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

western culture the role of teacher in Chinese culture is to transmit knowledge
by imitation and repetition, as summarized by Hu (2002b, pp.98-9)
‗The teacher selects points of knowledge from authoritative sources,
interprets, analyses and elaborates on these points for the students, helps
them connect the new points of knowledge with old knowledge, and
delivers a carefully sequenced and optimally mediated dose of knowledge
for the students to memorise, repeat and understand.‘
‗Therefore, the focus of teaching is not on how teachers and students can
create, construct, and apply knowledge in an experiential approach, but on
how extant authoritative knowledge can be transmitted and internalised in a
most effective and efficient way.‘
The emphasis is on the acquisition of the basic concepts and factual construction
of knowledge before its application. The student is expected to master the
transmitted knowledge and not to challenge the teacher or present their ideas
until sufficient knowledge is mastered for making informed judgement (Brick,
1991). In contrast, in the western education system where dialogical and
interactive practices prevail, the student is encouraged to question, criticize,
refute, argue, and debate (Major, 2005)
Table 3.3 lists the major contrasting features of ideal students in Confucian and
British values. The differences between two student archetypes of different
cultures imply the potential difficulties Chinese students would encounter in a
UK learning environment.
The student from a Confucian cultural background is often portrayed as ‗teacherdependent,
passive, receptive, unquestioning, and rote learning‘ (Major, 2005,
p.85). Findings of much research (e.g. Biggs, 1998, 1996) on Chinese learners
have refuted the stereotypes. For instance, Shi (2006)‘s findings in an empirical
study of 400 Chinese middle-school students‘ learning English in Shanghai
contradict perceptions of previous studies on Chinese learners. The findings
show Chinese students being active learners who expect active interaction with
their teachers. The study was limited to the investigation of Chinese students‘
learning a language (English) in a metropolitan city but it implied the shifts in
teaching and learning methods in contemporary China. Students‘ perception of
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