孔子学院中方人员跨文化适应问题研究
Chapter One INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Nowadays, China’s economic development and exchanges with the world have witnessed great growth step by step, and there has been a rapid increase in the world’s demands for Chinese language learning. Given that the UK, France, Germany and Spain successfully promoted their national languages around the world, China has also begun the exploration of establishing Confucius Institutes as non-profit public institutions which are run on the principle of promoting Chinese language and culture in foreign countries since when it was set up in 2004. According to the Confucius Institute Annual Development Report (2015), there had been 500 Confucius Institutes and 1,000 Confucius Classrooms in 134 countries and regions, and a total of 16,100 in-service directors, Chinese language teachers and volunteers were sent by Confucius Institute Headquarters or Hanban in 144 countries by the end of 2015. Due to the large population and rapid increase of the group as the Chinese sojourners in Confucius Institutes abroad, a variety of intercultural issues like culture shock, intercultural communication, and indigenous classroom management, etc. emerged among this special group overseas. One of the biggest challenges is the fact that they are not familiar with the new culture of the host country in comparison with that of their origin, thus it is difficult for them to adapt to the work and life there. On the other hand, Hanban has complied and developed the Standard for International Chinese Language Teachers (hereinafter referred to as the Standard) aiming at the target of training a mass of qualified and professional Chinese language teachers to satisfy the ever-growing demand for Chinese language learning in other countries and regions. The Standard overall consists of five modules. They are: (i)Linguistic knowledge and skills; (ii)Cultures and communication; (iii)Theory of the second language acquisition and study strategy; (iv)Teaching methodology; and (v)Overall quality (Standards for Teachers of Chineseto Speakers of Other Languages, 2007). However, the gap between the expected professional quality of international Chinese language teachers and its existence in life is also noticeable，，which becomes the original motivation and interest to conduct the study. Although the field
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1.2 Purpose and Significance
The study aims to access the status quo of the Chinese sojourners’ cross-cultural adaptation (CCA) in the Confucius Institutes, and investigates their teaching adaptation and cross-cultural strategies they adopt as well as the demographic information of the subjects ranging from Chinese directors, Chinese language teachers or volunteers to graduates or interns from the universities of Henan province. Research hypotheses of variables are attempted to validate and proposals are put forward to solve the potential problems of Chinese teachers’ CCA in Confucius Institutes, and suggestions are also offered for Chinese language teachers’ schooling and cross-cultural training in the future. The study is significant to enhance the collaboration between Chinese and foreign educational institutions and constantly improve the quality of teaching and the level of administration of universities in Henan province. As a result, it does help prompt the healthy development of Confucius Institutes. In addition, it is of significance to help learn about the situation of the Chinese Language teachers abroad and practically solve the adaptive problems of the Chinese sojourners in Confucius Institute, and eventually shed light on the study of CCA theoretically.
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Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Key Terms
Paul C. P. Siu (1952) in the article The Sojourner pointed out that the essential characteristic of the sojourner is that one clings to the culture of his/her own ethnic group and is unwilling to organize oneself as a permanent resident in the country of the sojourn in an attempt to do a job rather than a career and do it in the shortest possible time. Moreover, the sojourner can hardly be assimilated into the local culture, or at least the process of assimilation is very slow. When going through a series of adjustments to the new environment of the host country, the sojourner is very likely to be an agent of cultural diffusion between the homeland and the sojourning host country. As cited in the British Dictionary, “sojourn” is defined as both noun (ie, a temporary stay) and verb (ie, to stay or reside temporarily). Thus, “sojourner” ,the agent noun from sojourn, is referred to as “temporary resident”. This term refers to a resident alien, a non-citizen in a country where (s)he resides more or less permanently, enjoying certain limited civic rights. “Sojourn” is used as a verb in several places in the Holy Bible (e.g. Deuteronomy 17:19, Judges 17:7, etc.) and it implies that this person, the sojourner, is one who actually dwells among another people in contrast to the foreigner, whose stay is temporary（King James Version）. For the sake of research, the work jargon is defined as “a person who stay for a time in a place or live temporarily”, such as overseas students, journalists, doctors, artists, teachers, diplomats and other international business people, etc. who temporarily relocate abroad for a few years or months, which is quite different than immigrants, refugees and other long-termed resettlers. In this sense, the Chinese administrators, language teachers, volunteers or interns in the Confucius Institutes or Classrooms abroad, who are supposed to be at work for a couple of months or years, are confined to the group of sojourners.
