“Are the Chinese high school English language learning
experiences of intending international students the
primary cause of difficulties experienced during study in
the Australian secondary system?”
The trend towards the internationalisation of education
has seen a growing number of students moving to English
speaking countries to complete their tertiary and,
increasingly, senior secondary education. Within an
Australian context, and across all sectors, students from
the People’s Republic of China make up the largest single
component with 23.8% of the total international student
market (DFAT, 2010). Whilst there is a considerable and
ongoing body of research into the challenges presented
regarding tertiary education, little specific literature
is applicable to a significant sub-group: unaccompanied
minors who move into the Australian secondary school
system aiming to graduate from high school and then
undertake tertiary studies. For many of these students
the shift in learning culture from that which could be
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broadly described as collectivist, to a more
individualistic ethos (Jin & Cortazzi, 2006), is a major
barrier to successful educational transition and one
which often follows them into their post-secondary years.
Despite pedagogical changes initiated by the Chinese
Ministry of Education in its English Curriculum Standards
document of 2001 (Cheng, 2011), many restraining factors,
not the least of which is the National College Entry
Examination, effectively thwart the intended outcomes of
these educational advances. Resultantly, Chinese high
school students moving to Australia often lack the skills
necessary to access the full range of learning
possibilities available to them. The lack of published
research specifically examining this problem points to
the need for exploration to be done in order for improved
educational outcomes to occur.
The methodology employed in this paper has two primary
origins. Firstly, the literature dealing with the
research problem is adequate in providing an
understanding of English Language Teaching (ELT)
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pedagogies and resultant methodologies employed within
China. Ministry of Education policies are clearly
outlined by Cheng (2011), as are the 2001 English
Curriculum Standards (ECS). The nature of the washback
associated with the National College Entry Exam (NCEE),
more commonly called the Gaokao, has been the subject of
extensive research (Kirkpatrick & Zang, 2011). There is
also some literature which looks at how the policies of
Australian schools regarding Chinese international
students can actually have the reverse effect of their
intended outcome, which is to encourage the use of
English (Willoughby, 2007). However, there is a paucity
of study relating student experiences within their
Australian schools back to English language learning in
their Chinese classrooms. The other source of
information is this writer’s own participation in the
Chinese system as a university English educator for more
than four years, as well as being an English language
teacher of international high school students in
Australia since 2005. Whilst this tends to be anecdotal,
fifteen years of close involvement with students in the
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senior high school and undergraduate age group lends some
authority to this source.
Cheng (2011) details the important position of English as
a Foreign Language (EFL) within compulsory education in
China. The introduction of the English Curriculum
Standards (ECS) by the Ministry of Education in 2001 is
seen as a key element in the reform of EFL methodology.
Descriptions of explicit targets in different syllabus
areas across the entire primary and junior high (ages 6-
15) sectors demonstrated a huge shift in pedagogical
focus, and by 2009 all of these schools, as well as 80%
of senior high schools, were to be using the English
Curriculum Standards. Given the timeline for the
introduction of the ECS, it is worth noting that they may
have had very little impact on the ELT methodologies
experienced by Chinese students who have subsequently
enrolled in Australian schools. It is also probable that,
despite Cheng’s enthusiasm for the new standards, the
practicalities of their introduction may mean that there
has been little real change at the classroom level.
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Sawir’s (2005) paper on the language difficulties
experienced by international tertiary students in
Australia sees prior learning experience as central to
the difficulties encountered by undergraduates from East
Asian cultures, where ELT methodologies tend to focus on
grammar and vocabulary rather than the constantly
evolving concept of communicative competence (Nunan,
1999). This view, which acknowledges the need for
knowledge of rules and vocabulary, goes on to include
sociolinguistic capability, as well as discourse and
strategic competencies. The reality of learning English
in a Chinese high school is that all efforts are directed
towards the NCEE. There is a general consensus within the
TESOL community that the effect of an assessment on
teaching and learning, known as washback, can be
beneficial or detrimental (Brown, 2010). In terms of the
NCEE’s English component, and using Brown’s five
principles of language assessment, it can be seen that
the test fails badly in the area of authenticity. Items
are uncontextualised, lacking any connection to the world
of real English usage, and the exam is described as
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“high-stakes testing, where results can profoundly impact
a student’s life for decades to come” (Kirkpatrick &
Zang, 2011, p.36). Thus the washback of the NCEE is
detrimental, not just in terms of English acquisition,
but also in the psychological and social effects it has
on its candidates.
