles.pdf [Accessed 18 June 2015]. Denton, P. (2008) The Power of Words. Educational Leadership. Vol. 66, Issue 1. Doyle, M. (2012) Creative Expression in the Math Classroom: How Incorporating Performance Arts Affects Student Engagement and Motivation. Wake Forest University Department of Education. Garrott, J. (1992) Preferences and Pet Peeves of Chinese College Students. Hains – Wesson, R. (2011) The impact on Performance skills on students’ attitudes towards the learning experience in higher education. Issues in Educational Research, 21(1). HEPI-HEA (2015) 2015 Academic Experience Survey [online]. Available at: http://www.hepi.ac.uk/2015/06/04/2015-academic-experience-survey/ [Accessed 26 June 2015].

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Hicks, M. J. (2004) Problem Solving and Decision Making: Hard, Soft and Creative Approaches, 2nd Edition. London: Thomson. Hockings, C. (2010) Inclusive learning and teaching in higher education: a synthesis of research. [Online] Available at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/inclusive_teaching_an d_learning_in_he_1.doc [Accessed 18 June 2015]. Ho, I., and Hau, K. T. (2008) Academic achievement in the Chinese context: The role of goals, strategies and effort. International Journal of Psychology, 2008, 43(5) 892-897. Psychology Press. Taylor and Francis Group. Holmes, P. (2004) Negotiating Differences in learning and Intercultural Communication: Ethnic Chinese Students in a New Zealand University. Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 67. Honey, P. & Mumford, A. (1986) The Manual of Learning Styles. Maidenhead: Peter Honey. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Lam, D. O. B. (2009). Impact of problem-based learning on social work students: Growth and limits. British Journal of Social Work, 39, 1499– 1517. Lau, K., and Chen, X. (2013) Perception of reading instructions and selfregulated learning: A comparison between Chinese students in Hong Kong and Beijing. Instructional Science, 2013, 41:1083-1101. Springer Science and Business Media Dordrecht. Lea, S. J., D. Stephenson, and J. Troy (2003). Higher Education Students’ Attitudes to Student Centred Learning: Beyond ‘educational bulimia’. Studies in Higher Education 28(3), 321-334. JISC (n.d.) Effective use of VLEs [online]. Available at http://tools.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/downloads/vle/what-is-vle.pdf [Accessed 18 January 2015]. Li, J., C., M. and Wu, J. (2015) Active learning for discovery and innovation in criminology with Chinese learners, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 52:2, 113-124. NSS (2014) National Student Survey Results 2014 [online]. Available at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/lt/nss/results/2014/ [Accessed 26 June 2015]. Pask, G. (1976) Styles and Strategies of learning. British Journal of Educational Psychology, (46) 128-148. Pinto, J, K. (2012) Project Management: Achieving Competitive Advantage. London: Pearson.

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Ryan, J. and Louie, K. (2007) False Dichotomy? ‘Western’ and ‘Confucian’ concepts of scholarship and learning. Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia Published by Blackwell Publishing. Salmon, G. (2013) E-tivities: The Key to Active Online Learning. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge. Scott, W. (2010). Judging the Effectiveness of a Sustainable School: A Brief Exploration of Issues. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development 3, 33-39. Scudamor, R. (2013) Engaging home and international students: a guide for new lecturers The Higher Education Academy. Online. https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/RachelScudamoreRep ortFeb2013.pdf Accessed June 1 2015. Sims, B. (2006). Creating a teaching and learning environment in criminal justice courses that promotes higher order thinking. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 17, 336– 357. Sivan, A., Leung, R. W., Woon, C. C., & Kember, D. (2000). An implementation of active learning and its effect on the quality of student learning. Innovations in Education & Teaching International, 37, 381–389. Smith, J., and Wood, P. (2015) Developing doctoral students’ critical writing and reviewing skills through peer assessment. [Seminar] HEA Teaching Research Methods in the Social Sciences, HEA, 21 May. Available at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Teaching%20Researc h%20Methods.pdf [Accessed 18 June 2015]. Tian, M. and Lowe, J. (2013) The role of feedback in cross-cultural learning: a case study of Chinese taught postgraduate students in a UK university. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2013, Vol. 38, No. 5, 580–598, Taylor and Francis Group. Tian, M. and Lowe, J. (2013) The role of feedback in cross-cultural learning: a case study of Chinese taught postgraduate students in a UK university. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2013, Vol. 38, No. 5, 580–598, Taylor and Francis Group. Tomlinson, J. (1996) Report of the Further Education Funding Council Learning Difficulties and/or Disabilities Committee. Coventry: FEFC. Vakoufari, M., Christina, A. and Mavroidis, I. (2014) Self-Esteem and Loneliness as Factors Affecting Distance Learning Students. European Journal of Open, Distance and e-learning. 17 (2) 99-115 Available at: http://www.eurodl.org/materials/contrib/2014/Vakoufari_et_al.pdf [Accessed 18 June 2015].

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Wang, J., Hu, X., & Xi, J. (2012). Cooperative learning with role play in Chinese pharmacology. Indian Journal of Pharmacology, 44, 253–256. Warnock, M. (1978) Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People. London: Her Majesty's Stationary Office. Woodward, R. and Pearson, A. (2013) The Developmental Alphabet Soup – PPD, PDP and WBL in Higher Education Business. The Journal of the Economics, Business and Enterprise Association Summer (May). Yuan, H., Kunaviktikul, W., Alunkin, A., & Williams, B. A. (2009). The application of problem-based learning in Chinese baccalaureate nursing education. Nursing Education Perspective, 30, 250–251. Zhang, Z. and Kenny, R. F. (2010) Learning in an Online Distance Education Course: Experiences of Three International Students. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 11 (1) 18-36. Available from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/775/1501 [Accessed 8 June 2015].

CHAPTER FIVE STAFF SUPPORT IN TEACHING THE CHINESE LEARNER

Introduction Observations so far have ascertained that there is a real need for staff development in order to support the teaching of international learners. Reports suggest that teachers find teaching international students rewarding and that it broadens the mind and the in-class discussion; however, they also indicated difficulties in that the international students were too demanding, and this placed unnecessary stress on them and resulted in higher expectations from the non-UK students (Fallon and Brown (1999). Language and culture were also stated as problems (as has been discussed earlier) when teaching international learners. Robertson et al (2000) reported reluctance amongst international learners to contribute to discussions, difficulties in understanding the lectures, and language barriers. Other difficulties reported were that there was an over reliance on reference material, plagiarism and a lack of critical thinking, all things that have been identified earlier. A study in Australia by Gribble and Zigueas (2003) found that academics created their own pedagogy to deal with the international learner issues. These included the findings that smaller groups were better and mixing home and international students together was also more effective. Staff had also adapted the level of support and more time was given to ensure the understanding of course material, lectures and assessments. Staff also had to find different ways of communicating with the international learners, particularly in relation to assessments, by making sure that there were clear written instructions. Barron et al (2010) further suggest that there is evidence to indicate that Asian students ‘stick’ together and this can create problems. In addition, they highlight home students’ attitudes, i.e. the UK students being participative in their learning style and the Chinese being passive and uncritical. These different approaches are a cause of concern for an academic with a group of mixed students particularly, but can also create

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the need for academics to devise two different teaching methods, one for home student groups and one for international groups. What emerges is the complexity of teaching diverse groups of students, the issues of language and the lack of understanding of the literature needed to write assessments at degree level, as well as the lack of participation in class, in discussions and activities designed to increase a deeper understanding of the lecture material. Criticality and the lack of it from Chinese learners is a concern for academics, as a lack of criticality means that Chinese learners struggle with their assessments and any homework that they have been given ahead of lectures. These issues and the level of plagiarism from international learners have led to staff devising and adapting teaching and learning strategies. Furthermore, assessment strategies are also altered and adapted to meet the needs of this growing group of learners within the UK. It has also raised difficulties among academics who may appear reluctant to complain too much about the issues surrounding these students, for fear of being accused of stereotyping. These learners are a financial incentive for many institutions across the UK. Just at students are influenced by their cultural background and upbringing in terms of how they learn, the same can be said about teachers and how they teach. This is certainly influenced by their beliefs, philosophies, culture and historical background. The element of reflection in teaching is emphasised in all teaching and learning, in order for the teacher to consider what they have delivered, the impact of it on the student’s learning, whether it was an effective delivery and whether there are any things that could be improved. Teaching is not an easy task; being able to take a topic area and then make it accessible to the students is hard, and it is not about whether the teacher understands the topic but more about whether the student understands the information from the teacher. Although Higher Education is associated with a lot of independent study (the student needs to read in order to understand and learn), with the price of degree programmes in the UK rising to £9,000 per annum on average, student expectation is far higher and they therefore expect to receive more than a lecturer just turning up to read from lecture slides on the screen. The student expectation is that they will be taught by the teacher and the old emphasis on independent learning and reading is being overhauled with a new cohort of students who are demanding more for their money. Universities in the UK are recognising this and the emphasis is moving back to the core business of teaching, when there is a generalisation that many universities have been focussed on research because of the money it brings in from grants and for projects, plus the prestige that research gives

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to the institution. This chapter therefore deals with the methods teachers use within the university classroom, some debates on the use of self-study and what current teacher training there is for Higher Education lecturers.

Self-Study Berman (1993) refers to the Irving J. Lee method of teaching as being operative because he understood the core principles of public speaking and effective communication in his classes and he consciously applied these principles, of which some teachers were unaware. Furthermore, what is fascinating in Berman’s paper is that he discusses how Irving J. Lee had a low and resonant voice, suggesting that this tone is important when public speaking. This does go some way to support the section that discusses tonality in the language chapter, with vocal projection being of utmost importance so that the voice can reach the whole auditorium. Now, some observations of teachers from their days as a student and their days as a teacher trainer do provide examples of this being done both well and not so well. The teacher with the most motivated and engaged student group arguably has a voice that can command by use of pitch and amplification, without ‘shouting’. By merely raising the voice or speaking in the right tone, a teacher can demand that they are listened to. This is not something that all teachers can learn easily and a teacher who has had some form of vocal training might fare better than a teacher who has not. An observation of the type of teacher that struggles to use the voice effectively in class and is perhaps monotone, clearly demonstrates that they will have limited success in commanding a classroom unless they resort to ‘shouting’ to be heard. Interestingly, this does make it very difficult for teachers on both counts when teaching Chinese students, because a teacher who is able to change the pitch and tone of their voice might be able to engage a group of home students, but as previously discussed in the language chapter, Chinese students recognise tone as something that changes the meaning of the word and they therefore could become further confused. Conversely, the type of teacher that does struggle with using the voice to command and engage a cohort might have the opposite effect: being fairly monotonous might actually be better understood by Chinese students, but that is for another study and there are no hard facts or evidence as yet to support this. In his reflections of Irving J. Lee, Berman does, however, discuss how it was not only his voice that made him such a good teacher but also his body language, how (and where) he sat and how he moved within the room, stating that with approximately 250 to 350 students in any one class, it was important to communicate with all the students and therefore

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moving effectively around the room was essential. Berman also noted that Irving J. Lee used many other strategies to engage the class, such as humour, stating that it is not necessary to be a natural comedian, but anyone can read a humorous anecdote and connect with the class. Furthermore, he used quizzes and games to test the class and get them to think. More importantly, he considered the teaching itself and the methods that could be adapted and used to make his teaching more effective. By considering how the more practical subjects including elements such as dramatic presentation could be adapted and applied to more logical subjects such as mathematics and science, and by reflecting on which methods left the greatest impression and how these could then be used again in the future for different groups and different topic areas, what Lee had was the ability to adapt to any student group. That is what makes his self-study so important to modern teachers who have to deal with so many different cultures and nationalities in the classroom, often with little support and guidance on how to do so. Often, this is not due to the institutions not caring, but merely that they do not understand or know how to instruct the teacher in how to teach certain groups. This is the teacher’s domain and therefore the teacher learns by doing, reflecting and doing again and again until they have the most effective method. Louie et al (2003) refer to how self-study can be used to create a tangible product in terms of teaching knowledge that can be transferred to colleagues and how this can be used to improve teaching. It helps to advance knowledge on how to teach effectively in Higher Education; it encompasses many research approaches and methods; and self-study enables the teacher to bring a much richer knowledge and understanding of their role and the impact that this has on the learning outcomes. Louie et al categorise self-study into three areas which they state have been the primary focus of the literature since the 1990s. These are: teacher identity, the relationship between teaching beliefs and practice, and collegial interaction. The first area relates to the teacher understanding their own awareness of themselves and their development as a teacher. How this relates to the Chinese student is that it enables the teacher to have a clear understanding of them; this is essential when dealing with people who have different values, like the Chinese student. The observations by Louie et al are of new teachers who are also finding it difficult to work with the different beliefs and values of institutions which perhaps value research more highly than teaching. To ‘get around’ this issue, these new teachers based research on teaching as their scholarly activity but this was not seen as acceptable with the faculty and was considered inadequate. But it does

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raise questions with regard to how these teachers are expected to learn and improve teaching practices, especially when faced with such a challenge as teaching large cohorts of students with different backgrounds. Without research into these practices and how to improve teaching practice, the new teacher might be left without support and this could account for the high turnover of staff often found in educational facilities. However, the second area regarding the relationship between teaching beliefs and practice goes on to discuss how teachers who do self-study want to improve their teaching practice. It is the cultural background of the teacher, however, that does impact on their teaching practice and this can have both positive and negative effects on the student groups. The third area relates to the importance of collegial interaction to improve teaching and learning. This is certainly something that is welcomed in the UK with the many teaching and learning conferences that take place across campuses and with the HEA. Internationalisation has been a consistent topic since the number of Chinese students studying in the UK has increased, with the HEA dedicating many workshops, funds and conferences to this issue. Self-study is often evident in groups of teachers as the particular discourse and sharing of practice, tales, examples, myths and issues allows the teachers an outlet to reflect and take forward new ideas, plus it offers essential support. Other teachers can offer support, advice and guidance on how to deal with challenges, by giving them ideas and different methods of teaching practice.