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2.2 Related Theories
Although the acculturation theories are not equivalent with the CCA theories, the theoretical framework of acculturation literature offers some useful insights into the theories of CCA as to the adaptive process, dimensions, coping strategies, and factors, etc. that might contribute to the interpretations of the sojourner’s adaptation in a novel culture. Early conceptualization of acculturation indicated an interpersonal transformation that occurs when cultures come into continuous contact. In the early 20th century in the USA, acculturation was synonymous with “assimilation”, in which acculturation meant the loss of one’s original culture and the adoption of a new host culture at the same time (Chun et al, 2003). Today, acculturation is regarded as a more dynamic process that occurs along various dimensions rather than a linear movement from a culture of origin toward assimilation. And acculturation can occur on both the group and the individual levels, as a result of considering more of the consequent psychological adaptation and adjustment, for instance, Berry (1997) advocated four acculturative stages of acculturation, known as integration, separation, marginalization, and assimilation. Therefore, the studies of acculturation then commonly focused on psychological acculturation which involved an adaptation or change in attitudes, behaviors, values, and identity (Berry, 1990; 1997; 2003).
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Chapter Three METHODOLOGY ......... 15
3.1 Research Questions .... 15
3.2 Subjects ........... 15
3.3 Instruments ...... 16
3.3.1 Questionnaires of CCA .............. 16
3.3.2 Interview .............. 18
3.4 Procedures ....... 18
Chapter Four RESULTS and DISCUSSION ............. 21
4.1 The Status Quo of Chinese Sojourners’ CCA at Confucius Institute ..... 21
4.2 Factors of Maladjustment ...... 27
4.3 Coping Strategies to CCA ..... 34
4.3.1 Organizational support .... 35
4.3.2 Emotional support/Social support ......... 36
4.3.3 Continuing cross-cultural training ........ 37
Chapter Five CONCLUSION ........ 38
5.1 Major Findings ........... 38
5.2 Implications ..... 41
5.3 Limitations and Suggestions ............ 42
Chapter Four RESULTS and DISCUSSION
4.1 The Status Quo of Chinese Sojourners’ CCA at Confucius Institute
The status quo of the Chinese sojourners’ CCA were displayed in the following aspects such as the sample subjects’ descriptive statistics of their demographic information, the distribution of the sojourn country or region, the length of sojourn, the high versus low difficulty-level adaptation items in the Scales as well as the depression score of SRDS. When descriptive statistics was performed through the SPSS, the frequency and percent of the subjects’ gender, academic background, experience of going abroad and TCFL as well as the cultural training they received reflected the differences and variances significantly (see Table 2). For example, as for their academic background, 98.3% are Chinese Language or TCFL and Foreign Language and Linguistics. While we learned that the requirement of Volunteer Chinese Teacher Program of Hanban says that the volunteers are primarily recruited and selected from graduates as well as postgraduate students and professional teachers majored in disciplines of liberal arts such as Education, History, Philosophy, etc. apart from TCFL, Chinese Linguistics and Literature as well as Foreign Language. Even though the requirements for Government-sponsored teachers limit the applicants to teachers engaging in the subjects of TCFL or Chinese Language, foreign Language, or Pedagogy, the teachers percentage in the study only accounts for 20.3%. Therefore, the sojourners in the Confucius Institutes have limited and narrow academic background. And the gender gap in the faculty of Confucius Institute is very large with the ratio of ? between male and female. The majority (65.3%) didn’t have the experience of going abroad and less than half (47.5%) had ever taught Chinese as TCFL.
CONCLUSION
The study was conducted in the perspective of a multidimensional mode of cross-cultural adaptation. On the basis of the literature review, three scales, in accordance with the three dimensions of sociocultural adaptation, work adaptation and psychological adaptation, were designed for the assessment and investigation of the Chinese volunteer teachers’ CCA in the Confucius Institutes jointly established with the educational institutions in Henan Province. The questionnaires were distributed to and collected from 118 subjects, and 94 of the subjects took part in the semi-structured interview, then 10 were selected as a sample for further in-depth interview. The descriptive statistics and ANOVA results as well as the report of the qualitative interviews were summarized in this chapter. Implications, and limitations of the study, and tentative suggestions to the study were also discussed. As it was put forward in the previous literature review ( e.g. An, 2013), the Chinese language teachers in Confucius Institutes do have their own characteristics when compared with the other sojourners. The fact of the demographic data firstly shows that there exists a sharp disproportionate gender ration among the group of the study subjects. In addition, they have a narrow academic background as for the majors they graduated from before, and a short-term sojourning. Then, as for the past experience, more than half of the group neither has the experience of going abroad nor the experience of teaching TCFL for foreigners prior to their departure for Confucius Institutes.
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The reference (omitted)
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