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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Chinese students are the biggest ethnic group of international students in the United States. Previous studies have identified many unique problems of Chinese students during their acculturation process and a higher level of acculturative stress than international students from other countries. A systematic review of instruments that assess acculturative stress revealed that none of the existing scales apply to Chinese students in the United States, either because of language issues or validity problems. Thus, this study aims to develop a reliable and valid scale to accurately measure the acculturative stress of Chinese students in the United States. A 72-item pool was generated by interviewing eight Chinese students and borrowing items from existing literature and scales. The item pool was sent online to 607 Chinese students and 267 of them completed the survey. Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted to empirically derive the factor structure of the Acculturative Stress Scale for Chinese Students (ASSCS). The results produced a 32-item scale in five dimensions, which were Language Insufficiency, Social Isolation, Perceived Discrimination, Academic Pressure, and Guilt toward Family. The ASSCS demonstrated high reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.939) and initial validity by predicting depression (Beta = 0.490, p<.001) and life satisfaction (Beta = -0.505, p<.001). It was the first Chinese scale of acculturative stress developed and validated among a Chinese student sample in the United States. Further studies need to be conducted to provide empirical support and confirm the validity for the scale. In the future, the scale can be used as diagnosing tool and self-assessment tool.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Technology Degree: Public Relations Management, Department of Marketing, Retail and Public Relations, Faculty of Management Sciences, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / This study presents the research of an investigation into the intercultural communication barriers between Zulu and Chinese students at selected Higher Education Institutions in Durban. To achieve this aim, two sets of questionnaires were administered separately to Zulu and Chinese students at two HEIs in Durban and an observation report was compiled. This study reviewed theories and literature relevant to defining and understanding the barriers to intercultural communication. The insights gained from this literature review were used to interpret the results which were obtained through a quantitative and qualitative research methodology. The findings revealed that intercultural communication barriers do exist between Zulu and Chinese students. Findings also found that language problems amongst Zulu and Chinese students are viewed as common barriers, especially where the communicators speak different languages. Comments from respondents revealed that a communicators‟ accent, different grammar structure and the words they use are confusing during their intercultural communication experience. Cultural differences and language problems were found to be the main intercultural communication barriers. In addition, the problems of nonverbal communication, racism, ethnocentrism, cultural stereotyping were also viewed as obstacles of the intercultural communication process. / Durban University of Technology. Dept. of Postgraduate Development and Support.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how a group of Chinese business students understood the nature and the purpose of the instruction techniques they were exposed to in Britain, and the attitudes the students, Chinese lecturers in China and British lecturers in Britain held towards seminar discussions. The study also investigated how and to what extent students’ prior learning experiences predisposed them to certain attitudes towards seminar discussions. The student participants in this study undertook Part I of their degree programme at a Chinese university for two years before transferring to Britain to study for one year, graduating with a British Bachelors Degree in International Business. Data was gathered from classroom observations, follow-up and exploratory interviews, and a questionnaire survey to discover more about the students’ learning experiences in Part I in China, and from classroom observations, audio-recordings, and follow-up and exploratory interviews to investigate the same group of students’ learning experiences in Part II in Britain. A ranking task and interviews were used to identify the preferences of Chinese students, British lecturers, and Chinese lecturers from China in terms of specific group discussion methods. The study identified three discussion methods used by students in British seminars: these have been termed ‘spiral’, ‘exploratory’ and ‘individual’ methods. The Chinese students tended to use the ‘spiral’ method, repeatedly bringing the discussion back to the question provided by the seminar tutor, whereas the non-Chinese students tended to use the ‘exploratory’ method, reformulating each other’s opinions and building on them by bringing in new information. When discussing within Chinese-only groups, the Chinese students used the ‘individual’ method whereby a group leader took responsibility for the outcomes of the discussion and the other members did not build upon each other’s contributions. Chinese and non-Chinese students sometimes misunderstood each others’ intentions, but were not likely to notice that miscommunication had occurred. The ranking task and the follow-up interviews revealed that the British lecturers preferred the ‘exploratory’ discussion method, whereas Chinese lecturers from China and Chinese students preferred the ‘spiral’ method. The British lecturers were found to adopt a constructivist approach to group discussion tasks, seeing them as a means by which students could obtain professional experience. They treated Business and Management knowledge as divergent and ‘soft’. Chinese lecturers and students, on the other hand, were found to perceive group discussion as a kind of assessment and were keen to find ‘correct’ answers to case study problems, treating Business and Management as convergent and hard disciplines which offered judgements on good practice. The Chinese lecturers in Part I of the programme organised group discussion so that students could exchange answers and check their accuracy, and, perhaps because of this, in Part I the students learnt in an exam-oriented way, strategically dividing up their tasks and working individually on their own task portions in order to find an acceptable answer as quickly as possible. These students were found to continue to employ these strategies during group work after they had transferred to the British component of their degree programme. The study has made a theoretical contribution to knowledge concerning the cultural influences on students’ classroom interactional practices. The findings from the study have implications for the teaching of intercultural business communication, and the enhancement of students’ learning experiences in international business programmes, in business English programmes in China, and whilst learning within groups.