Consequently, we have a cohort of Chinese students
readying themselves for an uncertain future in a country
they know little about, and for which they seem ill
prepared in many ways. Typically, they will arrive as 15
or 16 year olds and enrol at a high school chosen for
them by an education agent selected by their parents.
They will live with a local family and begin as students
in an Intensive Secondary English Class (ISEC) where,
significantly, half of their classmates may also be
Chinese. Peer clusters will be formed on this basis, even
based on Mandarin and Cantonese speaking sub-groups,
which will possibly endure for years. Students’ primary
learning strategies are the ones they have acquired over
the previous seven or so years of English instruction,
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but which are of little help in this new culture, and are
methods that will often attract negative commentary from
their teachers. This is emotionally a very challenging
time, as research carried out in Adelaide (Zhou, Willis &
Chen, 2010) and in a similar scenario in Canada (Popaduik
& Marshall, 2011) suggests. With the classroom being the
main focus of their new lives, the educational culture
shock involved is profound. Although initially segregated
from mainstream classes, these students cannot help but
observe what seems to be the informal nature of
relationships between local students and teachers, as
well as the degree of self determination their Australian
counterparts appear to exercise. Their teachers,
including those with TESOL expertise, have expectations
that do not sit comfortably with these students’ learning
backgrounds. Lessons are conducted in a language that is
unfamiliar, delivered at a bewildering speed and with
jargon and accent compounding all of this. So retreating
to a safety zone of Chinese friends, activities such as
eating and shopping together, using Chinese social media
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sites, as well as returning home frequently are all
perfectly understandable coping strategies.
As previously noted, research into this group’s
experiences in Australia is limited, with a far greater
emphasis being given to the much larger cohort of
university students. One exception discusses the changing
nature of Chinese international students in secondary
schools (Arkoudis & Love, 2003), and so is relevant to
this study. The researchers challenge the stereotype of
the academically focused, good at Maths and Sciences
passive learner, which has more recently been broken down
by the arrival of many different types of students. This
writer can identify the Gaokao refugee, whose parents’
wish to save their child from the psychological stress of
this feared exam, as well as the face-losing possibility
of failure. Some of the group, although conscientious, do
not fit the academic mould and struggle from the outset.
Then there are those whose mission is to succeed in their
studies, forge a career and subsequently sponsor other
family members for migration. Also we have a group dubbed
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“little emperors” by their Australian teachers;
privileged products of China’s one-child policy. They see
no need to seriously engage in study, safe in the belief
that there is no necessity to do so given their parents’
wealth. Often their fecklessness leads despairing parents
to send them far away! However, even with this mix of
candidates, we can be confident that they come from a
similarly uniform English language education background,
given the tight control that the Chinese Communist Party,
via the Ministry of Education, exerts over the entire
system. This is the case from pre-school through to post
graduate level, and commenced with the 1978 curriculum
(Adamson, 2004) when China’s entire education system had
to be rebuilt following the chaos of the Cultural
Revolution. Variations will occur, such as the degree and
nature of additional tutoring individual students have
had, and the extent to which the student’s own motivation
has led them to immersion in English rich experiences
such as television (Wang, 2012) and other media (Kim,
1992). Residents of the wealthier coastal cities will
also have had a greater opportunity to interact with
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English speakers such as EFL teachers and tourists, which
again will have been taken up by those who are strongly
motivated to achieve communicative competence.
Cortazzi and Jin introduce the concept of “cultures of
learning” (1996) to help explain the disconnect between
what we can see happening in Chinese and Australian
English language classrooms. Here we are not just talking
about interaction in the students’ ESL classes, but
across the whole curriculum they experience in their new
schools. The authors define these cultures as “taken-for-
granted frameworks of expectations, attitudes, values and
beliefs about how to teach or learn successfully and
about how to use talk in interaction. A culture of
learning frames what teachers and students expect to
happen in the classroom” (1996, p.169). For Chinese
students, this is often characterised as involving
passive and rote learning of huge amounts of information.
Teachers are respected for their knowledge and the
classroom culture is collectivist, where the needs of the
individual are seen as secondary to those of the group.
