Toward the understanding of Chinese ESL writing

Abstract

It is worth noting that an increasing number of international students, especially Chinese students, have been flooding into English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States or Australia in pursuit of advanced knowledge and better academic environments. As ESL students are enrolling in writing courses in colleges and universities, teachers are confronted with problems that non-native speakers bring to the class when it comes to their academic writing. The problems are more serious than they appear to be. For one thing, according to Reid (1993: 774), there is a dramatic difference between native students and ESL students in ‘the needs, backgrounds, learning styles, and writing strategies’. For another, the situation becomes worse due to ‘considerable diversity even among ESL students in terms of language and cultural backgrounds, prior education, gender, age, and ESL language proficiency’ (Reid, 1993: 774). Although there is not a single solution which is effective in solving complex ESL issues, teachers would be in a better position to understand their ESL students' writing problems if they were to learn about the distinct nature of L2 writing shaped by linguistic and cultural differences. In this article, the author, who was once a Chinese ESL student in the USA and is now an EFL teacher in China, explores how English writing differs from Chinese writing and how these differences lead to Chinese ESL students' difficulty with English writing. This article is expected to increase ESL practitioners' awareness of the urgency for them to recognize and deal with these differences in order to teach L2 writers effectively, to treat them fairly and thus provide them with equal opportunities to achieve academic and professional success.

“Native Speakers Do Not Understand Me”: A Phenomenological Study of Student Experiences from Developing Asian Countries at an American University

“…In the same vein, English-speaking countries have become the land of opportunity for international students since getting an education in English promises better career opportunities (Koustoubos, 2018;Yao, Garcia, & Collins, 2019). As a result, international student enrollment in higher education institutions in the United States has been significant (Gurel-Cennetkusu, 2017;Hu, 2014;Okusolubo, 2018).…”

“…Specifically, the current study examines the difficulties in writing assignments and understanding academic expectations in central and southeast Asian nations as previous research has done in east Asia and China. There is extensive research about Asian (primarily Chinese) students' overall academic challenges in English language schools (Baker, Child, et al, 2007;Berno & Ward, 2003;Campbell & Li, 2008;Carson, 1992;Durkin, 2004;Huang, 2007;Hu, 2014;Lo, 2010;Phakiti & Li, 2011). However, few studies have been conducted concerning the academic writing challenges of students from developing Asian countries found in Central and Southeast Asia.…”

“…Also, within the current literature, there is a lack of contextual (Kaplan, 1966;Lo, 2010;Wang, 2005) exploration of the students from the mentioned regions. Hence, research is necessary to understand the gap and the way forward for the U.S. HEIs (Campbell & Li, 2008;Hu, 2014). Therefore, this study will address the question: How do students from developing Asian countries understand and experience academic writing at University A, a large, urban research-focused university?…”

“…In Gurel-Cennetkusu's (2017) survey of international students' academic challenges with writing their theses, almost 88% of the participants did not have any academic writing courses in their degree programs (p. 312). At United States HEIs, international students are put into classes without preparatory academic courses (Hu, 2014;Phakiti & Li, 2011).…”