Chinese Students in the Classroom

Inside Higher Ed 

April 9, 2014
By Elizabeth Redden

Chinese undergraduate students face challenges in adapting to American classroom practices and expectations but draw on personal, social, institutional and technological resources to respond to these challenges, according to articles presented by Tang T. Heng, a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University, at last week’s American Educational Research Association annual meeting.

In her research, Heng seeks to move beyond what she describes as a discourse of “deficit” surrounding international students to one of “difference.” In other words, she argues that much of the rhetoric surrounding Chinese international students focuses myopically on challenges – such as low critical thinking skills, poor classroom participation, or inadequate English proficiency -- without adequately contextualizing the cultural reasons for those challenges and examining how students respond to them and, over time, change their attitudes and behaviors.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/04/09/new-research-examines-how-chinese-students-respond-challenges-classroom#ixzz2yPwiFfZl