"Enjoy Loneliness" - Understanding voices of "the" Chinese Learner

Qing Gu
School of Education, The University of Nottingham

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Introduction
"The" Chinese learner
The study
Key Challenges: the learning shock
The culture shock
Adaptation and progress
Conclusion
References

The number of Chinese students studying in the UK has risen dramatically from a few hundred in 1998 to 25,000 in 2002 (The Independent 20/11/2003). There has been a similarly sharp rise in other English speaking countries. Blair's speech on opening "a window on the world" in 1999 launched the British Government's worldwide educational campaign. This was followed by a series of changes in policies aimed at attracting international students to study in UK further and higher education. Key policy changes include simplifying visa application procedures and legalising overseas students' part-time work during term time. China's booming economy has also contributed strongly to the recent influx of Chinese students pursuing academic qualifications in the UK.

This major change in student intake implies a need to place issues of intercultural teaching and learning effectiveness very high on the agenda at British universities. Despite this, there remains a relative lack of evidence-based knowledge on appropriate pedagogy to meet the educational, sociocultural and psychology needs of Chinese learners in the UK. Drawing upon a pilot study of "the" Chinese learner, the purpose of this paper is to reveal key challenges that Chinese learners may face in their study and lives in the UK. The author argues that a good understanding of the experiences and needs of Chinese learners provides for the key to the provision of responsive teaching and learning practices.

Chinese literary education based on the classics has a history of over 2,000 years with little change in its content and method of study (Galt 1951: 212). Influences on language teaching from such a long tradition of emphasising 'memorisation' and 'understanding and analytical ability' (Connell 1987: 203) can still be seen in classrooms in China, where the teacher tends to be respected as the source of knowledge, and where much time tends to be spent upon explication of the structure of language and the usage of words through 'the detailed textual study of good literature' (Connell 1987: 201). Research literature on the links between the Chinese cultural context and Chinese learning styles suggests that Chinese learners are "active, reflective and independent thinkers" and that western educators need to go beneath surface observation to examine a different Chinese culture of learning (Cortazzi and Jin, 1996: 191-192).

Gu and Schweisfurth (2006) and Maley and Gu (forthcoming) further argue that culture and the consequent learning gap alone are insufficient to interpret Chinese learners' adjustment in the western environment. The diverse academic and personal backgrounds of the learners, their differing motivations for their overseas study and their contrasting personal qualities also play an important part in their attempt to adapt to an "alien" educational and societal environment and to survive and realise gains from their investment in their future. The wide diversity of learner-related factors requires educationalists to view Chinese learners' interaction with their living and studying environments from a holistic, situated and developmental perspective.

An integral part of the study is the collection of "soft" data from a number of semi-structured interviews with Chinese students and their British tutors/lecturers. The interviews focused on two areas: First, the key challenges that Chinese learners face in their student lives in the UK; and second, the extent to which Chinese learners adapt to their living and study contexts. The interview subjects include thirteen Chinese undergraduate and postgraduate students in ten universities and two groups of students (a total of 28 students) on pre-sessional English courses. Difference in experiences and attitudes of these students will help to reveal the extent to which students' academic and personal backgrounds and qualities may impact on their intercultural adjustment and academic performance. In addition, ten British lecturers/tutors have so far been interviewed.

The author's own linguistic and academic background spans both cultures. She has herself navigated a process of intercultural mediation during her academic study in the UK, and this experience has enabled her to interpret and make sense of the experiences of her research subjects from an insider's perspective.

Early results of the study suggest some shared educational, psychological and sociocultural needs of these Chinese learners, and a change process in them

4.1. The learning shock

The quote below is from a Chinese postgraduate student and illustrates the initial tensions that Chinese learners may encounter in their UK classrooms. These learners' "perceived social and linguistic incompetence" (Lewthwaite, 1996: 182) poses a barrier to their willingness to participate in class discussions. The consequent tensions result in an initial shock in their learning experience and have an apparent impact on their self-esteem and morale.

"When I first got here, I was quiet and had quite introvert personality. I did not want to communicate much with other people. Plus when I was in China I did not receive much training on how to communicate with people. Sometimes I felt like saying something in class. But before I opened my mouth, somebody else had already grabbed the opportunity. So the only time I said something in class was when I was asked by my teacher or it was my turn to speak. The Chinese ways of teaching had a deep impact on how I'd learnt. I was not very active in answering questions. European students were very different compared to me and I felt they were great and better than me. First of all it was because they could more or less fluently express themselves. More importantly, they had received quite similar educational training in their own countries, so that they were used to the teaching and learning tradition here. In the west, students are used to being challenged by questions. So at the beginning, I felt those European students were a lot better than me."
(Chinese postgraduate student B)

Learning shock refers to some unpleasant feelings and difficult experiences that learners encounter when they are exposed to a new learning environment. Such unpleasant feelings are intensified and can impose a deeper psychological and emotional strain on learners that are crossing national and/or cultural borders. The learners often have to struggle with both insufficient language ability and a contrasting teaching and learning tradition. For example,

"I feel a high level of uncertainty for learning. Sometimes British tutors will not tell us what is correct and what is wrong, which the home students also found too ambiguous. So we sometimes have to spend a lot of time doing research to find out the answers ourselves. In contrast, the Chinese tutor will be more likely to give out the answers straight away when students request."
(Chinese foundation course student A)

Chinese learners suffering learning shock were also observed by their UK lecturers/tutors.