Teacher Training in the UK There are currently no requirements in the UK to gain a teaching qualification in order to secure a lecturer position; however, universities are currently far more inclined to recruit if the prospective candidate does have one. Teaching beyond the age of compulsory education does, however, have a series of qualifications that can be obtained. It also depends on the type of teaching role that is under consideration as to how appropriate the qualification is. There are several Further Education teaching qualifications: the level 3 award in Education and Training, which does have some face to face teaching, but is a short course and it is not necessary to already be teaching or have a teaching placement. The level 4 qualification is more in depth and does require a placement of 30 hours teaching practice. The level 5 diploma in Education and Training requires a placement and includes a more academic underpinning, with the potential to specialise. The Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE)

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is associated with post-compulsory education and is the usual route for new graduates. This is the qualification that many graduates take if they wish to teach in the HE and FE sector. It is a more professional qualification and does have the academic underpinning similar to that of the level 5 diploma, but it can offer additional units at a higher level. In order to undertake this qualification, it is necessary to have a degree in the subject that the graduate wishes to teach. To become a HE lecturer, normally it is necessary to have a master’s qualification on the subject that is to be taught, or a PhD (most universities these days do require a PhD as a minimum requirement), but often it is not an essential requirement to have a teacher qualification, just the willingness to study for one, and many universities now have HEA accredited courses for teaching and learning in-house. Trowler and Bamber (2005) conducted a study into compulsory HE teacher training and how at the time, the UK was considering introducing this in universities. Despite it now becoming common in UK institutions to have some form of teacher training in universities, this is usually at the discretion of the individual university and not compulsory, and there is no HE policy in this area. The whole purpose of introducing the policy, therefore, was the assumption that this would enhance the quality of the teaching and learning experience for the students, which would fundamentally impact on the employers of the resulting graduates. Interestingly, in Trowler and Bamber’s (2005: 4) study, they use Bourner et al (2003) to state that, [T]raining focuses on the development of the student rather than the development of the discipline, and is, therefore, good preparation for the future of HE, which will concentrate, they argue, on the development of student competences rather than on transmission of the subject.

What Trowler and Bamber (2005: 5) do further emphasise is that any attempts to query the HE lecturers’ approach may result in ‘defensive action’ and the ‘hanging on’ to traditional methods. However, a study by Gibbs and Coffey (2004) in Trowler and Bamber (2005: 5) looked longitudinally at students across eight countries and in 22 universities and concluded that: x Training can increase teachers’ student focus. x Training can improve a number of aspects of teaching as judged by students (e.g. organisation, group interaction, rapport). And, most importantly… x Training can change teachers such that their students improve their learning.

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Therefore this inconsistent approach to the use of different forms of teaching training in universities does point towards the difficulties and limited support that became apparent from the observations in internationalisation workshops and from teacher discussions on how to teach large and diverse groups of students. Having a compulsory qualification might not be the perfect answer, but it could go a long way to helping teachers (new to teaching, or those new to teaching Chinese groups) learn how to be more effective. However, despite this study now being over ten years old, it still appears that there is a limited amount of valid and reliable studies to support any of these claims, and as such, many of the claims are, at best, assumptions based on observations, informal discussions and focus groups. What does appear to be reliable from these observations and studies is the continuing message that many teachers of diverse groups feel that a lack of support is available and that there is little training on how to deal with some of the issues these groups produce. Furthermore, until they are tasked with developing better pedagogical practices to overcome such problems, they will continue to resort to ‘tried and tested’ methods of teaching and learning, regardless of the results. This can be seen as a dangerous concept, especially in modern times: with the fees and students’ expectations rising higher, the levels of satisfaction amongst students could be lowered and this can impact on the status of the university. The Chinese students could therefore not have a full understanding of what is being taught or how it is being taught, and in turn, the grades and pass rates could be set lower. This would impact on the overall attainment levels of the university, thus resulting in improved statistics for those universities that embrace teaching and learning and place a higher emphasis on rising through the league tables, whilst previous high ranking universities lose their standing. What also stands out in Trowler and Bamber’s study relates to this by examining the barriers to these teacher training programmes within institutions and how they ensure that anything that is learnt is not then transferred and made effective within individual departments, often due to a lack of synergy, suggesting that workgroup and departmental cultures are very powerful and hinder trainee teachers in bringing their learning back into the department. This makes it difficult to incorporate anything that the trainee teacher has learnt as it becomes overruled by a ‘set of norms’ that already exists within the department. Faced with the inability to change from these ‘norms’, trainee teachers therefore have to forget what they have learnt and instead conform to the teaching conventions that already exist, otherwise they can become alienated.

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An independent initial teacher training review (ITT) was carried out between 2010 and 2015 in the UK. The purpose of the review was set out originally by the former secretary of state, Michael Gove, (GOV.UK) and it was the responsibility of Sir Andrew Carter to formulate an independent review of the effectiveness of the quality of teacher training courses. The review was aimed at schools across the UK, but the important element that does reflect HE teacher training is that the review recommended that teacher training should be a partnership and that it is essential for the quality of provision to have effectively trained teachers. This does pose some perhaps controversial questions: x If teacher training is held in such high esteem at primary and secondary level, why is it less important in HE? x Primary, secondary and FE have to be independently assessed by OFSTED in the UK and all teachers are observed formally, including quality processes; however, in HE, the QAA do not observe HE teachers in practice. Does this suggest that the quality of teaching is less important? x Do HE students need to be taught or are they self-taught? All of the questions above cannot be answered easily and they raise further questions such as: do students enter HE programmes expecting to be taught? If yes, are they then shocked by the nature of the formal lecture and sitting with large groups of students (sometimes upwards of 300), being talked at rather than taught? There are no answers to these questions here, as this would take several further studies; however, this does suggest that the teaching in universities is considered to be of less importance and different to other forms of education. Therefore with the cultural adjustments that the Chinese student must make and the different teaching methods on offer in western universities, it is not hard to see why this proves to be such a challenge.

The difference between lecturing and teaching This is not an easy discussion as the level of research and debate around the differences between lecturing and teaching is limited in the academic world, and there is a paucity of views and observations online. There are commentators from a variety of online blogs stating such things as: Lecturing is not teaching, despite the institution suggesting that the teaching focus is high. Firstly, take into consideration the differences between managing a class full of students under the age of 18 and a lecture

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theatre full of adult students, all from different backgrounds and often from different age groups. Haxton (2010 online) suggests that lecturers are researchers first and foremost – this is where their priority lies – and that lecturers are then provided on the job training at the university. Clear differences are also highlighted in the areas of assessment, with students taking GCSEs and A Levels in the UK which are written and assessed by an external exam board, whereas universities are responsible for setting their own assessment criteria and are required to mark the work internally. Interestingly, Haxton suggests that, ideally, university students are highly self-motivated and independent learners and it is this aspect that perhaps is where the difference lies. As stated previously, the Chinese student is motivated for the high school examination but they see university as being less important. A good teacher therefore should recognise the amount of support and guidance that a student needs, whereas a university lecturer could potentially make the assumption that the student is there to ‘find out for themselves’ with a little support and guidance. Having this assumption is perhaps dangerous for the Chinese learner, who may not only need support and guidance for the specific subject, but also for their ability to understand the cultural practices and the language. It would be a very difficult but interesting study to gather the statistical data on the retention and achievement of the students and analyse these in light of this discussion. However, this is a not a new discussion, with Birk (1996) from Boston University suggesting that the lecture is not such a bad thing. Birk states that traditional lectures were typically teacher led, with the teacher talking and the student writing and that it lasted approximately 50 minutes. The more modern practice in 1996 was that although the traditional lecture still existed, there was a newer version, ‘the interactive lecture’, which still entails the teacher talking, but he or she also asks questions, tells stories and generally engages the students better. Birk does, however, concede that some teachers are good at these forms of teaching and some are not, with informal observations suggesting that most teachers rely on both of these forms of lecture far too much, and that this reduces student interest and learning. But the most important element of Birk’s observations is the comment that this form of teaching might leave out certain students. Birk quotes a Harvard professor, Howard Gardner, who states that this type of lecture suits students whose strength is linguistic intelligence or those who can translate the words into their own preferred form of intelligence. How then would this aid the Chinese student in a large lecture theatre, who might have too many difficulties following the pace of the session to even consider translating what is being said into a preferred form of intelligence? Gardner goes on to say that the more the listener can

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translate, the more beneficial the lecture is, so those who struggle will find no benefit from the lecture at all. However, many institutions still rely on this mode of teaching; and in universities where there are large classes, can the teacher do anything other than lecture? Birk suggests that a good teacher will struggle with how best to engage and educate their students and when their methods of teaching are criticised, they often feel unappreciated and alienated, whilst the poorer teacher who should be getting this message often is not. Finding modern literature on the issue of teacher training and its impact on HE in the UK proves to be difficult. Previous publications such as Rust in 2000 suggest that teacher training at this time was considered to be increasingly widespread but limited in terms of evidence of its effectiveness, and it is that element that proves elusive in modern studies. Rust suggests that teacher training in HE is widely welcomed by many stakeholders, despite the many academic sceptics who suggested that it is impossible to turn a ‘history historian’, for example, in to a ‘history teacher’ overnight merely by making them attend a course in teaching skills. Previous studies discussed in Rust’s article suggest that university lecturers who do have a teaching qualification receive better student feedback. In 2015, the student voice and feedback is an essential marketing tool for the recruitment of new students to universities and courses. The National Student Survey (NSS) which collects student feedback from every HEI across the UK at the end of their programme of study is carried out by an independent body that then produces the results which help to influence and formulate the Key Information Sets (KIS) data associated with every course. This survey is taken very seriously in all HEIs across the UK and the results are used to provide data for marketing purposes but also to confirm the usefulness and quality of the provisions and courses. Potential students are then able to examine this information when considering their future choices. Many of the questions in the NSS survey relate to the overall teaching and learning experience; none of the questions ask about the research that is evident in the institution and whether the student understands or finds this important when they make their choices. What it does ask are questions surrounding issues such as whether the teaching was effective, and whether the feedback given was developmental and supportive. As stated earlier, Birk suggested that a good teacher would struggle with how to effectively educate and engage their students and therefore if a university has employed good teachers, this potentially could be reflected in the NSS results, but the question therefore is whether the university has indeed employed good teachers.

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There is little evidence to suggest that the Chinese student understands the relevance of the KIS data and the NSS survey when they are choosing a university at which to study. The evidence does suggest, however, that they choose to come to western universities to meet certain government objectives and to broaden and widen their cultural experiences in order to further enable economic and cultural prospects in China. What this does expose, however, is the potential lack of understanding of the Chinese student to effectively complete the survey and this could impact, both positively and negatively, on the data collected in relation to the university. Having a good teaching team that clearly understands and supports these Chinese students could go some way towards ensuring that the data collected is positive and not negative.

Pedagogy in Higher Education Sahlberg and Oldroyd (2010: 280) refer to two issues that are currently affecting teaching and education: increasing the length and quality of education due to it being a driver of human capital in order to produce sustainable economic development, and raising the level of understanding of the global ecological situation. This suggests that knowledge is driven by innovation, creativity and collaboration as it is essential in the business world to be able to adapt and be flexible to any situation. Tadesse and Gillies (2015) state that quality teaching has been the main focus in the reforming of Higher Education due to the need for educational models that promote learning. However, this is not without challenges, as Tadesse and Gillies support the notion that teachers in Higher Education rely on the formal lecture as their main teaching method. Ramsden (2003) in Tadesse and Gillies refer to the need for teachers to be supported in these challenges, otherwise they fear that these challenges will become too great to overcome. An interesting perspective but not an unusual one; the biggest challenge, therefore, is to address the teaching and learning, to consider how to alter teachers’ beliefs and attitudes to reflect ‘better’ or a mixture of teaching methods in Higher Education, with Tadesse and Gillies suggesting that a better method might be to establish new pedagogies that are adaptive to needs and constraints. Simply put, this would mean the that the teacher would adapt the teaching and learning methods to meet the needs of the different students within the classroom, but as ascertained previously, this is not an easy task and is certainly far more challenging with such diverse classrooms that are now part of the UK and western university. Understanding what those individual needs are in order to meet them has always been a part of the UK teacher training

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programme; it is essential in primary and secondary education for inclusive practice, but these classrooms are often a lot smaller than those in the average lecture in a UK institution, and this can make it difficult for the teacher to be able to acknowledge every different culture, language and special educational need that might be evident in the ‘make up’ of the student group. So this raises the question: what is the answer then? Perhaps there is no clear answer. Perhaps that is what makes diversity and inclusivity so complex, that all learning needs are not always going to be met. Perhaps the first step is in accepting this and working on ways to improve pedagogy in Higher Education that reflects as many of these potential issues as possible, so that at some stage during the session or the programme, the pedagogy allows all needs to be met. With so many complexities and challenges, it is obvious, then, why so many teachers revert to the tried and tested methods of the formal lecture. If they are offered no support on how to overcome these issues, the default position might be to do what they have always done and the students are the ones who will need to adapt in order to learn the teacher’s method rather than the teacher adapting to meet the students’ methods. In their paper, Tadesse and Gillies do consider several appropriate pedagogies to support and promote quality teaching and one of these is small group instruction to encourage cooperative learning. As previously stated, in many universities, the model is larger lectures and smaller seminars, so potentially it is only in the seminars that such pedagogy can be used effectively. Interestingly, the study by Tadesse and Gillies (2015: 2) quotes AU (2011) and Shulman and Shulman (2004) stating that Attempts to promote quality teaching by imposing expectations on academics are likely to result in a compliance culture which, in turn, could impact negatively on (Au, 2011) the teachers as they felt that they had lost ownership and control over their academic work, compounding their negative feelings about the changes they were expected to embrace (Shulman & Shulman, 2004). Therefore this suggests, then, that the ability to adapt from ‘comfortable’ teaching and learning strategies to more innovative practice needs to come from the individual and a change in their own belief system and their own attitude for it to be effective. A very interesting note in the study by Tadesse and Gillies speaks of how even though the quality of teaching and learning is considered not to have been ignored, these are often seen as not crucial and this is because students’ learning experiences and classroom culture is not necessarily seen as critical for quality learning. With the lecture still be considered as the main form of teaching in Higher Education, this is a problem as it rarely promotes any form of student engagement (particularly if the lecture group is large, as previously stated), thus the

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student is limited in the ability to take part in meaningful discussions that might allow for them to understand how to apply the information they have learnt to new situations and develop the deeper understanding which is expected of them in their assessments and indeed in the working world. Teaching and learning methods are often derived in an instructional manner, which does allow the teacher the opportunity to actually understand why those pedagogies have been created in the first place. For the complex issue of finding the most appropriate methods of teaching Chinese students, it would seem then there is no such solution, but instead the individual teacher’s ability to adapt and develop appropriate pedagogy. It could be said that this is what makes a good quality teacher and therefore the institution’s role within this complex issue is to offer ways in which the teachers have the space and time to develop new innovative pedagogies, to be able to work collaboratively with colleagues internally and externally to share stories and methods.

