Adaptation of English Academic Purposes Writing Materials for a Group Research Paper

Adaptation of English Academic Purposes Writing Materials for a Group of Chinese Learners - Research Paper Example The major challenge this group of students encounters during their first year of study relates to the high-level expectations in the universities. According to candling and Hyland (2006, 11) the learning processes for these students is the site of struggle in their process of embracing change. Accommodating and fitting into an entirely different system makes the process entirely difficult for the students (Andrade, & Evans, 2009, 29). The expression of academic work in an entirely non- familiar language demands a lot of cognitive and social ability from the students. Problems that may interfere with the student’s ability to adapt to the new language may involve the student’s attitude, social experiences, and cognitive adaption. According to Cheng (2000, 46) the process of learning English, is a process of new identity creation and balancing the new identity with a student’s initial identity. The process of academic writing entails transition towards a given a giv en culture for Chinese students (Andrade, & Evans, 2009, 34). It encompasses an acquaintance to the writing conventions in the universities culture (Xing, Wang, & Spencer, 2008, 71). According to Su and Norton (2008, 57), the most challenging hurdle for Chinese students involved writing strategies and linguistics. ...    Challenges facing Chinese students Academic challenges The main challenge to the academic performance of Chinese students’ significantly involved cultural diversity as a result of Confucian ideology (Cummins, & Davison, 2007). They could not explain precisely the expectations of British academics and culture. Teacher-student relationship The relationship between teacher-student in western universities is significantly different from the Confucian perspective (Cummins, & Davison, 2007). This leads to a great misunderstanding between the teacher and the student. According to the views of most of my Chinese students, the UK lectures are less caring and too busy to develop time for their students. To the lectures point of view, the extensive attention beyond learning hours was a bit too demanding. Chinese students express a lot of difficulty in understanding the conduct of Western teachers: they perceive the teachers’ autonomous learning technique as uncaring and unfri endly (Cummins, & Davison, 2007).  Ã‚