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Additionally, theories of how language is learned differ
from most current SLA thinking. One Chinese view of
language acquisition is that it is quantifiable; with a
person’s command being measured by the number of Chinese
characters they have memorised. For example, 2,000 is
quoted as the figure needed to read a newspaper. So when
this belief is applied to second language learning, we
find the Ministry of Education’s College English
Curriculum of 2007 including a 156-page vocabulary and
phrase list (Stanley, 2011) that students are required to
memorise. The theory essentially underpinning the
grammar-translation method of second language learning is
that this “knowledge” of vocabulary, when combined with a
reasonable mastery of the “rules” of grammar, will result
in a command of that language. In reality, what we have
is a student with a certain level of English literacy,
obsessed by the need to translate every new item they
come across and with weak listening and speaking skills.
Thus the next step - the ability to participate in a
communicative sense with other users of that language -
is where the learner will often come undone.
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On arrival in Australia, Adelaide in this case, students
will be placed in an ISEC class made up entirely of
internationals. The composition varies, but will
generally comprise Chinese, Japanese, Korean and South
East Asian students in descending numerical order. The
group will stay together for a core curriculum, involving
half of their time spent in intensive English with ESL
teachers and the rest in Maths, Science, Art or Food
Technology and the compulsory SACE unit Personal Learning
Project, which also involves a week of work experience.
ISEC intake is continuous and, depending on their English
level, students can progress into mainstream classes at
any time while still receiving ESL support. They will
find that most teachers employ what is loosely termed as
a Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach.
Attempting to wade through the debate regarding what CLT
actually involves, Brown (2007) presents seven
interrelated features of this approach. When these tenets
are aligned with what has happened in our students’
Chinese – and Japanese and Korean – classrooms in
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previous years, we can immediately see the reasons for
the disconnect referred to earlier. CLT focuses on all
the components of language, not just those that are part
of the NCEE. Language is used for real purposes in
situations as authentic as possible, and fluency is seen
as being as important as accuracy. It is possible that
part of the reluctance of some Chinese students to speak
English comes from the belief that silence is better than
inaccuracy. Autonomous learning is an important goal of
CLT; the teacher does not present as the pinnacle of
knowledge, and active students are valued over passive
ones. So for our Chinese students, their culture of
learning has been turned on its head and many,
understandably, will struggle initially to manage this
change.
Sawir (2005) argues that the relationship between
international students’ communication problems and
previous learning experiences is a strong one, and
additionally asserts that their entrenched beliefs about
how a language is learned will continue to inhibit their
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acquisition of English unless this thinking changes. Of
interest to ESL practitioners is the same writer’s view
that “the diagnosis of international students’ learning
problems is a poorly developed area” (p. 578). Although
tertiary sector specific, these findings could have equal
validity when applied to high schools. The concept of
bridging programs being run in the students’ country of
origin, staffed by the destination school or its system,
and providing future international students with a taste
of the learning culture they will soon experience is
worth considering. Additionally, they can be introduced
to the society they are soon to enter, so easing
transition. There is certainly a good case to be made for
teachers who will work with the target group spending
some professional time in China observing and teaching in
a junior high school. Several South Australian schools
already have an Asian literacy focus and encourage their
staff to undertake such exchange programs, and a number
of teachers have completed the Master of Education
(Studies of Asia) at Flinders University.
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Zhou, Willis and Chen (2010) have studied the
psychological challenges faced by Chinese international
students attending schools in South Australia, finding
these to be even more significant than people working in
this area suspect. Three key areas voiced by the
participants, were “missing home”, “feeling lonely” and
“living in fear” (p.1). Anxiety and depression were
common, and virtually all the students involved in the
study reported problems with their emotional well-being.
Whilst these concerns are common during the second stage
of acculturation and affecting those of any age, at a
time when adolescents are also attempting to adapt to an
unfamiliar education system delivered in their second
language the results may be compounded. The general
theory of acculturation has been refined over time. Kim
(1992) believes that increased interpersonal interaction
within the participant’s new setting will result in
accelerated acculturation. So we find a classic dilemma:
students are unwilling to engage in English with non-
Chinese peers and adults; consequently their language
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skills fail to develop, and then they feel unhappy and
trapped in an alien environment.
At this point, it is interesting to compare the social
adjustments of our international students with those of
their Chinese peers who arrive as migrants with their
families, and so are consequently less prone to the
stresses discussed by Zhou, Willis and Chen (2010). While
this can only be done anecdotally at present by using
some students within this writer’s recent teaching
experience, there are a few observations suggesting
possible directions for further study. The students’
chosen “English” names are used to provide anonymity.
