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

CHAPTER 3 – CONTEXTS OF LEARNING
Introduction
Home students find the transition to higher education taxing until they
become accustomed to academic language and conventions, independent
learning and class participation … However, international students must
deal with all these things and more: they face different social and cultural
mores and customs, norms and values from the ones they have known;
different modes of teaching and learning; and different expectations and
conventions about participation and performance (Ryan & Carroll, 2005,
p.5).
Studying at tertiary level is challenging, and studying in higher educational
institutions in a different cultural and learning context from their own is even more
challenging. International students studying at UK HEIs need to adapt to a new
culture and learning environment. Inevitably in the process of adaptation,
international students encounter a number of challenges and difficulties in relation to
socio-cultural, academic and psychological aspects, which they must find solutions in
order to cope.
This chapter provides a literature review on acculturation: what is acculturation,
phases of acculturation, and specific details within each phase, as well as challenges
identified by current research on international students cultural adjustment. Academic
adaptation is explored to identify academic challenges that international students
encounter in adapting to a new learning environment.
Adapting to a new cultural environment
International students need to adjust to a different culture when they are studying
abroad. During the course of adjustment, they respond to cultural influences with
different attitudes and behaviours. They are undergoing a process of acculturation,
which is understood by anthropologists as:
those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different
cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes
in the original culture patterns of either or both groups (Redfield et al.,
1936, p.149).
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