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

found in Appendix 9. This finding coincides with a recent study by Montgomery and
McDowell (2008).
Mediated relationships
Chinese students‘ learning experiences in the UK also closely involve the relationships they
developed with mentors (tutors) and colleagues if the students worked part-time as a
complement to their study. I call these ‗mediated‘ relationships because although these
relationships were sometimes given to them, the students also had a certain leeway in
developing these relationships.
In following section, I will focus on how Chinese students mediate the relationship with their
mentors (tutors) in the learning context and work colleagues in the context of part-time
employment.
Relationship with mentors (tutors)
Confucian teachings emphasize the social relationships and the role relationships in a social
interaction (Hwang 2001) and encourage one to respect superiors, and superiors to show
benevolence to their juniors in order to maintain a harmonious social order. Influenced by
these Confucian traditions, Chinese students tend to respect deeply their tutors, and expect
their tutors to show kindness to them. Regarded tutors as the source of knowledge, the
participants reported that tutors in Chinese classrooms are seldom challenged by the students,
who show great reverence towards their teachers. Unlike in the classroom where formal
relations predominate, the participants recalled, outside of the classroom, they often had an
informal relationships with their tutors. Tutors in China are often perceived as caring and
sympathetic, as one Chinese saying goes, ‗if you accept the responsibility of teaching
someone for even a day, you have a lifelong commitment to nurture and teach him, as a
father would his son‘ ( 一 日 为 师 , 终 身 为 父 ). Besides being educators, teachers are seen in
China as personal mentors, responsible for the student‘s overall development; there is a
strong emphasis in the Chinese context on an affective and personal relationship between
teacher and students (Ho 2001). It is these close and personal relationships that the
participants had expected to establish with their tutors in the UK.
151