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Cette thèse s'inscrit dans le domaine de la didactique du français langue seconde. Elle concerne les causes de la réussite ou de l'échec de l'apprentissage du français par des étudiants chinois en France. Plus précisément, elle prend appui sur la perception de la réussite ou de l'échec d'apprentissage parmi ce public dont l'effectif ne cesse de croître et au sein duquel de nombreux individus éprouvent de grandes difficultés à apprendre la langue du pays d'accueil. Afin d'interroger les causes des sentiments de réussite ou d'échec dans l'apprentissage, trois hypothèses sont posées : le sentiment de réussite ou d'échec est conditionné par l'adaptation à la nouvelle culture d'apprentissage/enseignement ; certains traits de personnalité favorisent l'apprentissage de la langue ; la motivation des apprenants a des conséquences sur leur investissement et sur leur utilisation de stratégies dans l'apprentissage du français. Cette étude tend à montrer que le sentiment de réussite ou d'échec d'apprentissage résulte d'un cumul d'expériences émotionnellement positives ou négatives. Elle fait apparaître certains des facteurs qui facilitent ou empêchent l'apprentissage du français par des étudiants chinois en France. Par exemple, l'adaptation à la culture d'enseignement française favoriserait l'apprentissage et induirait chez l'apprenant un sentiment de réussite. Parmi les facteurs qui seraient susceptibles d'engendrer un sentiment d'échec, l'introversion empêcherait l'acquisition de compétences dans le domaine de l'expression orale et l'absence de contacts réguliers avec le français dans la vie quotidienne affaiblirait la motivation d'apprentissage. / This PhD. dissertation aims to contribute to research in teaching French as a second language. It analyzes the reasons why Chinese students in France succeed or not in learning French. More precisely, it is based on the perception of success or failure in learning French among a population whose numbers are growing and in which many individuals find it very difficult to learn the language of the host country. In order to examine the reasons for the feeling of success or failure in learning, three hypotheses are postulated: the feeling of success or failure is determined by the adaptation to the new culture of learning/teaching; certain personality traits promote language learning; learners' motivation has some consequences on their use of strategies in learning French. This research aims to show that the feeling of success or failure in learning results from the synthesis of experiences with positive or negative emotion. It also shows some of the factors that facilitate or hinder French learning by Chinese students in France. For example, adapting to the French culture of teaching would encourage learning and bring about learners' feeling of success. Among the factors that are likely to generate the feeling of failure, it appears that introversion prevents the acquisition of speaking skills and lack of regular contact with the French language in everyday life weakens motivation to learn.

En examinant les difficultés représentatives rencontrées par les étudiants chinois au cours de leur apprentissage du français langue étrangère (FLE), la présente thèse a pour objectif d’inventorier et analyser leurs erreurs récurrentes à l'écrit, à différents niveaux, en vue de proposer des procédés ou des suggestions qui pourraient éventuellement améliorer l’enseignement du FLE en Chine. La thèse est divisée en sept chapitres reposant sur l’analyse des erreurs à partir d'un point de grammaire précis - la voix passive, et puis, au niveau micro, sur différents aspects : perceptuo - mémoriels, métalinguistique et sémantico - pragmatiques, avec un bilan général à la fin. À l’issue de cette analyse, nous avons pu constater que les difficultés que les étudiants chinois rencontrent au cours de leur apprentissage sont dues principalement à l’écart entre le français et le chinois, leur langue maternelle, dont l'influence est partout sous-jacent. La présente recherche s’oriente vers la linguistique structurale et une analyse contrastive. En examinant cas par cas les différentes imperfections repérées dans notre corpus spécialement constitué à cette fin, nous essayons de découvrir les causes qui les sous-tendent. La deuxième étape est réservée à une étude de stratégie didactique. En nous appuyant sur le résultat de l'analyse précédente, nous procédons à une description statistique de notre matériel pour connaître la répartition des différentes catégories d’erreurs. En partant de cette image statistique, nous pouvons esquisser enfin des recommandations didactiques plus adéquates. / By examining the typical difficulties faced by Chinese students in their learning of French as foreign language (FLE in French), this thesis aims to list, categorize, and analyze their recurring errors at different levels in writing, in order to propose some proper suggestions that could possibly help improve the teaching of French as foreign language in China. The thesis is divided into seven chapters based on error analysis from a specific grammar point - the passive voice, and then, the thesis, at the micro level, on different aspects: perceptuo - memorial, meta-linguistics and semantic - pragmatic, analyzes the various types of written errors Chinese students make in their French learning, with a general assessment at the end. With previous analysis, the thesis concludes that the main causes of the difficulties Chinese students encounter in the French learning lie in the differences between French language and their mother tongue while the influence of the mother tongue is ubiquitous. It is with the reference of structural linguistics and contrastive linguistics in our analyzing process of the error cases, one by one from the materials specially gathered for this purpose, that the research has found the main causes that underlie the errors. And it is by using a statistical analysis of the corpus collected, that the research has also found the distribution of different categories of the errors, so that it provides a objective basis for the further improvement of French teaching in China.