Typical models of teaching and learning in Higher Education As previously stated, most Higher Education programmes are designed around the lecture and seminar format as the main method of teaching and learning. However, in recent times the shift has been towards blended learning, which is a mixture of the traditional teaching methods with a form of online computer-based learning. Obviously, in response to the move towards technology and the rise of the use of technology in the workplace, arguably, therefore, by not using technology in some form in the classroom, this potentially means that an education provider is not ensuring that the students are work-ready and able to develop transferable skills on their study programmes. The increase in technology-based programmes in the workplace has led to this element of academia as being essential to the future student. This element also widens access for a range of diverse student groups who are not following the traditional route of higher education after A Levels, for example. Instead, they can be senior managers who have worked their way to this position in engineering and on the strength of their work experience, who may already have formal qualifications in that industry but now need to gain further knowledge by undertaking a business related programme to underpin their activities in the workplace. This might call for them to still maintain their position in their company whilst studying for a degree part time and often they can be in another country. This has led to universities needing to meet these

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demands and adapt their teaching and learning methods to be more flexible to accommodate these needs. With the rise in tuition fees in the UK, students have high expectations of their degree programmes and as such are requesting that there is material for them to access outside their formal lessons. The diverse nature of the future student means that there are complexities in terms of fitting their studies around their lives, which may include work, children or caring for others. However, online learning is not a new concept, with the Open University being the main provider of such learning for several decades. It is only now, however, that other HEIs are considering the impact of these students and institutions have started utilising a variety of methods in order to meet the challenges that these pose.

Traditional lecture and seminars There appear to be limited observations in the literature on whether the traditional lecture and seminar are still the most appropriate methods for Higher Education teaching; however, one article by Casteel and Bridges in 2007 discusses using a seminar approach for small groups of students that is predominantly student-led. The article relates to a study undertaken by Casteel and Bridges upon the effectiveness of this method, with the results suggesting that the student satisfaction level was high. With an emphasis on the use of active learning and encouraging collaborative learning, Casteel and Bridges discussing replacing the traditional lecture with these discussion-led seminars, stating that they promote critical thinking and memorisation of the course material. What Casteel and Bridges suggest that makes his study unique is the widespread ability of the method, alongside the student-led element, in which the students would choose the reading material and lead discussions. An older study by James (1992), while referring to younger students, does offer some interesting aspects to this discussion. The study started by collecting learning style data from the students and those students who were shown to have preferences for working alone and those who preferred to work in groups were selected and tested. The results of this initial test provided evidence that the students with a strong preference for working alone achieved higher test results than the students who demonstrated a stronger preference for working in a group. However, further observations and testing were then conducted on whether the students preferred studying alone or in groups, with the students given the option of which method they would prefer, and this time, there was no significantly higher achievement in the result. This American study from 1992 suggests that students are instructed via

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lectures and competitive testing, with the students required to be passive, silent and isolated, which is not too dissimilar to what has been suggested as the Chinese method of teaching and learning. However, as Casteel and Bridges’ study suggests, the more traditional methods of teaching and learning have come a long way. James further suggests that these methods of teaching and learning do not allow the instructors to gather any information on the characteristics of the learners. This therefore suggests nothing surrounding the individual learning styles or about the students who do learn best through traditional teaching practices. The study by James does give an insight, however, into the first studies surrounding this issue and the potential advent of the ‘cooperative learning method’. The emphasis in modern teaching is centred on understanding the individual needs of the students in the classroom, but this does still raise the question of how this is possible in a traditional lecture theatre of 300+ students. However, in a smaller grouping, such as the seminar suggested by Casteel and Bridges, it is evident how this could be possible. Other questions that are raised from this are whether the teachers have the appropriate training and understanding to actually adapt their lessons to meet these needs. Applying differentiation to the classroom is something that primary and secondary teachers have to do, in order to promote an inclusive teaching and learning environment. However, the Higher Education lecturer is not under such pressure as it is considered something that the support roles within the university will take care of. This is controversial indeed with many university lecturers: surely it is dismissive does not ensure all teaching and learning needs are met. But the evidence is there: observations from classes, and discussions with students and teachers suggests that the lecture and seminar are here to stay despite all the studies, articles and evidence that they are not always the best teaching and learning methods, particularly in the international classroom, otherwise there would no need for this book or all the studies discussed here. Acceptance of this is perhaps the first step that an institution can take in order to do something about the challenges and issues that have been raised many times by many institutions. The internationalisation focus of the HEA provides clear evidence that help and support is needed in this area. The elephant in the room is often the Chinese student, with the institution and staff not wanting to admit that this particular group of students is indeed the most challenging, especially when they arrive together in large groups through the many partnerships that have been made between western and Chinese universities. Frightened of being accused of potential prejudice, often they hide behind suggestions that all

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international students are challenging, which potentially they are, but the differences between the language and culture of other international students with UK or American institutions are still far smaller than the differences between the culture and language differences of the Chinese students with UK or American institutions.

Blended Learning Online learning has both advantages and disadvantages. In some instances, it can allow students to learn at their own pace with access to teaching materials and other resources available outside ‘normal’ class time. Often, when teaching international students or students who are in another country, emails from these students can be read at 2am, so being able to access these materials could be crucial to their overall achievement on the course. One major drawback is the lack of face to face time with the teacher and with other students, and arguably this is when a lot of the critical debate takes place. Often the analysis and evaluation is evident in these debates and the student is able to access ideas, opinions and innovations that they perhaps might not have when they are working in isolation. The limited ability to have face to face debates is a concern for the group work element of any degree programme. However, technology has advanced to allow the use of Skype – which enables people to have a face to face conversation over the internet – and these sessions can also be made into group Skype calls to overcome the face to face aspect of group work and discussions. However, this does not make up for the arguably more natural way of opening up a debate in a face to face discussion and this aspect is what makes blended learning such a useful option within new teaching and learning methods. Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are a useful way of conducting blended learning when it is used effectively. Oliver and Trigwell (2005) argue against the use of blended learning and the mix of face to face with online, stating that it is potentially problematic and suggesting that actually it is not blended learning as the term is misguided; it is actually more a form of instruction and pedagogy. Oliver and Trigwell attempt to dismiss the word ‘learning’ from the definition and the need for further work in this area. This article was written ten years ago and there has been movement in this area, more so in recent years. What Oliver and Trigwell (2005: 17) clearly state is that the term is ill-defined and includes some definitions such as: x the integrated combination of traditional learning with web-based online approaches (drawing on the work of Harrison);

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x the combination of media and tools employed in an e-learning environment; and x the combination of a number of pedagogic approaches, irrespective of the use of learning technology (drawing on the work of Driscoll). What they are suggesting is that the definitions are different due to blended learning meaning different things to different people (citing Driscoll 2002), with further analysis from Hoffman (2001) in Oliver and Trigwell stating that blended learning is about taking a module, breaking it into chunks and then deciding on the best medium for delivery. This is not too dissimilar to any teaching and learning, and arguably is more than just about finding the most appropriate method for engaging the learners and getting the information across in the most effective way in order to promote learning. What these articles and studies do suggest is that the teacher has the task of engaging the learners by the ‘best’ means and if that is in a traditional lecture with questions after the session (as with the traditional Chinese method), then the question raised would be, why should this be a problem? Rather than the Chinese students having to adapt to the western methods, surely by this argument, the teacher should adapt to the class in front of them. In Oliver and Trigwell’s article, they state that all the discussions at that time related to the perspective of the teacher, the instructor or the course designer. What they are trying to suggest is that blended learning is an ambiguous term as it denotes any mix of learning method as blended and this is often how this term is now recognised. In 2015, the term relates to a mix of e-learning and traditional methods. Here again, the understanding and perceptions of what this means can be confusing. As e-learning can mean any form of information and communications technologies, this causes quite an issue with the Chinese student. If the understanding that the use of technology is useful and a necessary part of the programme of study, it can be easy for them to become confused, as on one hand, we are saying that they need to use the internet but on the other, we are saying please do not use inappropriate sources and plagiarise. It is easy to see how they can become confused; what is necessary is that the teacher or instructor has to be clear on what they perceive to be blended learning within their module or programme and they then have to effectively transfer this information to the student group clearly in order for them to make appropriate use of any e-learning. However, an interesting point that Oliver and Trigwell do make is that although the definitions of what constitutes blended learning is somewhat lacking in clarity, there is not clear definition of what constitutes a traditional lecture either, and, arguably, if a new teacher starts their career whilst utilising this mix of methods, then this could be deemed as their

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traditional teaching method. The more modern definition, therefore, as previously stated on the mix of face to face with traditional lectures and seminars, does appear to be the common perception of what blended learning actually is. From a teacher’s perspective, if they are a more experienced teacher and have had many years in the profession, to suddenly have to alter what they have done and known for most of their career is very difficult. Similar to changing culture within an organisation, Meier et al (2013) refer to resistance to change, especially with regard to the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in organisations, suggesting that most ICT introduction tends to have a large amount of influence on the working practices and business environment. Meier et al further state that many employees might happily accept change in relation to technology, but reject the use of technical tools. Analysing the factors in the resistance to this change is important to understand what makes employees object to using such technical tools. The same can be said for teachers; after all, they are also employees and although not adverse to technological advancements and changes, they might have further underlying barriers to introducing technology into the curriculum design, and indeed, the teaching and assessment methods. Implementing organisational change and the challenges that goes with this has been a ‘hot’ topic for decades and is often a choice of many undergraduate business dissertations. Many models and studies have been undertaken with a variety of recommendations for different industrial sectors; however, there seems to be a limited amount of literature that deals directly with higher education teaching and the barriers to change, the impact that this has on the teaching staff and subsequently the impact on the students. Yet at the same time, the staff expect the students to enter the classroom and accept potential change, such as the Chinese learner entering the western lecture theatre. The reluctance to change from any organisational perspective, therefore, despite the industry, has commonalities. Rather than acceptance of technological change (it appears that this is something most employees are willing to accept), such commonalities could relate to the use of technology which may cause the biggest barrier. Marshall (2010) asks the question in his paper of whether higher education facilities are actually capable of change. The use of technology in universities has allowed for a much more flexible method of learning, and, arguably, has allowed for saving costs, so senior managers are keen to utilise blended learning patterns in their study programmes. However, this does leave them with a large responsibility to ensure that there is an equal balance between technological, administrative and academic concerns. Universities are

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mostly large organisations; therefore, any change is complex and not necessarily the same across the establishment. Leaders therefore have a responsibility to manage change, especially in education, as it can impact both positively and negatively on the students and the quality of the teaching and learning. Changes in universities due to technology have advanced over the past decade, but not to the extent that the more traditional methods have been replaced. This has instead been a much slower process, with many initial changes being more administrative than academic. For example, electronic registers have replaced the teacher checking to see if the student is in attendance. There are electronic marking systems with plagiarism programmes such as turnitin, and the ability to then mark online, save all work to a central repository and potentially increase the effectiveness of student feedback. Using Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) to store lecture notes, set activities and create online group discussions has perhaps been the most academic change in universities. What works in one area may not be successful in another; it does all depend on the topic studied. However, what is obvious is the move to technology of the students taking the courses. The expectation from students has shifted from receiving paper handouts to having an electronic ‘bank’ that will keep all of the lecture and seminar notes for them. Students communicate by technology and arguably this has led to less face to face communication, which is proving even more challenging for the teachers. Chinese students are no different; in fact, some of the technology in China is far more advanced than in the west and therefore they perhaps expect a level of online learning on their degree programmes. Therefore, one solution to the challenges of engaging the Chinese student could be to embrace technology and adapt the classroom for all students but with the intention of overcoming the difficulties that arise from the Chinese student. The teaching staff therefore have to be supported in their ability to utilise elearning and integrate it into their curriculum design effectively. It is the word ‘support’, however, that proves to be the most elusive. Many conversations and informal focus groups across many institutions have succeeded in terms of the generalisation that many organisations suggest that they train and support staff to use technology, but the reality on the ‘ground level’ is that this training and support is inadequate. If the teachers were to use such methods, then, to aid in overcoming the challenges they face when teaching Chinese students, they need the correct support mechanisms in place to be able to develop such methods.

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Curriculum and assessment design The importance of recruiting and retaining these students is high on the agenda across UK institutions as they are mostly from China’s middle classes and can afford to pay full tuition fees. With the pressures facing UK universities in recent years due to austerity and the funding cuts that have impacted upon several groups, this widening of the market to encourage more international students to study in the UK is certainly seeing an increase in the numbers of Chinese students arriving to study on a much broader range of programmes. In the past, these students have opted to study business-related degrees, but now there appears to be a shift with some opting to study more vocational courses such as fashion design and media. Since the first ‘waves’ of Chinese students, there have already been changes to their attitudes to learning and this puts more pressure on the teacher who has to first have an understanding of the challenges, cultural background and language issues of this group, but also the fact that they are now adapting their own attitudes and developing their culture – not an easy task. Bartlett and Fischer (2011) refer further to the issue of aggressive recruiting of these students by agents, especially in the UK and the US. With so many universities and institutions competing to secure these students’ registration at their campuses, the competition has perhaps led to questionable recruitment policies. Despite the student having to complete an entry task, it is still difficult for the teacher to know whether this entry task has been completed by the student. Even though in the UK there is the English language test to complete prior to entry onto a degree programme, UK institutions often create these themselves and test the students themselves, which puts the teachers in the position of potentially having students in their classes who have a very low score (borderline) but don’t have a continuation of English classes; or if the student becomes very isolated and reverts to mostly speaking Chinese, they can soon ‘lose’ their English speaking skills, particularly if the curriculum is not adapted to overcome some of these potential problems. If the class sizes are large and the teachers have no choice but to lecture, only then it is impossible to know exactly how much the student has actually understood. Now there is an argument here that this is the same for all students, regardless of nationality, but with an English born student or even a European student, they can at least adapt mostly to the language and then research further in their own time in order to ensure that they understand what has been said. The Chinese student without further support or knowledge of how English educational systems work might find that they struggle to translate often very technical language. Even with smaller seminar groups, if the teacher

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is unaware of the cultural background of the Chinese student and struggles to engage the class, again, it raises the question of just how much has been understood. Those with limited English or borderline scores will find it a struggle to keep up with classroom discussions, making it necessary for teachers to alter how they construct a class and how they teach. An interesting comment by Bartlett and Fischer is that the Chinese student will study hard to pass the tests that are a requirement for their entry to a university; they will study by memorising large amounts of definitions, responses to questions and shortcuts to guessing the answer, but they are studying for a test and not really learning English. This therefore suggests that the English language test is merely a study task and is not about actually learning the language. Another controversial point in Bartlett and Fischer’s paper comes from Scott Stevens, Director of the English Language Institute in the US, who states that: We’re well aware that the Chinese are raised on propaganda, and the U.S. is not portrayed very positively. If you’ve been raised on that for the first 18 years of your life, when it comes down to who they trust – they trust each other. They don’t particularly trust us.

