The challenge of academic writing for Chinese students within ...

to another is not easy, particularly when those systems differ as radically as they do in
shifting between the English language and Chinese. The potential for slippage is
enormous. I am interested in these differences and difficulties – these slippages – and
in the kinds of institutional support necessary to enable students of Chinese origin – of
whom I am one – to cope and excel within the UK. I am interested, in other words, in
mapping the institutional conditions for learning onto the overseas student experience
of learning. Figure 4.4 summarises this third circle of understanding.
Challenges of academic
conventions of British HE;
International students‘ coping
strategies;
Institutional formal and nonformal
support for
international students.
Figure 4.4: Institutional contexts
The key research question is now emerged from the above context – what
transformations do Chinese undergraduate students undergo within a new sociocultural
environment and different institutional learning settings
The mode of conceptual analysis reflects the methodological process. My overseas
student interviewees were all from mainland China and had been studying in the UK
for at least one academic year. Working with this small group of Chinese students
provided me with the opportunity of spending more time with each participant and
getting to know her or him as a fellow student. I am bilingual in English and
Mandarin and this makes it possible to communicate with participants in their own
language while submitting my thesis in English and contributing to English-speaking
conferences across continents. It also makes it possible for me to construct a
methodological approach that is sensitive to the voices of those whose student
experiences I am seeking to understand.
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