Chinese students learning English as a foreign language seem to get good marks in tests, but are poor or limited in their ability to write in English. This dilemma of China's EFL writing instruction seems to be related to the decontextualized EFL writing practices. This study aims to examine how Chinese EFL college students respond to changes in their writing instruction that pays attention to the context of EFL teaching and learning. In this study, context refers to three levels: linguistic context, situational context and cultural context. Using the mixed methods approach, I conducted the study by engaging 60 second-year undergraduate students from a university in China and five Chinese students studying in a joint program in a university in the United States. The Write-to-learn Model based on my context-oriented framework was used in the study. The findings of the study show that following a 5-month training with the Write-to-learn Model, the experimental group improved significantly more than the control group with respect to English writing, indicating that adding context to EFL teaching and learning created positive writing outcomes for EFL students. In addition, the results of this study also demonstrate that the Chinglish phenomenon was related to decontextualized EFL writing practices and thought patterns resulting from culture. Adequate comprehensible input of authentic materials was found to be a good remedy to minimize EFL students' Chinglish expressions. This study found that the Write-to-learn Model was an effective approach in China's EFL writing classes.

Offshore programs have become increasingly popular in countries that are experiencing rapid economic growth and rising demand for higher education. There is no doubt that China is one of the largest markets for offshore programs. However, the offshore program market in China has become increasingly competitive. Currently, institutions from the USA, the UK, and Australia, to name just a few, are offering offshore programs ranging from the professional diploma level to higher degrees such as MA, MBA and PhD. Therefore, understanding how Chinese students select an offshore program is important for competing and surviving in this market place. This study examines the effects of image (i.e., country image and higher education image), attitude, subject norm and perceived behavior control (adopted from Ajzen's theory of planned behavior) in Chinese students' enrollment intentions towards offshore programs from Australia, the UK and the USA respectively. A total number of 1291 valid questionnaires were collected from China for this study. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method was used for data analyses and modeling. This PhD's several major findings have significant theoretical and practical implication. One of the major findings was that country image or its related higher education image doesn't have significant effect on an offshore program evaluation in China. This finding has contradicted most previous studies which suggested that country image had significant impact on whether a consumer purchases the products or brands from a foreign country. The difference between this study and the other country-image studies may be due to the fact that this study studied multiple factors besides country image, while the other studies looked at only the effect of country image on purchasing intention. Although country image or higher education image did not play any significant role in offshore program enrollments, this study found that the image of the partnering or local institution had a significant effect on enrollment intention. Because Chinese students are unfamiliar with a foreign country or their higher education system, they relied heavily on the local institution (e.g., its reputation and quality) to evaluate an offshore program. The findings with respective to image have challenged most previous studies on country image and open a new arena for looking at the effect of country image in behavioral intention. Practically speaking, these findings make universities rethink their offshore program strategies in foreign countries, particularly developing countries. Most university marketers from western countries emphasize on the characteristics of its own (such as the history of the university, the quality of research) when promoting its offshore program overseas. However, this study suggested that the focus should be placed on selecting a good and suitable local partner, as well as emphasizing the characteristics of the local partner. Other major findings were related to the Theory of Planned behavior. This study found that all three components of the TPB, namely, attitude towards the program, subject norm and perceived behavior control had significant effects on enrollment intention. This suggested that for predicting behavioral intention in educational program enrollment, the TPB is a very powerful model.