It states that Chinese students tend to ‘stick’ together and even when they are placed with Americans in their halls of residence, they often pay to live off campus and with other Chinese students, choosing to segregate themselves. Students also regularly choose to switch the seminar groups that they have been assigned to, so that they can all be together. This, along with technology, has led to a ‘mini’ revolution in terms of curriculum design, lesson planning and assessment strategy. Teachers are having to adapt their classes in such a way that it is not always beneficial to any group of students. Observations from teachers suggest that some of them required students to deliver up to three presentations in their module in an academic year, but this has now been cut to one due to the difficulty of managing a diverse group of students, with home students complaining that watching the Chinese students’ presentations was ‘painful’ and they struggled to understand what they were saying (Bartlett and Fischer, 2011). These adaptations have taken place across the UK in much the same way, with a limited amount of teacher support to make these changes. Instead, only recently have universities recognised the need to provide extra support to staff in order to make effective changes to curriculum planning and design.

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The UK professional standards framework (UKPSF) provides guidance for teaching and learning at the higher education level. The UKPSF is aligned with the HEA and provides a foundation regarding what a teacher in higher education should be doing in order for them to provide excellence in teaching and learning. The descriptors range from 1 (an early career teacher) through to 4 (a more experienced academic). The UKPSF is designed to ensure that all teachers are meeting professional benchmarks and continuously developing. However, none of this actually discusses how new or indeed more experienced teachers can develop in order to teach the Chinese student. There are many discussions and forums on what the issues are; however, extensive searches through many journal banks, the internet and other sources demonstrate that any practical guidance on teaching large groups of Chinese students is indeed limited, and instead the majority of the articles and studies appear to gather research on the challenges or on one small element of the large array of challenges presented in this book.

Summary The discussion on the methods that higher education teachers use within their classrooms and what support is available for them to be able to ensure the effectiveness of these methods is a decades-old one. No formal teaching qualifications are necessary for higher education lecturers; however, more current observations and research suggest that universities in the UK are looking more favourably on those who do have a teaching qualification. They are recruiting based on the usual criteria of a master’s degree or a PhD, but also the need to have a teaching qualification or the willingness to partake in teacher training. Arguably, teachers do rely on traditional practice and conventions, and any changes which are made to these must come from the teacher themselves, from their beliefs and attitudes. It is important for them to undertake self-study, and when teaching, to consider how they move around the classroom, how they use their voice, and their ability to explain clearly and in a way that the whole group understands. This awareness is not something that all teachers have; new or old, often teachers of Chinese student groups find them demanding and this causes stress. What is apparent is that teachers are developing their own method, which is a good thing, but there is a concern that they are developing two methods: one for Chinese students and one for other student groups. The concern is the fear of being deemed discriminatory. Therefore there is no commonality or consistency amongst these methods, although the problems raised do share commonalities. Standards are a

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further concern, if teachers are developing their own methods and marking the Chinese students’ work differently to that of other students. However, what is very clear is that teachers feel that there needs to be more support in place for the many changes that are occurring in higher education, and those smaller groups of students allow them to facilitate those changes more effectively.

References Bartlett, T. and Fischer, K. (2011) Big influx of Chinese students proves tricky fit for U.S. colleges. Chronicle of Higher Education. (58) 12. Berman, S. (1993) Irving J. Lee: A teacher for our times. Et Cetera. Birk (1996) What’s so bad about the lecture? The Harvard Education Letter. Casteel, M., and Bridges, K. (2007) Goodbye lecture: A student-led seminar approach for teaching upper division courses. Teaching of Psychology 34 (2) 107-110. Cronbach, L.J. (1986) Social inquiry by and for earthlings. In D.W. Fiske and R.A. Shweder (eds.). Metatheory in social science. P83-107 Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Fallon, G., and R. Brown. 1999. What about the workers? Academic staff opinions about working with non-UK postgraduate students in higher education. Journal of further and higher education 23, no. 1:41-52. Foster, D., and Stapleton, D. (2012) Understanding Chinese students learning needs in Western business classrooms. International journal of teaching and learning in higher education. Vol 24 No. 3 P301-313. Gribble, K., and C. Zigueas. 2003. Learning to teach offshore: Predeparture training for lecturers in trans-national programmes. Higher Education Research and Development 22, no. 2:205-16. Haxton, K. (2010) Endless Possibilities online. Available at http://www.possibilitiesendless.com/2010/04/lecturer-vs-teacher/ Accessed 11th June 2015. Holmes, P. (2005) Negotiating differences in learning and intercultural communication: ethnic Chinese students in a New Zealand University. Business Communication quarterly. Vol 67 No. 3. September 2004. P294 – 307. Kosala N., Marambe K.N., Vermunt J.D., and Boshuizen H.P. (2011) A cross-cultural comparison of student learning patterns in higher education. Higher Education (Springer 2012). 64: P299-316.

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Louie B., Drevdahl D., Purdy J., and Stackman R. (2003). Advancing the scholarship of teaching through collaborative self-study. The journal of higher education. (74) 2. 150-171 Marshall, S. (2010) Change, Technology and Higher Education: Are universities capable of organisational change? Research in Learning Technology. 18(3) 22-34. Meier R., Ben E., and Schuppan T. (2013) ICT-enabled public sector organisational transformation: Factors constituting resistance to change. Information policy: IOS Press (18) 315-329. Oliver M., and Trigwell K. (2005) Can ‘blended learning’ be redeemed? E-Learning. 2(1) 17-26. Rust, C. (2000) Do initial training courses have an impact on university teaching? The evidence from two evaluative studies of one course. Innovation in Education and Training International. Oxford Brookes. 254-262. Sahlber, P., and Oldroyd, D. (2010) Pedagogy for economic competitiveness and sustainable development. European Journal of Education. 45 (2) 280-299. Scott, C. (2010) The enduring appeal of ‘learning styles’. Australian journal of education. Vol 54 No.1 P5-17. Simonton, D. 1988. Scientific Genius: A Psychology of Science. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tadesse, T., and Gillies, R. (2015) Nurturing Cooperative Learning Pedagogies in Higher Education Classrooms: Evidence of Instructional Reform and Potential Challenges. Current Issues in Education. 18 (2) 1-17. Trowler, P., and Bamber, R. (2005) Compulsory Higher Education Teacher Training: Joined-up Policies, Institutional Architectures and Enhancement Cultures. Lancaster University. Wallace, J. (1992) Do students who prefer to learn alone achieve better than students who prefer to learn with peers. US Department of Education: ERIC 2-19.

CHAPTER SIX PRACTICAL EXAMPLE OF APPROPRIATE PEDAGOGY

Introduction This chapter starts with literature which examines and explores the most appropriate teaching and learning methods for the Chinese learner. From the research so far in this book, it would appear that this area is severely limited and alludes to stereotypes of the type of learner that the Chinese student is, and these stereotypes are based upon perceptions made by western teachers and their often limited knowledge of Chinese history and culture. However, what has been ascertained is that the literature does not break down the particular elements of culture and language in fine detail or the attitudes to learning and preferred learning styles that this book has attempted to explore. This chapter of the book therefore discusses and debates the primary research pilot study presented in the introductory chapter, which investigates and researches the issues related to perceptions of the Chinese student from both the students’ and the teachers’ points of view. This pilot study involved two stages. The first stage represents data that was collected from the Chinese students, attempting to find commonalities in what their preferred method to teaching and learning is. The analysis of this can be found below. This stage also attempted to collect data from the teachers on what they found to be the main issues when teaching Chinese students, and comparisons and analyses of this data have been made throughout this book. This data was triangulated in order to provide a set of commonalities, and from this, some practical methods of teaching and learning which could be tested. The overall aim was to engage Chinese students with the knowledge being transmitted, which could then be tested further in a larger research project to ascertain whether there is an increase in the grade profiles of the Chinese students. Despite these ‘tests’ being fairly limited in terms of the size of the sample that was ‘tested’ (a pilot study), they do provide a platform that is reliable so that any research in this area can be taken further, and coupled with the literature from other studies into any secondary research area, this could

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create some recommendations. Therefore this chapter is broken into those sections, examining the literature and other appropriate methods first, and then giving an explanation of the methods created in the primary research project.

Part one – Primary project – the gathering of information This part, as previously stated, refers to the questionnaires that were used initially to gather information about both the student’s and teacher’s perspective on what the problems and challenges are. Questionnaires were used despite having a range of benefits and disadvantages: they can contain open ended and closed ended questions, or a mixture of both. They can be an efficient way of collecting facts and can be used to gather information about people’s opinions. They can contain quantifiable data or content analysis of written responses. However, the questions can contain ambiguity or bias with questions specifically designed to gather the desired response. Responses can be static and not allow for flow and social interaction. However, a questionnaire was considered to be the most appropriate way to gather a large amount of data within a relatively short space of time and to allow for anonymous responses. This gives the respondents, in this case, students and teaching staff, the ability to answer in a free and honest manner, something that is particularly important for the Chinese student who may have found it difficult to be honest if another method was used due to the issues of respect (as previously discussed by Neuby (n.d.) and embedded in the work of Confucius) and not wanting to disagree with the teacher. This initial gathering of data was used, as previously stated, to inform further data gathering of a much deeper qualitative level in part two of the primary research project. The purpose of the data gathering is to find the best teaching and learning methods for the Chinese learner. This is to allow for the creation of a teaching and learning method that can be used universally to gain optimal results in terms of the academic and social engagement for the student, and for the teacher to feel that they are doing the best they can. With regard to the students, the questionnaire is designed to gather their perspectives on what they like or dislike about their time studying in the UK and then to identify any trends or patterns amongst the data. From the teachers’ perspective, the questionnaire is designed to gather data on what they feel may be the difficulties in teaching and learning for the Chinese student, and, once again, identify

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trends and patterns. Both sets of data will then be compared to further identify correlations between the two. The key purpose of the questionnaire will be to investigate the elements of language and culture of the Chinese student as these appear to cause the most problems (see chapters 2 and 3) and to consider any barriers to teaching and learning because of these elements. The teaching model which will be created from this will aim to overcome some or all of these barriers. Generic questions are used first such as age, sex and programme of study in order to identify any patterns here, as any of these variables could give a different set of results. The second sets of questions are more specific and aimed at gathering qualitative data.

Reasons for choosing questions on the student’s questionnaire The question on whether the teacher speaks too fast or slow is important (the full questionnaire can be found in appendix 1), as pace within the class could have an impact on teaching and learning. The literature and discussions in previous chapters have identified that if the teacher is speaking too fast, the Chinese student may not have time to digest the information and translate it. This may impact on their understanding of what is being said. This question, therefore, is to gather primary research to provide more validity to this observation. Furthermore, if the teacher asks a question, if they are speaking too fast, they may not allow enough time for this process and then for the student to be able to think of an answer, translate it back in their minds and then speak the answer. Speaking too slow may also be a problem: if the teacher is speaking too slowly, the Chinese student may possibly feel demeaned or become bored and disengaged. This could also have a negative impact if the group is mixed-nationality and the students whose first language is English may also become bored and disengaged or frustrated. This links in with the question regarding the language and whether the student understands what is being said; this could cause problems with engaging the student, but also with their level of understanding of the topic area. The aspect of tone (Denton, 2008, Liu et al, 2011 and Kenman, 2007) is an important question to ask as it relates to the Chinese language being a tonal one and the investigation into whether the tone of the teacher’s voice impacts on the understanding for the Chinese student. The question on what kind of teaching and learning method the Chinese student prefers relates to the investigation into whether they prefer more visual learning methods. Learning styles are an important aspect for any teacher to consider, no matter who the student is, and whether the learners are visual, audio or

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kinaesthetic learners can affect the teaching and learning strategies used. This could be particularly important for Chinese students who traditionally use a visual learning style (Matthew and Alidmat, 2013). Questions were also chosen in order to investigate whether they relied heavily on technology in class in order to translate various things. This presents an issue that relates to the other topic areas, because if they have to translate words during class and the teacher is perhaps delivering at a fairly fast pace, perhaps the Chinese students are being left behind and they will therefore lack deeper understanding of the topic. It is important to choose questions that address the opinions of the Chinese student on what makes a good lesson, as these results may give a better insight into the perception of the Chinese student and would not just be a biased opinion from the researcher or the teacher. This is then coupled with a question on what made the lesson enjoyable in the hope of pinpointing a particular aspect. This also connects nicely with the question on what makes a lesson difficult, whether it is the content, as this could link into cultural difficulties with a particular topic – for example, a study on religion – or whether again it is a language issue. Finally, it was decided that questions would be asked relating to the size of the group when learning, as this may impact on engagement.

Reasons for choosing questions on the teacher’s questionnaire It was difficult to decide on questions for the teachers (full questionnaire can be found in appendix 2) as it could perhaps contain ambiguity or bias, so the questions were chosen very carefully. Firstly, the question of how successful the teacher felt when teaching Chinese students was chosen in order to gain an understanding of how the teachers felt when teaching this particular group. This links in with the question on whether the assessment method affects the success rate, because if the students are doing presentations or closed book exams and they are having difficulty with the language and having to translate, then perhaps these methods will produce weaker results for these students. Furthermore, it was felt that it was important to gain an understanding about whether having Chinese students in the class meant that the teacher made allowances for this in their teaching methods or marking strategies. Whether or not the students are engaged in class has a major impact on their teaching and learning experience, so this question was chosen to find out if the teacher felt that they engaged the Chinese student and how they did this. By asking them to comment on a successful lecture or seminar and identifying the method, this information is then compared with what the Chinese students stated on

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their questionnaires. It was important to understand if the teacher had a preferred method and whether or not having to change or adapt this for the Chinese students made the teacher move out of their ‘comfort zone’ and usual teaching conventions. If something is not working and the method needs to be changed during a session, whether the teacher changes tactics or not could also produce results that would correlate with whether the Chinese student has understood or not.