Vicky, Jenny and Sam all moved to Australia with their
families late in their primary school years. The two
girls flourished after the move to high school, mixed
easily with Chinese and non-Chinese students, and had
soon achieved proficiency in English, albeit with an
Australian accent! They succeeded in their studies and
went on to university. In their time at school they
became significant intermediaries, and were often an
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important point of contact for newly arrived Chinese
students needing advice or assistance. Sam, on the other
hand, has not been so fortunate. His primary school
signalled the fact before his commencement at high school
that he had almost no English, and despite his inclusion
in the normally internationals-only ISEC class for one
year, he continues to struggle with a fragmented command
of English. He is socially isolated, but seems resigned
to being an outsider. Of concern is his increasing
pattern of absence, placing him at risk of disengagement
with formal education. It is impossible to do more than
speculate, but the rapid English purchase of the two
girls could lend support to the critical period
hypothesis, which offers a biological explanation for the
successful acquisition of native-like pronunciation and
accent by pre-pubescent children. Sam, on the other hand,
may have undergone the neurological changes associated
with the hypothesis before his arrival. Gary arrived as a
14 year old, and as part of a family that had been
preparing themselves for migration for some years. These
measures included additional English classes for him, and
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he had strong extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to
become language proficient. His involvement in the
school’s specialist music program has provided him with
many opportunities to interact with local students, and
he has proven to be a high achiever in all areas of
study.
It appears that many Chinese international students’
previous English learning experiences do not prepare them
adequately for study in Australia. Some possible
strategies to address this shortcoming would require a
“meeting in the middle” (Stanley, 2011, p.93) to
facilitate better intercultural adaptation. Teachers with
significant numbers of Chinese students need to
understand their charges’ learning culture; preferably by
experiencing it. This could occur in conjunction with
bridging programs similar to ISEC, but centred pre-
departure in Chinese schools. Such measures would give
intending international students a degree of preparation
that they do not currently experience. However, there are
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other factors that play a significant part in the degree
of success experienced by these students.
Despite what seem to be the inadequacies of the Chinese
system, some students arrive with a level of
communicative competence that surprises their teachers.
They adapt quickly to their new lives and go on to
achieve their aim of undertaking tertiary studies. What
characterises these students is their high level of
motivation coupled with a willingness to move out of the
comfort zone mentioned earlier. Part-time work and extra-
curricular activities such as sport and music bring them
into contact with non-Chinese speakers, reinforcing the
point made earlier by Kim (1992). Friendships across
nationalities using English as the lingua franca are also
a common feature. Present school structures such as ISEC
could be seen as hindering these kinds of experiences by
unwittingly encouraging the formation of Chinese-speaking
peer groups within the school. The students themselves
compound this with their subject selections focusing on
Maths and Business type offerings, positioning them on
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the timetable with their Chinese friends; also observed
by Willoughby (2007) in Victoria. However, Stafford
(2010) writes about students moving to Australia as
“being on a journey from what they ……saw as major
deficiencies or lack of opportunity in China”, and that
they are “transformed in ways they had not and could not
have expected” (p. vii). They eventually move comfortably
between cultures and without needing to sacrifice their
Chinese identities. The stages we see these students
going through in their high school years are a necessary
and unavoidable part of this process of self-discovery,
and the forging of their new Chinese-Australian self. So
attempts to socially engineer their integration into
mainstream Australian society could actually be counter
productive, further adding to the psychological stresses
referred to by Zhou, Willis and Chen (2010). One
observation that can be drawn from this discussion is
that pedagogical change is gradually happening at the
Chinese end of the process. However, for international
students, it could be expedited by the earlier and more
proactive involvement of their Australian receptor
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organizations, and with an increased awareness of Chinese
learning culture on the part of Australian educators.
There are strong indicators as to what factors contribute
to students meeting their goals, and receptor schools can
ease these structurally. However, it seems that those who
arrive with poor communicative skills would always
struggle to succeed. It may be that stricter English
language pre-requisites are needed for intending
international students, despite the strong financial
allure of doing otherwise.
So, to revisit the research question, learners with low-
level communicative competence can be a consequence of
Chinese English teaching methods. Such students who
resultantly arrive in Australia will struggle
academically and may fail to acculturate, leading to
feelings of isolation and unhappiness. Specific and
focused research is needed in order to improve these
young peoples’ outcomes. Conversely, students who
experience success are generally highly motivated, and
have taken measures pre-departure to bring their
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