"I got one (a Chinese student) in the first year too. She is very quiet, very industrious. She looks at me as if I am a mystery to her."
(British lecturer A)

"That is an interesting question, because if you asked me that four years ago, I would say yes, absolutely. Sometimes it is like talking to an empty room. But in more recent years I would say that they are more prepared to participate. … I think it is because there is a great willingness."
(British Lecturer C)

Learning shock has deeply-embedded sociocultural roots as can be established by applying Hofstede's (1986) four cultural-dimensional models to language teaching and learning practices. Table 1 (Hofstede 1986: 312) below illustrates different expectations on teachers and students in different power distance societies. The consequence of cultures in the formation of teaching and learning traditions is apparent and instrumental.

Thus, the process that the learner transcends to overcome the unpleasant and difficult state of the learning shock requires far more than behavioural efforts. In other words, it is not necessarily a matter of them being lazy or not making an effort to participate in classroom activities. The process of adapting to a different teaching and learning environment is the same process where learners are forced to be consciously engaged upon, reflect upon, negotiate with and selectively accept a different set of values, views and rules. This change process involves emotional stress and psychological and sociocultural adjustment (Ward et al, 2001).

The following quote describes a state of frustration, stress and extreme emotional and psychological distress as a consequence of this Chinese student's perceived failure to accommodate herself to an unfamiliar host culture.

"When I first arrived here I was on my own. My husband and my daughter were both in China. I felt very, very lonely. I was once seriously ill. I think it might be because I was not used to the life here. …

I had struggled a lot at my MA, mainly because I was not used to the writing styles here. Things like why and how to use references as evidence. … I had some very difficult time. I was very successful in university study and at work in China. I thought of myself as a very competent person. However, I first tasted the bitter of failure and disappointment in here. The pain seemed to have gone straight into my bones. I don't think if I have ever cried in China. But I don't know how many times I have cried here."
(Chinese postgraduate student I)

The learning shock is a specific manifestation of culture shock in the educational environment. However, other aspects of culture shock or crisis may exert deeper impact upon sojourn students' intercultural adaptation, their academic performance, and their emotional, physical and psychological wellbeing. These other aspects include, as shown in the Chinese students interviews (see also Maley and Gu, forthcoming):

1) A boring and lonely life:
- 'fewer friends', 'sometimes get homesick', 'sometimes you can't find suitable people to discuss your private life with';
2) An outsider/ alienation:
- 'I can't really communicate with international students', 'not enough communication with native students', 'feeling like an outsider most of the time';
3) Dislike of food
- 'I hate English food', 'I still prefer Chinese food', 'there is no real Chinese food available'.

Loneliness was the most frequently commented upon feature of a student's feelings of studying abroad in the students' interviews. "Enjoy loneliness" was the response by a postgraduate student to a question seeking to identify the positive aspects of his student life in the UK. "Enjoy" and "loneliness" do not logically collocate well together. This simple response thus conveys powerfully the profound psychological frustration that these Chinese learners may have to cope with in addition to the learning shock related stress and tensions they suffer. Elsewhere, Stone Feinstein and Ward (1990) and Ward and Searle (1991) have also reported that loneliness was shown to be a powerful predictor of mood disturbance in their studies on foreign students' intercultural adaptation in Singapore and New Zealand.

Anderson (1994: 297) argues that adapting to an unfamiliar environment involves more than learning and familiarising the parameters of the new environment:

It means accepting the unfamiliar, accepting the uprooting and alien values, and the loss of loved objects and people, and a much harder task.

Anderson maintains that "working one's way into a culture can produce fundamental changes in the sojourner commensurate with a process of resocialisation" (1994: 293). But she fails to address the issue that the process of resocialisation itself can be a lonely journey in that it requires sojourners' constant self-reflection, self-rejection, negotiation, mediation and strategic adaptation to new norms, values and beliefs in the host culture. Before they reach the plateau of resocialisation, they may have to continue to suffer from the loss of loved people and feelings of alienation to the host society.

Hall's (1959, 1966, 1976) notion of "hidden culture" provides a particularly pertinent lens that educationalists working across cultural borders can use to view the underlying cause of culture shock that foreign students face in their intercultural adaptation.