Justification of methods The mixture of open and closed questions is necessary as it was important to gather the generic quantifiable data in order to analyse and inform further research, and the qualitative more open questions in order to gather honest opinions. It is hoped this led to the results emerging and that it was not leading.

Design Both questionnaires were designed to be as short and as simple as possible in order to encourage more responses. Any overly long or complicated ones would not gather the right results, for if the problem is due to language and culture, the very nature of a long questionnaire is going to prove problematic. The questionnaires were given a title and a short explanation of what they were going to be used for was given. This was done in a very simple format for the Chinese student to ensure complete understanding. A mix of fonts was used, with Arial for the general information and italics for the instructions, in order for them to stand out. Questions were in bold for the same reasons and the questions were grouped together in a logical order, with similar topic areas together. A mixture of methods was used, with some being closed questions, some ranking and some open, in the hope of gathering as much useful qualitative data as possible in order to inform the deeper research methods to be used later.

Findings from initial primary research The results of the questionnaires were both informative and interesting and produced evidence to pursue further primary research into this topic. Both the student and teacher questionnaires raised interesting points: the majority of students confirmed that they preferred to be taught by games and activities or problem solving, which does support earlier discussions.

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Comments on why they preferred this method were: I think use game or activity can get good memory, and can make student to get knowledge easily. This way can enhance student interest. Other comments made were copied here (still containing the grammatical errors): the game can active our interesting we would like teach in that way. the same as video also could stimulate our interests to learn. Demonstration is better way for us, if you give some example it is help for us to remember and understand. Is drawing like the pictrue? if you do that and example it. it will be very good for me! and discussing and PPT probably the same important. actually PPT and model sometimes help the guys who did not come to class. but, it is difficult for them. because they could not really know the key point.

Other results from the preliminary research were that they preferred the demonstration method and this ‘fits’ nicely into the justifications for games and activities. This led to the need for further research into whether this was an appropriate teaching and learning method. Further justification for the game activity created in the next stage of the research came from the many comments which referred to one of the key difficulties being the use of difficult academic terms and then not being able to remember these or what they mean.

Part Two – New research method as a result of the preliminary findings (more discussion on this later) The results from the first part of the research led the way for new research in the form of the practical testing of a particular teaching method. This resulted in the creation of a game to be used on a group of Chinese students who were relatively new to the UK. It was considered necessary for the group to be new in order to achieve the most valid and reliable data; a group of students who had resided in the UK for a longer period of time may have contaminated the results as they would have had more experience of UK teaching methods. The practical test in the form of a game was borne from the primary and secondary research, and the game followed certain rules that aimed to engage the learners but also to educate them. The topic area for the test was always going to be a difficult one. However, again, this was intentional as it allowed for more valid and reliable data on whether this particular teaching tool has any worth.

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The topic chosen for the testing was therefore research skills and attempting to teach the Chinese student the key terms used within methodology. The first thing to overcome is the understanding of the key terms. The secondary data and the initial primary research already confirmed that the language barrier created problems in the classroom, so in order to deal with this issue the game was started with an exercise on defining the key terms. This part of the game is visual; as previously discovered, the Chinese culture and language is visual and the language pictorial, so this would meet these issues ‘head on’. The second part of the game aims to give a clearer understanding of what the words mean and how they ‘fit’ together to form the methodology. This section involved some ‘jigsaw’ elements that, coupled with the visuals, enable the students to identify easily where each section should go. With the Chinese students’ learning style of memorisation, this enables them to remember in the future, plus it allowed for some demonstration, which the first primary research element suggested was a preferred method. The activity is designed as a pack of cards with two pictures on the front which have dashes underneath, representing letters for the word they must define. The jigsaw element is in the form of a poster that can be pinned to a wall and then the cards are pinned to the poster in the correct place. With the right technology, this can be turned into an application that can be downloaded, or it can remain an in class group activity. It could potentially be multipurpose, as a teaching tool in class and as a distance learning application. The final part of the activities include a board game, the aim of which is to give the students a small game task that will to enable and encourage the analysis and evaluation of research methods and how they work in practice. This part of the task has to be more academic due to the nature of the topic and the level of study, and contains an example of a research question for which they must then create an appropriate methodology framework (further information and discussion on these can be found with pictures below).

Literature and other studies on the practical ways in which to engage the Chinese student in learning As stated previously, before the activities used in the primary research project were introduced, it was useful to discuss and explore the research from other studies that were attempting to do the same thing. Edwards (2006) refers to a list of recommendations from a study into the teaching and learning of Chinese students; however, despite these recommendations,

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there remain many special interest groups (SIG) which research into the best ways to teach this particular group of students, with the recent SIG created by the HEA (2012) suggesting that the issues cannot be simply dealt with using a list of recommendations, giving further validity to the need for more in-depth research into this topic area. Edwards (2006) does raise some interesting and valuable points: firstly, a recommendation that universities in the UK should put provisions in place to address the Confucian heritage and the problems that this can bring in terms of the specific needs of the Chinese student, which could raise interesting questions as to how the Chinese student is expected to engage in critical debate within the classroom when their basic emotional adjustment needs are not being met. Edwards (2006) further refers to the need for both the British and Chinese to develop a conscious awareness of the differences that can lead to cross-cultural misunderstandings. This point in particular appears to emphasise the need for teachers to undergo training in Confucianism and the cultural differences between the UK and China in order to develop a deeper understanding of why the Chinese learner may perhaps lack the willingness to engage in academic debate. Once again, this is a point that is certainly worthy of investigation in order to ascertain if this is a true reflection of the teacher’s difficulties when teaching Chinese students. An important aspect to this study of Edwards’ (2006) findings is in the academic recommendations, suggesting that both the Chinese student and the British teacher need to have a clear understanding of the different learning styles on each side. The Chinese style of rote and imitation through repetition as opposed to the British style of critical analysis and evaluation causes problems within the classroom and indeed with regard to the achievement of Chinese students. Edwards (2006) therefore suggests modelling as a teaching strategy to aid the transition from the Chinese method to the western style. Certainly worthy of further research, this is supported by Edwards’ (2006) comments on group work, which suggest that the Chinese students are wary of group work and do not understand the purpose, therefore the emphasis here is on a good teacher who is able to explain this clearly. Activities are perhaps a good way to engage the students but not necessarily about topics such as learning, deeper knowledge and understanding if the teacher is unable to express the reasons for the activities. Perhaps the most important aspect of Edwards’ (2006) study is the statement that the Chinese student cannot be treated in the same manner as the native speaker, and that universities have a responsibility to respond to the differing needs of its students and not expect them to ‘fit’ into their own structures. This aspect, however, is not

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answered in Edwards’ (2006) study as it is difficult to determine what adaptations need to be made. However, the literature is very limited in the discussion of modelling as a teaching and learning strategy, therefore finding effective discussions on this is difficult and does not have the impact required so as to apply to the Chinese students. However, issues of learning styles and the appropriate method for the Chinese student are worthy of further debate.

Learning styles (modelling) Li (2012) refers to the British style of teaching as being student-centred and conducted a study at the University of Nottingham’s Chinese campus into the British methods of teaching and learning and the impact that these have had on the Chinese students in Ningbo, China. There is a paucity of research into learning styles and the preferred methods of a variety of different students. There is a lack of data based on many demographics, examining kinaesthetic, audio and visual learners. There are also many conflicting accounts of the preferred learning style of Chinese learners; for example, in a study by Peacock (2001) in Li (2012), the results demonstrated that the students preferred the kinaesthetic and tactile style of teaching and learning but despised the group method, again supported by Melton (1990) in Li (2012) who surveyed students in Chinese universities who identified that they disfavoured groups style teaching and learning. Li (2012) does present an interesting case study as the students in the Chinese University of Nottingham also stated that they disliked the group style, suggesting that culture is a factor in the preferred method of this nationality: regardless of whether they are learning in their own country or in a western university, they are still quite clear about which method they prefer when being taught in English and using English methods. Another interesting study by Chiou and Yang (2006) examined the modelling advantage that technical teachers have as opposed to lecturers. Technical teachers are defined here as those demonstrating practical skills, and as the lecturers who are responsible for illustrating the underlying theories and principles of those skills, and again, this also fits with the primary research project stating that the students preferred demonstrations and practical teaching and learning methods. In Chiou and Yang, they refer to Bandura (1977 and 1986) who suggested that learning often takes place through a process called modelling or observational learning. According to Bandura, modelling therefore relates to learning through which individuals learn behaviour, attitudes, values and beliefs from observing others and the consequences of others’ actions. In an

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educational context, teachers are an important role model in the students’ learning and the students model therefore themselves on the teacher. They model themselves on them if they feel that the teacher is recognised as a role model and this can have an impact on the student through social learning. Thus the model of teaching and learning by the teacher can have a significant impact on the learning style of the student. If this is applied to the Chinese student in western universities, the teaching method favoured by the teacher becomes very important. Modelling as a teaching and learning method is as complex with the Chinese student as in western universities. As Nield (2009) stated in a study at Sheffield Hallam University, UK learning styles are a major issue in education and western teachers are encouraged to adapt their teaching method to the students’ varying learning styles. If this is the case, then the teacher needs to be adaptable and flexible and able to create the optimum teaching methods to be able to do this. For the Chinese student, this constant changing could be confusing if compared to the methods that they are used to from their home country. What Nield’s study concerns itself with is that these learning styles as broad concepts could lead to national stereotyping and therefore inappropriate teaching and learning strategies. Nield used the work of Honey and Mumford in this particular study to apply to the Chinese learner. Nield’s study also found that the recurring theme in terms of the learning style of the Chinese student was one of a reflector, and that this indeed lent itself to the teachings and beliefs of the Confucian model found in their culture and heritage. Most interesting is that the research here clearly shows that the preferred learning style does not fit into any of the theory from Honey and Mumford, but it does show clear links with the activist style, followed by reflector and then pragmatist. What the research throughout this whole book has demonstrated is that this learner prefers the more active style of teaching and learning which does go against the stereotype of what is stated by many studies, as found in the earlier chapters. Even more interesting is that in this study, it was found that the students did indeed actually enjoy group work and group activities and that in this situation they were less likely to embarrass themselves by asking questions that were less than intelligent. In a group, collective situation, they could work together and they therefore did not have to ask questions individually that might make them ‘lose face’.

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The use of games and gaming Another element worthy of research is the use of game play within lessons to encourage socialisation, team work and engagement. However, again, arguably this may not be restricted to Chinese students; perhaps many English students would not enjoy this either. Franklin et al (2003) refer to the necessity to use a variety of teaching and learning methods to meet the different learning styles of the students. Echoing Yasanari’s (2007) previous comments that the Chinese learner may find it difficult to understand the concepts of the teaching method, the use of innovative teaching methods, such as the use of games, may get ‘lost in translation’. Although the game may be played, the reasons and understanding for the use of such a game in the context of the lesson may not be fully understood by the student, and therefore the game may be viewed as merely that and not a teaching tool. However, Franklin et al (2003) advocate the use of such methods as a means of avoiding repetition and boredom in the classroom, which somewhat contrasts with the preferred learning method of the Chinese, discussed by Cooper (2004), of repetition, rote and memorisation, but it does link to Hains Wesson and performing. Franklin et al (2003) go further to suggest that discussion games enable the group to foster cooperation, supported by McKeachie et al (1990) in Franklin et al (2003), who states that the typical high level of involvement that is associated with such games makes them an effective teaching tool. Furthermore, one of the chief advantages to games, simulations and puzzles in an educational setting is that students are active participants rather than passive observers, making decisions, solving problems and reacting to the results of their decisions (Franklin et al 2003: 1). There is, however, very little literature on the student perception of the usefulness of such games within the classroom and this area is certainly worth pursuing. This line of argument could be taken further and an exploration of whether it is the game that the students do not see as being useful, or it is because the game is not being facilitated by a skilled practitioner. This angle would perhaps aid in the understanding of the difficulty that the teacher has when teaching Chinese learners. Despite the lack of literature, Reuss and Gardulski (2001) in Franklin et al (2003: 1), who used an interactive board game in tertiary first year geology classes, in conjunction with traditional laboratory work, group discussions, etc., report that students rate the game-format course significantly higher than the traditionalformat course, indicating that it is an effective teaching tool. Notably this study was conducted with biology students and there may be some differences in how the games can be used within this context; so what of business studies?

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Azriel et al (2007) examined the effectiveness of using games as part of pedagogy in a business studies context, asking whether the use of the game would make a difference to learning and also to students’ attitudes to learning. Interestingly, Azriel et al (2007) refer to the lack of conclusive evidence of whether games were effective in improving learning and understanding, and that the majority of articles concentrate on the use of computer-based simulations. The games that Franklin et al (2003) refer to are much more simplistic in nature, but as Franklin et al argue, just as effective. McDaniel (1985) in Azriel et al (2005) states that innovation in the teaching methods used by the teacher promotes motivation in the student, and if learning is to occur, then the students must be motivated to learn (Calhoun (1980) in Azriel et al (2005)). A further interesting point raised by Azriel et al (2005) is in the application of Maslow’s (1970) theory of motivation, suggesting that in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humans have high and low level needs that must be satisfied. A low level need must be satisfied before a high level need can be satisfied, and a comfortable and safe classroom environment could be related to student engagement and motivation. Such an environment created by the teacher would lead to quiet and shy students participating because of the satisfaction of the students’ low level needs. What is of particular interest is that Azriel et al (2005) go further to say that this point is particularly relevant within a classroom which is diverse and has a high level of both traditional, non-traditional and international students. Games may encourage participation as the emphasis is on the group finding the answers to the problems rather than the emphasis being on the learner, which certainly fits with the cultural issue of ‘saving face’ amongst the Chinese learners. What can also be taken from this particular study by Azriel et al (2005) is that students participate and engage whilst solving problems based on previously learned facts and information, which fits with Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle theory, and if this is indeed true, then the Chinese learner must draw on their own previously learned facts and information, which as previously stated, comes from a different learning style and culture to that of the Western world. This is certainly worthy of further exploration in primary research. Using games in innovative teaching and learning is not a new concept, gaining popularity in the 1970s and 1980s as an alternative to more traditional methods, and fostering collaborative learning, peer assessment and active learning (Ruben 1999). Research by Harton et al (2002) suggests such methods are effective and provide success. According to Dewey (1994), games not only provide entertainment, they promote

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motivation, enable students to develop skills, abilities and strategies, and present many opportunities for learning.

