Languaging Myths and Realities

Journeys of Chinese International Students

Qianqian Zhang-Wu

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781788926911
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Higher education institutions in Anglophone countries often rely on standardized English language proficiency exams to assess the linguistic capabilities of their multilingual international students. However, there is often a mismatch between these scores and the initial experiences of international students in both academic and social contexts. Drawing on a digital ethnography of Chinese international students' first semester languaging practices, this book examines their challenges, needs and successes on their initial languaging journeys in higher education. It analyzes how they use their rich multilingual and multi-modal communicative repertories to facilitate languaging across contexts, in order to suggest how university support systems might better serve the needs of multilingual international students.

Part 1

1 Who, Why and What about Chinese International Students

Introduction

Who are Chinese international students? Why do I study newly arrived Chinese international students? What do I want to explore about these multilingual international students’ initial college experiences? In the opening chapter of my book, I present the overarching research problem, detailed guiding research questions, the educational significance of the study and a glimpse of the findings and implications.

Who are Chinese International Students? A Common Term with Messy Definitions

International students is a commonly used term in scholarly publications, the mass media, professional contexts and in the field of education at large. Despite its household name, this term has been used inconsistently across different contexts throughout the world. In other words, as simple as it may appear, there is no clear-cut answer to the seemingly easy question ‘Who are international students?’.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute of Statistics (2020), international students are defined as ‘students who have crossed a national or territorial border for the purpose of education and are now enrolled outside their country of origin’. This definition has been embraced by important international higher education organizations including the United Kingdom’s Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Based on this definition, in order to be defined as an international student, a person must (1) cross a national border for education purposes and (2) enroll in an education program outside their country of birth. Since one’s country of origin has nothing to do with one’s current nationality and country of residence, the UNESCO Institute of Statistic’s (2020) definition implies that both temporary student visa holders and immigrants (i.e. those who hold citizenship or permanent residency in a country outside their country of origin) can be counted as international students. According to UNESCO’s definition, we can infer that Chinese international students studying in American higher education include those holding temporary student visas (e.g. F-1 visa) along with Chinese American immigrants whose country of origin is China but who later immigrated to the United States for educational purposes (e.g. a Chinese American college student who immigrated to the United States during preschool years).

Contrasting with UNESCO’s definition, the New York-based Institute of International Education embraces a narrower definition of international students. According to the Institute of International Education (2020), an international student is ‘[a]nyone who is enrolled at an institution of higher education in the United States who is not a US citizen, an immigrant (permanent resident) or a refugee’. Based on the Institute of International Education’s definition, which is another very commonly embraced school of thought around the world, Chinese international students are more narrowly defined as those non-immigrant Chinese students who hold temporary student visas (e.g. F-1 visa).

Messy definitions of the commonly used term ‘international students’ have led to statistical confusion. For example, Nick Clark (2009), editor of World Education News & Review, has pointed out that when measured by the Institute of International Education standard, the HESA data of the British Council indicated that 389,330 international students studied in Britain during the 2007–2008 academic year. Nevertheless, when calculated based on UNESCO’s definition, the number immediately jumped to as high as 513,570 (an increase of 32%). These two different numbers describing international student enrollment in the same country at the same time have caused confusion across news agencies.

According to Clark (2009), ‘Soon after this new data [UK’s international student enrollment based on UNESCO’s definition] was released, a number of media outlets suggested that Britain was now much closer to being on a par with the US in terms of international recruitment numbers’. Indeed, the figure 513,570 itself was very close to the 2007–2008 number in the United States (623,805). However, Clark (2009) wisely pointed out that while the UK number of 513,570 was generated based on the more liberal UNESCO definition of international students, the US figure was reported by the Institute of International Education which adopted a narrower definition. When put on the same scale, the UK international student enrollment (389,330) was in reality far from near the US number (623,805).

With the above-mentioned inconsistencies in mind, how exactly should we define Chinese international students? To put it another way, can we mix the two concepts of Chinese American students and Chinese international students? In an earlier critical review of the literature on Chinese international students pursuing higher education in the United States, I argued that international students are fundamentally different from immigrants due to the following reasons (Zhang-Wu, 2018).

Firstly, from the perspective of political status, international students are granted short-term student visas to stay in the host country, the length of which is determined by the duration of the academic programs in which they are enrolled. Being student visa holders, international students are not allowed to work, unlike immigrants who are citizens and permanent residents. Secondly, from the perspective of socioeconomic status (SES), international students are generally wealthier than immigrant populations who are likely to be subjected to financial burdens (Lenkeit et al., 2015). Contrasting with the case of immigrant students, only a very small proportion of international students depend on student loans to finish their college education. In the case of undergraduate international students, for instance, almost 85% have listed ‘personal/family’ as their major source of funding (Association of International Educators, 2018). This alone has earned American higher education a profit of $39 billion in the academic year 2017–2018 (Association of International Educators, 2018).

Thirdly, international students differ from immigrants given their different motivations for migration. The vast majority of international students are found to travel abroad mainly for educational purposes and are likely to return to their home countries shortly after completing their overseas studies. To them, pursuing overseas studies is ‘a strategy for contributing to the family’s cultural, economic, and social capital, which may be directly convertible into monetary gains’ (Park, 2016: 238), so that they are provided with better career opportunities once they return to their own countries. Therefore, their motivation for studying overseas in order to improve their SES and social capital in their home countries is drastically different from most immigrants who have left their homeland for a better life in the host country (Ball, 1993, 2003; Brown, 1990, 1995).

Finally, international and immigrant students tend to have different language experiences and varying linguistic abilities. International students, who mostly aim to maintain their social capital back in their home countries and have relatively less desire or opportunity to socialize with local p...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half-Title
• series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• References
• Index