Everything man is and does is modified by learning and is therefore malleable. But once learned, these behaviour patterns, these habitual responses, these ways of interacting gradually sink below the surface of the mind and, like the commander of a submerged submarine fleet, control from the depths. The hidden controls are usually experienced as though they were innate simply because they are not only ubiquitous but habitual as well. What makes it doubly hard to differentiate the innate from the acquired is the fact that, as people grow up, everyone around them shares the same patterns.
(Hall, 1976: 42)

The research literature on intercultural adaptation suggests that successful intercultural experience is itself a transformative learning process which leads to a journey of personal growth and development (Byrnes, 1965; Adler, 1975, Mansell, 1981, Kim and Ruben, 1988, Anderson, 1994, Montuori and Fahim, 2004). Adler (1975: 15) points to the positive consequences of culture shock and explains that such intercultural transformation process should result in "the movement of personality and identity to a new consciousness of values, attitudes and understandings":

Although culture shock is most often associated with negative consequences, it can be an important aspect of cultural learning, self-development, and personal growth. The problems and frustrations encountered in the culture shock process are important to an understanding of change and movement experiences, and that such transitional experiences can be the source of higher levels of personality development. Implicit in the conflict and tension posed by the transitional experience lies the potential for authentic growth and development.
(Adler 1975: 15)

In this current study, almost all Chinese learners, as confirmed by their British lecturers/tutors, reported that they had perceived themselves to have progressed and developed in the UK. In addition to an improvement in their English language proficiency, they felt great satisfaction at their progress in four key aspects:
a) improved self-responsibility;
b) a stronger sense of independence in managing not only the progress of their study but also their student lives;
c) improved competence in critical thinking;
d) increased self-confidence and sense of reflexivity.

The following interview quotes illustrate these aspects.

a) Self-responsibility

"Another thing is that when I was in China, I was not very keen on studying very hard. I would complete what I was asked to do. But you would not expect anything more from me. But now I realised that I had to be totally responsible for my own study. I had to read things that I am not even very interested in, because otherwise, I would not be able to solve problems in my study."
(Chinese postgraduate student A)

"I have learned to discover problems and learned to be independent in doing research. … It is the same with Master's study. It is very intensive here and students learn to independently solve problems."
(Chinese postgraduate student F)

"I think the biggest change is my ability to independently manage my life. I have to think of everything for myself. It is a feeling that there is nobody around to help me with all this. My life in the UK has improved my ability to communicate with people. I came here on my own. I realised that I had to get used to a completely different environment and meet different people. Sometimes when I come across problems, I need to learn to ask for help from those new friends. I feel that my interpersonal abilities have greatly increased. And, I have had some part-time working experience."
(Chinese postgraduate student K)

"I had an interesting example of a Chinese student who started a degree with us and she had problems. Very often the Chinese students have problems finding themselves extending from one to two years. But she went from a student who in her first year suffered all sorts of problems to a student who in a second year took a piece of research which she found, challenged it, researched it and actually came up with some original research data disputing quite an important article which she based her research on."
(British lecturer B)

(In the second semester), they become more and more confident about doing that sort of thing, because they learn the rules. Most students, whether they are Chinese or not, want to please their teachers and their fellow students. And when they realise what's required, then they will do that. But beyond that, it is not just about being pleasing. … It is also about finding out how you learn in this situation because if you use a sort of stereotypical Confucian approach to learning in a course which is designed around participating workshops, then you are not going to make the most of the learning resources. You are not going to make the most of your learning. … Yes, what happens to them (Chinese students) is that I think they become aware. I think they actually on the whole come to value it … as a result of reflecting on it. They don't value it just because it is there. They value it because they think about it.
(British lecturer H)

The encouraging message from the above quotes is that sojourn learners' continuous endeavour to overcome their culture and learning shock will result in their understanding and appreciating new values and ways of working and living and ultimately, action heading for both personal growth and academic progress. For these Chinese learners, their successful intercultural adaptation is clearly characterised by their enhanced self-responsibility, self-confidence, and independence - qualities that are strongly encouraged in the western educational culture. Furnham (2004: 18) notes that

It is certainly worth noting that for many students the 'overseas' experience is enormously beneficial and can shape their outlook for the rest of their lives. Many say it was one of their most profound life experiences, leaving them very positively disposed … Whatever negative culture shock they may have experienced early on was soon overcome, and mostly only positive experiences recalled.

The article has discussed the learning and culture shock that a group of Chinese learners have experienced in their study in the UK. For these learners, their initial stressful and emotionally demanding intercultural experience was ultimately found by them to be a journey of personal and professional development. This journey leads to a profound life changing experience. It is a holistic experience and requires sojourn learners' active engagement in the host culture and sustained "willingness to suspend belief in one's own meanings and behaviours and to analyse them from the viewpoint of the others with whom one is engaging" (Byram, 1997: 233-57). Anderson (1994: 293) maintains that, "when, in the adaptation process, socialisation is extensive or adjustments are particularly difficult, sojourners can be 'reborn' by the experience." The implication for educationalists is that a holistic and developmental view is needed to understand a Chinese learner's "enjoyment of loneliness" and to provide responsive support to facilitate the process of their intercultural transformation.

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