The use of gaming and gambling as teaching tools This could be considered as a very controversial topic area, and there is limited discussion to be found in this particular area, as gambling is not necessarily looked upon favourably due to its addictive nature. However, gambling and gaming with reference to technology and online resources has increased dramatically over the past decade and the majority of people have access to the internet through a variety of modes, such as: games consoles, computers, netbooks, tablets and smart phones, which all allow a variety of games and applications to be downloaded. According to Etuk (2008, online), [b]y the time they are 21, most young adults will have watched 400,000 commercials, 20,000 hours of television, and played 10,000 hours of video games. In terms of 8-hour workdays, that’s 3.5 years of video game playing! This suggests that the popularity of such technology is immense and that in order for us to engage students in these modern times, it is essential to explore and understand their world. Etuk (2008, online) further refers to the development of such games in order to meet specific pedagogical designs so that they can be used as teaching tools and therefore engage today’s modern student. He goes further to suggest that these games are so ingeniously designed, so pedagogically efficient, that they take children from beginner to master grade in 40 to 60 hours (the standard amount of time a game plays). They force players to fail dozens of times before achieving ultimate success, but they are so inspiring and so engaging that the students solve the problems on their own, actively ask friends for help, and even do research to find answers. Arguably, children are not the only ones who like games; the adult market for gaming is flourishing and teachers enjoy the interaction and the feelings they encounter when they achieve a level or reach the end of a game. If this is something that the Chinese learner particularly enjoys doing, and primary evidence is necessary to support this theory, the notion of such games is universal. Language and cultural barriers do not exist in the world of gaming and gambling; similar to mathematics, gaming and gambling do not necessarily need to overcome language and cultural barriers, therefore as a teaching tool, it has merit with this particular group of students and is certainly worthy of in depth investigation.

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Teaching and learning method created due to the primary and secondary research Taking all of the above into consideration as well as the analysis from the Chinese student questionnaires and the teacher questionnaires and interviews, it became apparent that the most preferred method of teaching and learning was one that involved some form of group work as this method was rated highly in the questionnaires when the students were asked directly about which method they preferred, and this is also supported by the research done in the study by Nield. Furthermore, on the questionnaires, the Chinese students did also state a preference for the type of lessons that involved them taking part in activities, such as games, and despite the very mixed views in the literature on the usefulness of this as a teaching and learning method, it was felt that ‘testing’ a range of methods such as worksheets, and activity- and problem-based game play would be the best method to conduct some worthwhile research that would provide some useful results. In order to create methods that would provide the best results, the chosen topic around which the methods had to be designed needed to be one that was used across many universities in the UK and therefore generic in nature. It was also felt that the topic needed to be a difficult one (as stated previously), as choosing an easier subject might not yield such valid results, as the students would perhaps not be tested in the way that was deemed necessary in order to ascertain whether they had learnt more from the teaching methods than they would have from more traditional methods. Therefore the teaching topic that was chosen was research methodology, as both home students and those of other nationalities find this topic very difficult, so it was logical to expect that the Chinese student would find it equally difficult, if not more so. Firstly, the words in this topic are often ‘alien’ to most students and are not words that are necessarily used in everyday language, therefore they do not ‘pop’ up in everyday use. Furthermore, for the Chinese student, they often have no translation at all; they have often never heard these words before and they do not have any previous knowledge or understanding of them. Due to the difficulty of the language, the first stage of the teaching methods was a worksheet for the students to complete, which helped them to get used to the words in a fun way. Level 1/Activity 1 (figure 1 below) is designed in order to engage the students by being colourful and providing a challenge that needs the student to carry out the challenges and solve the puzzles. The colour of the worksheet was also designed in order

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to attract the Chinese student, with colours representing many different things in China. In the Chinese culture, colour is symbolic and is associated with the Chinese spring festival (commonly known as Chinese New Year in the UK). Five main colours were established after the original Taoist belief of yin and yang (black and white) and the five elements theory expanded the colours to include red, green and yellow. Many others have different meanings in the Chinese culture, but are often grouped together with the five main elements; therefore, black is grouped with blue and they are often seen as being the same, and green is treated similarly. Black and white – modern China depicts white as being associated with death and mourning and this colour was formerly worn at funerals, whereas black is used daily in clothing and is considered a neutral colour. Red – is a favoured colour in China as it symbolises good fortune and joy. Red is found everywhere in China and Chinese students often will bring small gifts of red coloured charms that are hung in windows and on doors to bring luck. Blue – represents nature and the renewal of life. This colour symbolises spring, vigour and vitality. Green – relates to health and prosperity. Yellow – is considered the most beautiful and prestigious colour and implies freedom and heroism. Therefore, the three stages of the testing process were coloured to capture this aspect of the Chinese culture and create something familiar for the Chinese student, to attempt to engage them further by using colours that would allow them to feel more comfortable with the activities. As you can see below, the three stages have a mixture of the five main elements. Clearer explanations for each of the stages can be found below.

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Figure 1 – Level 1/Activity 1

As previously stated, this activity is designed with the intention of engaging the learner in the language of the topic area. There are many long, difficult words that the student will hear for the first time and retaining the information that they are given in the formal lecture is difficult. As discussed in the language chapter, the difficulty in translation is due to the different use of tone and sentence structure, with a distinct lack of plurals in the Chinese language. Therefore this activity is designed to help overcome this difficulty by actively encouraging simple game playing – individually or in groups – in order to improve word retention. It familiarises students with the words and utilises some inherent memory elements within the task. As stated previously, the Chinese culture of teaching and learning has the element of memorization and rote learning within it; therefore this activity can utilise this skill, and enable the Chinese student to use this familiar method and play word games that embed the words into their language. The activity is a worksheet that covers the key topic areas within methodology. Each area can be connected to allow for the more adept students to start formulating links

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and applications, while engaging all students in a team environment, in accordance with the research by Nield and the primary and secondary research which clearly states that group work is favoured.

Results from the testing stage The worksheet is only designed to be used as a complement to the more formal teaching and learning of this difficult topic area, as there is still a need for the teacher to explain and support the learning that will take place. In order to test the usefulness of this method as a teaching and learning tool, the worksheet was used in several classes in different Higher Education Institutions in the UK. It was important for the validity of the testing to use the worksheet on both home and Chinese students, and then make a comparison of the engagement with this activity. A group of UK students, a group of students from mixed nationalities and a group of Chinese students, consisting of approximately 12 students in each group, took part in the testing in order to provide consistent data to be analysed. The puzzles in the games were generic British ones, which are considered to be popular in the UK as a pastime, with many people buying puzzle books to challenge themselves as a hobby. The first puzzle was that of a gapped handout, which is used quite often in lower level education but still found in some higher education teaching. The second was a word search, again a popular UK puzzle, used intentionally to ensure that the student had to carefully consider the words in order to find them in the word search puzzle. The third puzzle was a word fit puzzle, again common in the UK and again similar to a cross word without clues. This is about ‘fitting’ the words into the appropriate squares and again used intentionally to ensure that the students had to use the word. The final game is much harder and based on the popular 4 Pictures 1 Word game, which gained increased popularity a few years ago. This is to further challenge the students, but also to give the teacher a discussion point (as it is a teaching and learning tool). In the centre of the work sheet, there is a research onion to prompt the students and again to help them continue to consider theory. Finally, as previously stated, the work sheet was coloured to further engage the Chinese learner with relation to their culture.

Group 1 – All English Firstly, the research taking place was to observe the student groups and consider how they engaged with the activity worksheet, designed using different common UK puzzles. The English group of students mostly

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engaged with the work sheet and although they were given the sheet to complete individually, they immediately adopted a group mentality and started to discuss the puzzles, supporting and helping each other. Most importantly, this led to debate and discourse which is particularly relevant for any group of HE students. This group of students completed the work sheet quickly, despite some areas having a high level of difficulty and this was not necessarily anticipated when the activity was designed. However, by completing the challenges quickly, it was noted that they did display a competitive quality that is often evident in game playing. Furthermore, on a more negative note, there was one student who did not engage with the activity due to the nature of the word game and the colours on the work sheet, stating their dyslexia and scotopia meant that any type of activity such as this was very stressful for them. This student did, however, work on the sheet in a group and was happy to do this. This was an interesting outcome as the issue of appropriate teaching and learning methods is difficult for a student with a learning difficulty, but even more so with regard to the Chinese student. It is a very sensitive subject, but it is very difficult to ascertain if a Chinese student has a learning disability, firstly due to the language and cultural differences, but also because in the Chinese culture, there do not appear to be any records of how Chinese institutions deal with any students (if at all) with learning disabilities. Questions then arise with regard to the appropriateness of western institutions in highlighting that they consider a Chinese student to have a disability; ethical considerations here prove to be very difficult. However, this is a topic for another study and not one that was considered for this one, but it is certainly an area worthy of further exploration.

Group 2 – Mixed nationalities This group consisted of 7 English-born students and 5 from mixed nationalities, mostly of central and eastern European origin, but within the group, 1 student was Chinese and 1 was Sri Lankan. The comments from the students on the use of such an activity was that they ‘enjoyed it’, that it was ‘far more fun than normal with this boring subject’ and that they ‘wanted more lessons like this’. The group therefore engaged well with the activity and completed it very much like group 1, but without any students mentioning any difficulties with the work sheet. Interestingly, the UK students once again naturally went into groups to complete the activity, but the international students attempted to do the puzzles individually.

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Group 3 – All Chinese This group did not question why the work sheet was being used when they were told what it was for and at first they worked through the puzzles very quietly. They did appear to have some difficulty understanding how to complete the puzzles and therefore needed more instructions than the other two groups. However, once they understood what was needed from them, a few of the students did start to discuss together and work on certain aspects of the puzzles in groups. This was rather tentative at first, but increased as they realized that it was okay to do this. As was expected, they took much longer to complete the puzzles and when they were told that the time was up for the task, they wanted to complete and finish the puzzle, asking if they could have more time to do this, which demonstrated the high level of engagement. Although the students did speak in their own language when discussing the puzzles, there did appear to be a high level competitiveness to completing the puzzles first, especially by the males in the group.

Conclusions on these observations It would appear that all of the three groups that were observed showed the same level of engagement in the activities regardless of nationality and the feedback after the activities was favourable in the main. This demonstrates that the use of such activities in higher education is useful as it did allow all three groups to discuss and debate the difficult terminology; they were using this terminology fairly naturally rather than seeing it as unfamiliar and therefore difficult and ‘boring’. The activity was designed for this purpose. Although the first stage of the testing was designed to engage the students with this difficult topic area and to provide evidence of why these teaching and learning methods are useful in engaging Chinese students, in order to further offer proof that these methods not only engage but also promote learning, it was considered essential to build on the first simple work sheet stage in order to make sure of the levelness of understanding, especially as these students are in higher education and learning at levels 4, 5 and 6. Therefore the teaching and learning methods were broken into three stages and the second stage is designed to build upon the first level with regard to using the terminology, familiarizing themselves with it, taking the language that has learnt and linking it through simple concept mapping. This stage was considered to be vital in engaging the student in the criticality of this topic: rather than just defining the words and being able

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Figure 2 – Level 2/Activity 2

to describe them, this stage was to engage them with how to make the sections ‘fit’ together, giving a framework. Some academics may argue that by providing a framework, it immediately makes research design biased; however, this stage is essential as a framework in order to ensure that the Chinese student can not only define but also actually understand what the words mean and how they relate to one another. Students often habitually describe and define difficult terminology but lack the ability to apply and link those words; therefore, concept mapping is a useful tool to help with this. Cheema and Mirza (2013) refer to how concept mapping is a useful teaching and learning method that can be used successfully in teaching university students. Furthermore, concept mapping can have a long lasting effect on the memory, providing further evidence that this method would be particularly useful for Chinese students who have a history of learning by memorization, therefore giving them a teaching resource that will be comfortable.

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Using a printed poster and cards for this stage was again considered to attract the students, as in the previous stage, due to the colour elements that further engage the Chinese students and help them to feel comfortable with the activity. This can be simply replicated by using a whiteboard and marker pens and flipchart paper. However, colours are also used with the cards as there is an element of matching colours that relate to sections that then link together, and it was felt that colours would also help with the memorization element of the activity. The students can again work in groups as this allows debate and discussion to take place between the members and encourages criticality. The board is split into two by a broken line; the line is broken on purpose, similar to a white line in the road, to show that the methods can cross over into different areas. At the top are the two key research types, qualitative and quantitative, and it is the students’ task to place the methods into the correct categories. For example, under ‘qualitative’, generally speaking, the student should place ‘interpretivism’ and ‘inductive’ to show that the research is about information rich data, and they should then place ‘positivism’ and ‘deductive’ under the ‘quantitative’ heading to show that they understand that these are generally numerical and science-based methodologies. This level allows for the stronger students to show that sometimes, these methods can cross over the line and then a discussion can take place afterwards around why.

Results from the testing of this stage As with first stage (the work sheet), the concept mapping is only designed to be used as a complement to the more formal teaching and learning of this difficult topic area, as there is still a need for the teacher to facilitate the activity and aid the criticality with appropriate questioning techniques. The concept mapping stage was also tested in the same way as the work sheet.

Group 1 – All English As with the previous stage, the engagement of the students was the first element of the research to be observed. The English group of students were far more engaged in this stage of the teaching and learning methods; once again, they immediately adopted a group mentality and started to work together, supporting and helping each other, but most importantly, as in the first stage, this led to debate and discourse. What was observed was that the group appeared to be using the terminology much more fluently

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then prior to the activity and they also started to question their choices of which section the card should go into. They moved quite quickly onto the purpose of the central line, demonstrating those criticality skills that are necessary in designing research. It should be noted that the cards are not only colour coded, they also have some definitions on them to further aid the group when they are trying to decide where the cards should go. Again, this was designed in order to enable them to memorise these words and definitions, but so that they would now also be able to link them together and consider the appropriateness of how they potentially fit together.

Group 2 – Mixed nationalities The students in this group behaved similarly to the group of English students and again adopted a group format to tackle the task. They also quickly started to place the cards into the most appropriate sections and discussed and debated whether the cards should go onto the central line. The group therefore engaged well with the activity, similarly to the first activity, and completed it very much like group 1. Differently to the first activity, the international students in this group did not attempt the task individually but also formed groups to tackle the task.

