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

CHAPTER 6: COMMUNITIES OF LEARNING
Introduction
In this chapter, I am interested in relationships of learning and how communities of learning
develop from these relationships. I choose to structure this chapter around the distinction
between given relationships with family members, chosen relationships with other students
and mediated relationship with tutors and significant other parties, such as workplace
colleagues. These three kinds of relationship emerged from the interview data and the
interviewees‘ autobiographical accounts. In this study, the students voiced the great
importance of relationships in learning both in China and in the UK, and how the
relationships have affected their learning. I am interested to explore the extent to which given
relationships influence students‘ learning. How do Chinese students choose the relationship
with other students To what extent do Chinese students mediate their relationship with their
tutors and colleagues in part-time paid jobs in the UK And what impact do these
relationships have on a student‘s learning
In order to conceptualise these three relationships of learning, they are illustrated in Figure
6.1 below.
Given relationship
with family
Mediated relationship
with tutors and
workplace colleagues
Chosen relationship
with other students
Figure 6.1: Relationships of learning
Wenger (2007) states that learning involves a deepening process of participation in a
community of practice, and communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a
process of collective learning in shared domain of human endeavour. His theory of
‗communities of practice‘ has provided a different angle for exploring how and where
learning takes place. In this study, learning takes place in the relationships between people.
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