Group 3 – All Chinese Again this group did not question why the concept mapping activity was being used when they were told what it was for. This time, they also formed groups and discussed amongst themselves in their own language. Once again, they did need further instruction on how to complete the activity but they engaged well, immediately standing and working on the mapping sheet with the cards. They also did not appear to take as long with this activity as they did with the first one and they did appear to understand the framework aspect by placing the cards in the most appropriate sections. They did need a little help with some of the central line aspect but appeared to pick up on the colour elements quickly.

Conclusions on these observations Again in this activity, it would appear that all of the three groups that were observed showed the same level of engagement in the activities, regardless of nationality, and the feedback after the activities was again favourable from all student groups. The students who were observed did also appear

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to have a better understanding of how the methodologies all fitted together but further results from the test are necessary before any real results will become evident. This further demonstrated that the use of such activities in higher education is useful as it did allow all three groups to discuss and debate the difficult terminology but also consider how it all linked together and they worked well as a group too, which does disprove some of the western perceptions that Chinese students are difficult to teach as they do not engage. Figure 3 – Level 3/Activity 3

The final stage builds upon the first two stages and is aimed at allowing the students to actually build research methodology either for their own research or for a ‘test’ research question. This is considered to be the most important stage of the process in terms of engaging the Chinese student but also in relation to ‘testing’ how much the students have learnt from this teaching and learning method. This method is considered to be the complete opposite to what any of the literature suggests is appropriate for teaching Chinese students. This method is also in opposition to most of the traditional western teaching styles and learning methods, and often

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academics do not see the potential in this type of resource. For this reason, this method was taken to the Higher Education Academies (HEA) social sciences annual conference in Liverpool, UK, in May 2013, to gather some research and feedback from other academics who struggle to teach research methods but who also have some experience with large groups of Chinese students. The conference theme was around the difficulties in teaching research methods, so this was the ideal forum to gather research. For the presentation aspect, the allocated time slot was only ten minutes, so it was difficult to explain the processes of the three stages within the allocated time; therefore, for maximum impact, the game was created and set up prior to the presentation so that the academics could have a look and play whilst they listened to the presentation and afterwards. With approximately 70 people present for the presentation, there was a good amount of interest in the teaching resource, and after the presentation there was another hour in which the academics wanted further information and contact details so that they could access the materials. Feedback was gathered from the group as it was vital to gather expert opinions and make any adjustments to the game before the testing stage on the student groups as well as to gather perceptions in general. Furthermore, after the event, the HEA academic development officer got in contact to request the game so that it could be put on the HEA website and for the resources to be made accessible to all as they had so much interest in them. This provides proof of how innovative and different this method is; furthermore, the HEA is continuing to take an interest and further presentations are scheduled to take place in 2015. Essentially, the teaching and learning resource is a board game, exactly like in the traditional sense and with general board game rules. Each player needs to have a research question before the start of the game and the best method to gather as much interaction as possible is that of allowing the students to work in groups. They can then discuss and work together, allowing for further discourse, which is essential in the topic of research methods and allows for that important engagement with the Chinese student group. Each player throws the dice and works their way round the board, following the rules and instructions given. The game is best played with 4–6 groups; each group is given a counter and must then follow the rules on the board. As previously stated, they must choose a research question card first or they can create one of their own, so time must be given for this; and by playing the game, they must construct a methodology relevant to the question chosen. This is again where the framing element is considered to be important, as the students do find this aspect particularly difficult; therefore by offering the framework, they can

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have a basic structure to work towards. It is felt that by giving a structure and framework, it allows the students to then build upon this and as they are no longer concerned about where to start, they are able to develop much more criticality and discussion as the difficult element has been taken away. They have a worksheet on which they can write down the methods that they have picked and the ones which they have disregarded and then the reasons why, in order to ensure that criticality is built into the game with certainty, and this is especially important for Chinese students who may need a ‘nudge’ to get involved. They go around the board collecting their methods and the game can end when they have built the methodology, or the teacher can choose when to end the game, as long as they then give the students the task of explaining and justifying what they have selected, as well as what they are missing.

The Testing of this method This teaching and learning method was again tested three times with the same groups as the first two stages, and then the results of the groups in terms of observation and engagement were compared alongside the learning element. It was decided that before the activities from the three worksheets, it was necessary to create some form of multiple choice ‘exam’ that would allow the researcher to ascertain if the method had not only engaged the students in the activities but also had allowed them to learn from the activities. The ‘exam’ would give evidence of whether the students had gained knowledge after playing the activities. The ‘exam’ would be given prior to the activities to test knowledge at this point and then again after the activities to test knowledge after the game activities. Then the results can be collated and compared to see whether or not there is improvement after the activities.

Results from the testing of this stage From the observation perspective, the game appeared to be the stage that gathered the most excitement and engagement. The students in all three groups were willing to play the game and quickly moved into groups to play. It was observed that the students were already in the game playing mood due to the previous two stages and therefore it might have yielded different results had the stages been separated by a few weeks. However, due to time constraints and access issues, this was the only way to gather the research at this stage. The students were given the ‘exam’ prior to the very first activity; the work sheet in order to gain what the knowledge of

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the groups was prior to starting the teaching methods, as it was felt that this would give the most valid results. The example questions are as follows: Name of University: Programme of Study: Ethnicity: Please read the instructions carefully before you start the test Please answer the following questions by placing a circle around your chosen answer, if you make a mistake please place a cross through your mistake and then choose another answer and place a circle around your revised choice. Time allocated for the test is 20 minutes Question 1 What is Research Design? a) b) c) d)

Research that is not grounded in theory A choice between qualitative and quantitative methods A framework for every stage of the collection and analysis of data The way in which you present your data

Question 2 Qualitative research generally refers to? a) Using numbers, measurements and statistics b) Using high quality research c) In-depth understanding of human behaviour and the reasons that govern such behaviour d) All of the above Question 3 Quantitative research generally refers to? a) b) c) d)

Research that may be expressed numerically Using high quality research Generating theories about social meanings, rich quality data All of the above

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Question 4 An inductive approach is one that: a) b) c) d)

Involves testing a hypothesis Uses quantitative methods whenever possible Allows theory to emerge from the data, builds theory Not generally associated with qualitative methods

Question 5 A deductive approach is one that: a) b) c) d)

Involves testing a hypothesis Uses qualitative methods whenever possible Not generally associated with quantitative methods All of the above

Question 6 Which of the following statements is true of a positivist researcher? a) They believe that knowledge comes from the philosophy of science b) They believe that knowledge can only be acquired through information rich data c) They prefer the use of words to numbers d) None of the above Question 7 Interpretivism relates to: a) b) c) d)

Knowledge that comes from testing a hypothesis The preferred use of numbers and statistics in research Understanding human interaction and their meanings None of the above

Question 8 Which of the following is a research strategy? (Circle all that apply) a) b) c) d)

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Question 9 Which of the following is not a data collection method? a) Interviews b) Telephone interviews c) Questionnaire d) Action Research Question 10 What is cross-sectional design? (Circle all that apply) a) b) c) d)

A study of one particular section of society, e.g. the middle classes A representative subset, at one specific point in time A study that aims to observe all of a population A study over a long period of time

Question 11 A longitudinal study is? (Circle all that apply) a) b) c) d)

A study over a long period of time A collection of data from one moment in time When the researcher gathers information from surveys Repeated observations of the same variables

Question 12 Why are ethics important to consider when designing research methodology? a) In order to respect and cause no harm to the participants b) As a sign of respect for other researchers and those who will use the research c) It is a professional requirement d) All of the above

Group One – All English The English group was very used to the board game and they therefore immediately started to ask what the rules were. The competitive element was evident immediately. The groups competed over the counters, the questions and the cards all the way through, and the debates were evident within the groups and the other groups, consistently demonstrating good engagement and ‘buy in’. The students did appear to enjoy the game;

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however, they did take a long time to complete it as the discussion element and competitive element took a while. This was a very raucous session and there was lots of laughter. The results from the test for this group did show an increase by a fairly high percentage in the information that they had learnt and they all improved their knowledge. What was very interesting was that they started to challenge the questions in the test, which was not anticipated at all.

Group Two – Mixed nationalities The second group had a similar reaction to the first group. They also engaged well with the game but were not as raucous as the first group; however, this could just be a result of the personalities within the group rather than the methods themselves. The game took a shorter time to play with this group and it was necessary to explain the rules further as they did struggle at the start. However, there was lots of discussion and debate on the methodology and the testing element did demonstrate that they had also increased knowledge, although the percentages were a little lower for this group.

Group Three – All Chinese This group was much quieter during the board game as they appeared to be curious but uncertain about the teaching resource. They did, however, need little instruction in how to play the game and moved quickly into groups. There also seemed to be gender specific groups, with the boys all grouping together and the girls grouping together. The students also quickly became very competitive. This group showed the highest level of competitivity that was observed; they spoke in their home language very quickly and were excitable, but it was possible to have some understanding of what they were saying as the research terminology does not translate and they littered their conversation with these words. They also finished the game in the quickest time and the group who won did so with lots of loud talking, excitement and obvious joy about beating the other groups. Furthermore, they surprisingly had the better knowledge at the start of the activities with their knowledge being a much higher percentage than the other two groups and they also learnt more than the other groups, taking their knowledge to the higher percentage. What was difficult to test and would perhaps need to be taken further in research is the level of discourse and critical discussion that was taking place, as in the other two groups. Due to the language (as expected, they reverted to

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their home language), this meant that it was very difficult to know whether they were having a critical debate or just getting to the end of the game in order to win as per their very competitive culture. Therefore this test was useful as it did provide some clear recommendations for further study. This would of course need to be on a much larger scale in order to produce generalizations, but as stated, this particular group of students is not easy to access in order to gather such data in this way, due to ‘saving face’ and some aspects of culture, as stated throughout this book.

Analysis of the teaching and learning methods used The testing stages in this part of the primary research project determined the level of the students’ knowledge prior to the activities and the students were tested in exactly the same manner after the activities had been completed. In all of the groups that were tested, the results demonstrated that the students had indeed achieved higher knowledge, with all groups scoring higher on the test. The largest difference was seen in the Chinese students who on average scored higher by 7%; however, this was only a small pilot study and in order to prove the rigidity of the method, it would need to be tested across a much larger sample. What it did prove was that Chinese students do indeed prefer games, problem solving and activitybased learning and are not as disengaged as the perception appeared to be in the earlier discussions and from the teacher’s perspective.

Summary This chapter provided an insight into some practical primary research that would potentially allow for recommendations with regard to the teaching and learning of Chinese students. The literature is very conflicting with some preference to group work but with some studies suggesting that group work is disliked. Perhaps the issue is of who is actually facilitating the group work. There is clearly a need for teachers to be trained in how it is best to engage Chinese students and how to ensure that they are able to facilitate activities and group work effectively. The primary research project and recommendations can be found in the concluding chapter, but the evidence suggests that Chinese students are not difficult to engage and do like to take part in class activities if they are conducted in a way that takes into consideration their Confucian heritage, that the teachers are willing and able to adapt without confusing the students, and that both sides have a good understanding of each other’s language and culture. A final note: it is not up to the teachers and the establishments to be the only

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ones to adapt; these are higher education students and so must bear some responsibility for their education.

References Azriel J., Erthal M. and Starr E. (2005) Answers, Questions, and Deceptions: What Is the Role of Games in Business Education? Chiou W. and Yang C. (2006) Teachers’ modeling advantage and their modeling effects on college students’ learning styles and occupational stereotypes: a case of collaborative teaching in technical courses. Adolescence. 41 (164) pp 723-737. Denton, P. (2008) The Power of Words. Educational Leadership. Vol. 66, Issue 1. Edwards, V. (2006) Meeting the Needs of Chinese Students in British Higher Education. The University of Reading. Available at http://www.academia.edu/183804/Meeting_the_needs_of_Chinese_stu dents_in_British_Higher_Education. Accessed 3rd April 2013. Etuk, N. (2008) Educational Gaming – From Edutainment to Bona Fide 21st-Century Teaching Tool. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools. Nov/Dec 2008, Vol. 15 Issue 6, p.10-13. 4p. 10 Color Photographs. Franklin, Sue, Peat, Mary, Lewis and Alison (2003) Non-traditional interventions to stimulate discussion: the use of games and puzzles. Journal of Biological Education (Society of Biology), 00219266, Spring 2003, Vol. 37, Issue 2. Harton, H. C., Richardson, D. R., Barreras, R., Rockloff, M. J., & Latané, B. (2002). Focused interactive learning: A tool for active class discussion. Teaching of Psychology, 29(1), 10–15. Li, C. (2012) An Investigation of Chinese Students’ Learning Styles at an English-medium University in Mainland China Journal of Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 6-13. Kenman, L. (2007) Tone and Style: Developing a Neglected Segment of Business Communication. California State University: Long Beach. Kolb (1984) Experiential Learning as the Science of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey. Matthew N. and Alidmat A. (2013) A study on the usefulness of audiovisual aids in EFL classroom: implications for effective instruction. International journal of higher education. 2(2) 86-92. Melton, C. (1990). Bridging the cultural gap: A study of Chinese students’ learning style preferences. RELC Journal, 21(1), 29-51.

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Nield, K. (2009) The problem of applying labels of learning styles to national cultures. The International journal of learning. Vol 6 No 7 pp. 425-434 Neuby, B. (2015) Chinese student success in an applied academic environment, Journal of public affairs education. (18(4), 683-693. Peacock, M. (2001). Match or mismatch? Learning styles and teaching styles in EFL. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(1), 120. Yasunari Fujii (2007) Making the Most of Search Engines for Japanese to English Translation; Benefits and Challenges. Asian EFL Journal. Teaching Articles. Tokyo Denki University. Japan.

CONCLUSION

The purpose of this book was to examine and explore the challenges of engaging the international student with a specific focus on Chinese learners who travel to study on degree programmes in western HEIs. This is due to the large influx of this particular type of student into many US and European countries and indeed the UK. It is fair to say that the number of Chinese students in the UK in particular has increased significantly in the past five years and that this has presented UK universities and other Higher Education Institutions with many challenges, which in turn have been deemed as very problematic and concerning. This is in regard to the best methods for engaging the learners, and the effectivity of teaching and learning due to their obvious differences in culture, including educational background and language. Lecturers are perhaps feeling unsupported with regard to how to adapt and manage their teaching and learning and what the best methods are. Several authors (Ashton and Green, 1996; HEA, 2014; Nietzsche, 1890; Scott, 2010) refer to educators needing to have a good understanding of learners before they can find appropriate ways in which to teach them and impart knowledge. The difficulty, therefore, lies in whether the teachers have a deep understanding of the Chinese student and this is certainly not clear in this book. The primary research project went someway to discovering the issues from both the teachers’ and the students’ perspective, and combined with the literature, these do suggest that there is still a relatively long distance to travel in terms of understanding how to engage this particular group of students. However, the evidence does suggest that the numbers of these students will increase over the next decade, so the need for more research and discussion on this issue is essential. Without support for teachers and flexibility within the curriculum and assessment design, and indeed the lesson design, the grade profiles of many western universities could see a decline, impacting on the reputation of the institutions. Perceptions of Chinese learners are that they are passive, surface learners who do not engage socially or in group work or class discussions, instead preferring to memorise what is being taught without being singled out and questioned (Stapleton 2012). Evidence from western teaching methods is that these are about challenging learners, deep

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learning and active participation as a preferred method, therefore demonstrating the conflict between these perceptions. Culture is another area that is highly considered to be of one of the reasons why Chinese students present challenges to the western institution. Nisbett (2003) suggests that deep-rooted cultural values and thinking can be difficult to separate from learning processes. Visser (2007) states that students expect the HEI to adjust to their cultural background, whereas the trend has been for the student to ‘fit’ into the western HEIs’ current conventions of teaching and learning. Primary research in this book offers further evidence that English lecturers do find Chinese students to be difficult. They perceive that they cannot speak English well and do not engage in class, especially in discussions and debates. Furthermore, they lack the ability to be critical, copy large amounts of work from the internet, cannot apply theory and do not like speaking in class or taking part in group work, with Neuby (2015) clearly supporting this with a study suggesting that cultural differences certainly impact on their learning preferences. Qing (2009), however, suggests that these are cultural blinkers and HE establishments are more interested in the income that is generated. But as previously discussed, there is the essential aspect of meeting QAA requirements and ensuring that the university profile does not drop. What the research and literature does tell us, however, is that participative and experiential learning methods are the most challenging for the Chinese student (Tweed and Lehman, 2002). Chinese educational establishments and history are steeped in Confucianism and are exam-oriented, with the lecture being the focus, and group work and practical activities not being tested in exams and therefore being classed as unimportant. However, employers internationally are ideally looking for graduates who do possess skills that include team work, problem solving and dealing with the general public. What the primary research perhaps surprisingly demonstrates is that the perception that the Chinese student does not engage in this type of session is wrong and by their own admission they prefer activity-based learning. It is the design of the lesson by the western lecturer that is at fault and it creates a barrier to engaging. Turner (2006) reflects further on this with her experience of teaching in China, going some way to adding further validity to this point. However, ironically, from research relating to the teachers’ perspective, it can be concluded that they see themselves as being perfectly adequate at

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teaching and they do not see any need to change or adapt what they are doing; there is nothing wrong with their lesson design. Worryingly, instead, they change their marking criteria to accommodate the Chinese students. Some contradictions can be taken from this, however, as further research suggests that they are aware that they are not always engaging the students, but are not seeing this as a problem and giving further weight to the stereotype that does exist of the Chinese student. What is very clear is that the Chinese students do feel uncomfortable in these lessons and they tend to stick together with other Chinese students in order to find comfort within their own culture as the western teachers obviously have some bias. If the HEIs wish to ensure that they are responding ethically to their recruitment of Chinese students, then changes do have to be made; otherwise, issues such as plagiarism will become more prominent, as culturally it is difficult to know whether the student has deliberately been deceptive or if they merely lack the understanding of what constitutes plagiarism. Chinese students could be merely paying respect to the author as in their own educational culture, and there is little literature to suggest otherwise. Questions therefore arise from this as to whether the student must adapt, the institution must adapt or if it is a responsibility on both sides. Once this has been ascertained, there remains the pressing question of how to make this practical. Language must be understood if there is to be any hope of forming some clear guidance on how it is best to deal with this aspect of the challenge of teaching this particular group. It is clearly not just a problem for Chinese students, with the question of whether the student has an issue with speaking English or whether it is the technical language that they need more explanations about. Language is very complex, far more so than culture, with the English and Chinese language being very different: the phonology, semantics, morphology and syntax all present different challenges. Additionally, as the Chinese language is tonal, the inflection of the tone on a word spoken in English potentially confuses the Chinese student, who may then recognise this as another word rather than the same word with a different emotion attached to it. Finally on this point, the logographic nature of the Chinese language, which is nearer to hieroglyphs than the English language, moves the Chinese student towards preferring visual aids as a result. The language in the west is changing with the era of textspeak, which some might argue is the destroyer of the English language, but it cannot be ignored and is finding its way into the English language, presenting further challenges for the humble lecturer and causing errors in written English.

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This tells us that there needs to be far more support for the teachers of Chinese students. Although teachers are making their own adjustments in teaching, learning and assessment, there is a limited amount of commonalities and therefore limited consistency, raising questions about the quality and academic standard of the work produced, with clear framework or standardisations causing some concern. Instead, the teachers are adjusting their methods and marking, which is often based on their perceptions of this student group; perceptions which have often been proven to be biased. Many different methods of teaching and learning have been discussed throughout this book, with some appearing to be more effective than others. Louie et al (2003) refer to self-study as being effective as it allows for the teacher to reflect on their practice and to use this for development and improvement, with collegial interaction also deemed to be an effective method of discussing the challenges that are faced. With no formal legislation about the need to have a teaching qualification to teach in HE, it is up to the universities to provide what they consider to be acceptable standards in teaching and learning. There is a clear argument that teaching and lecturing are different and that HE lecturers do have a different perspective on what their role is in teaching and learning. They assume that HE students are independent learners who need little input as they are deemed responsible for studying deeply in order to gain the knowledge. With lectures and seminars still being the lesson formats of choice in HE, it is easy to assume that educational establishments have not moved beyond their traditional conventions, despite numerous teaching and learning conferences and workshops stating that these are often not the most effective methods. More recent blended learning has been implemented into HEIs and has made teachers take a good look at their practice. Whether this will prove successful is yet to be seen and what constitutes blended learning, online and e-learning is still up for debate. What is clear is that HEIs have to embrace these changes and challenges and ensure that they are providing a quality provision for all student groups. A final note: engaging a variety of methods can yield surprising results and these methods are perhaps not the most conventional ones, but they do need to go beyond convention if they are to be successful in 2015. Teachers need to step out of their comfort zones and step away from bias and perception if they are to engage and effectively teach the Chinese student.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Despite this book and the study within it setting out to provide recommendations on the best way in which to engage and teach the Chinese student, this is not the only way. Instead this section merely offers guidance relating to the overwhelming amount of evidence gathered for the book on the best methods that have been ‘tried and tested’ and proven to work. It is suggested, therefore, that the Chinese student is not just a passive learner who does not like to engage in discussions or debate, and does not like to take part in group work or other types of activity based learning; instead, the evidence suggests the opposite and it is up to the teacher to find ways to do this type of session but with a deeper cultural understanding in order to ensure that they are allowing the Chinese student to feel comfortable in the classroom. The perceptions that the Chinese student does not understand English very well is also something of a myth (although not always), and instead, the Chinese student needs time to be able to translate what is being said and then to work out how to answer, plus they need further support in understanding academic terminology, technical language and the use of local colloquialisms, slang and the more modern textspeak. The perception that Chinese students do not demonstrate any ability to think or write critically is certainly a concerning one, and again not always a valid perception; they just need support and guidance on what the teacher expects of them. In answer to the common perceptions of Chinese students, therefore: -

-

Chinese students cannot speak or understand English well – not necessarily true, perhaps the teacher just needs to build a better relationship and institutions need to enable better social engagement with peers Chinese students do not engage in class debates and discussions – true to the extent that they may not volunteer to speak out in class; however, with the right teaching method, this can be overcome

Recommendations

170

-

-

-

Chinese students lack the ability to be critical – not true, they need more support and guidance that it is okay to criticise the theory and the literature Chinese students copy large amounts of knowledge from books and the internet but show no understanding of what this knowledge means – to some extent this might be true, but with support and guidance on this, the expectations of the degree student this can be dealt with Chinese students lack the ability to apply theory and concepts – not true, it might be that they need further help in understanding technical language and what the theories mean, which can be done by using more appropriate examples Chinese students do not like group work – not true, they just need the right environment so that they feel comfortable in a group situation Chinese students do not like speaking out in class – true, but if taught in Chinese groups only, they do speak out in class and this is possibly because of a lack of confidence in their English language skills

Finally, a few practical recommendations, therefore, about the best methods of engaging the Chinese student and effective teaching and learning strategies, are to engage the learner prior to them studying at a western HEI, and to provide them with a glossary of terms so that they can gain some knowledge prior to studying, therefore making them feel more comfortable with what they will be learning. Set pre-tasks that demonstrate clearly what is expected from them as a student and record sessions that they can watch online in order to convey that expectation more clearly. Set work online in group forums so that they can partake in group work without feeling like they are ‘losing face’. Work on group tasks that involve problem solving and work within groups rather than only making the students discuss with the class as this enables them to feel ‘safe’ to make mistakes. Consider the use of games and activity based learning to engage the students and get to know them well. Remember that in their culture, it is impolite to speak out in class but they will want to speak to you immediately after class, so develop strategies to deal with this. Institutions need to consider the support that they give to teachers, allow the teachers more time to develop these activities, and perhaps teach the Chinese students in segregated classes initially so as not to slow down the progress of other students. Remember the importance of the teacher– student relationship and that each side is learning from the other.

Engaging Chinese Students in Teaching and Learning at Western Higher Education Institutions Teachers open the door but you must walk through it yourself. (Chinese proverb)

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APPENDICES

Appendix One – Student Questionnaire Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire, your anonymity is assured. Please ensure you do not write your name, or any other comments that will make you identifiable on the attached questionnaire. By completing the questionnaire you are consenting to take part in this research. You are advised to first read the enclosed letter carefully as it explains fully the intention of this project. The purpose of this questionnaire is to gather research into teaching and learning methods. The questions are in two parts: part one includes general questions about you and part two asks questions relating to your time spent in the classroom. Part One Are you:

Male

How old are you:

_____ ____years

Female _________ ______months

What is your programme of study? _____________________________ How long have you studied in the United Kingdom (UK): _____________________________ What was your most recent English Language Test (ELT) score: _____________________________

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Part Two Do you prefer to be taught in a small or a large group? (Please Tick one of the following) Small (1–15 students in a class) ______________ Medium (16–45 students in a class) ____________________ Large (46 and above students in a class) _______________________ In your lessons is the speed your teacher speaks: (Please Tick one of the following) Too Fast _______________ Too Slow _______________ Correct for your learning ____________________ I can cope with English in my classes: (Please Tick one of the following) I sometimes struggle with English____________________ More than adequate for study in the UK____________________ I am fluent in English ___________________________________________ If the teacher changes the tone of their voice in class does this improve your understanding of the lesson content? (Please tick one of the following) Not at all _________________________ Improved Understanding ________________________ Greater Understanding _______________________________ It depends ______________________________________

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The following are teaching and learning methods. (Please rank these (1–10) in order of preference in how you like to learn, with number 1 being the one you most prefer and number 10 the least) PPT________________________________ Formal Lecture ___________________________ Watching a video __________________________ Memorisation (repetition) _______________________________ Discussion _____________________________ Game/Activity __________________________ Demonstration ___________________________ Missing word handout _____________________ Use of drawings/models ______________________ Researching ___________________________

With reference to the previous question please explain why you chose the teaching and learning methods that you ranked 1 as your preferred style .___________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

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Do you find that a visual teaching method, such as using a PPT presentation or media clips improves your understanding of the lesson? (Please explain your answer) ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ How much do you rely on translators in class, to understand what it is being said by your teacher? (Please tick one of the following) I never use translators I use translators sometimes I often use translators Do you find that you are given enough time during a lesson to translate the information? (Please tick one of the following) Yes I am given enough time __________________________ No I am not given enough time ___________________________ It varies ___________________________ What makes a topic difficult to understand? (Please tick one of the following) Content of the topic __________________ The language the teacher uses __________________ Some other reasons (Please explain your answer) ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

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Think back to a lesson you enjoyed, what made it enjoyable? (Please explain)_____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire

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Appendices

Appendix Two – Teacher Questionnaire Thank you for taking the time to fill in this questionnaire, your anonymity is assured. Please ensure you do not write your name, or any other comments that will make you identifiable on the attached questionnaire. By completing the questionnaire you are consenting to take part in this research. You are advised to first read the enclosed letter carefully as it explains fully the intention of this project. The purpose of this questionnaire is to gather research into teaching and learning methods. The questions are in two parts: part one includes general questions about you and part two asks questions relating to your time spent in the classroom. Part One Which university do you teach at?

What is your subject specialism?

How long have you been teaching Chinese students?

Do you teach a mix of Chinese and home students in the same class? (Please tick one of the following) Just Chinese _________________________________________ Mixed _______________________________________________ It varies _____________________________________________

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Approximately on average how many students are in your lectures? (Please tick one of the following) 1–15 _____________________ 16–45 _____________________ 46–100 _______________________ 100 and above ___________________________ Approximately on average how many students are in your seminar groups? (Please tick one of the following) 1–15 _____________________ 16–45 ______________________ 46–100 _______________________ 100 and above ___________________________ Part Two How do you measure your success in teaching Chinese students?

What type of assessment methods do you prefer to use with the Chinese students? (Please state your preferred 3 choices)

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When teaching Chinese students can you tell if something in your method is not working? (Please explain)

If your teaching method is not working during your class do you change your method? (Please tick one of the following) Always _________________ Sometimes ______________ Never _________________ If you change your method what do you change and how? (Please explain)

Do you alter your marking strategy to accommodate the Chinese students? (Please tick one of the following) Yes, all the time ________________ Yes, sometimes ____________________ No mark consistently across all students _____________________________ The following are conventional teaching methods. (Please rank (1–10) in order of preference which you use in the classroom. With 1 being the most preferred method and 10 the least) PPT________________________________ Formal Lecture ___________________________ Watching a video __________________________ Memorisation (repetition) _______________________________

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Discussion _____________________________ Game/Activity _________________________ Demonstration ___________________________________________ Missing word handout ______________________________________ Use of drawings/models ____________________________________ Researching ____________________________________________ To what extent do you think the Chinese students actively engage in your lessons? (Please tick one of the following) Actively all the time __________________________ Sometimes, it depends _______________________ Rarely ____________________________ Think back to a lecture or seminar that the students appeared to particularly enjoy, why do you think they found it enjoyable? (Please explain)

Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire