Table Of Contents
Learning to write in China
Writing in middle school
From Kirkpatrick's (1995) study, it is clear that Chinese students in senior middle school practise a considerable range of writing exercises designed to foster their ability to organise thought and information and express it effectively in language; but this is in Chinese composition classes, where the focus is the development of language skills as such, rather than the use of language to extend knowledge and understanding (as witness the essay topics Kirkpatrick cites).
- Given a dialogue concerning a member of the family about to leave for overseas, write a narrative introduction and conclusion.
- Write an editorial about the following news item ...
- Read the following texts about aspects of industrial output, and then write 1,000 characters on 'Knowledge and Wealth'.
- Read the following brief anecdote [contrasting the statements 'Beneath every flower there is a thorn' and 'Above every thorn there is a flower']. Adopt your own point of view on this, and write an expository essay in no less than 600 characters.
adapted from Kirkpatrick (1995), pp. 45-7.
As far as we know, in other subjects student writing is essentially reproductive, and largely limited to examination answers in which the students must demonstrate that they have internalised the knowledge presented by teacher and textbook.
What about the exams: have they been a difficulty for you?
The exams were fine; not much different from Chinese exams, I think. Just a little, because in the exams you were expected to write in essay format; whereas in China sometimes you could just write in dot-point form.
— Nova
Writing at university
As we have seen elsewhere, in all but the most progressive university courses student writing is limited to short-answer examination questions, as in middle school - with one major exception. In their final semester, undergraduates are required to write a 'graduation thesis' ( bìyè lùnwén) of up to 10,000 words, to be presented both in written form and via an oral presentation.
Nana's and Luke's accounts of writing the graduation thesis are corroborated by other students. Most report having some more or less formal supervision by a staff member, which might include instruction on how to structure the thesis, but little if anything on library research skills or referencing. Certainly it was not sufficient preparation for the assignment writing these students have had to do in Australia.
Did they teach you library research skills at all?
No. They assume we know how to do that; and if you want to use something, you can go to the library and ask the worker in there. So they didn't have a special program to teach you how to use the library. You just work and learn at the same time.
— Grace
[In China,] were you taught research methods -- how to look things up in the Internet or in the library, etc., or did you teach yourself that?
We were taught a little bit about that for the final dissertation, but it wasn't a major thing. Apart from that, not.
— Keith
So you weren't taught [to reference] in China?
Yeah, you do it, but it's different. Like, here, you should put the reference inside the article, right? But in my bachelor degree you don't need to put all the things - like, this one sentence or this paragraph, maybe this come from one book, you don't need to put the reference here: you put all the references at the end.
So, in the text -
- there's no reference.
And could a reader see immediately what is quoted and what is not quoted?
Yeah. You just say, "So-and-so says ..." - like this.
— Pearl
When you compare your graduation thesis with what you've had to write here, at Monash, is it is very similar, or are there any significant differences?
I can't remember that thesis very clearly, because I graduated in 1995. But the thing I can remember is that when I came here, because I didn't know how to write an assignment, I was quite struggling when I wrote my first assignment. So from that point of view, I suppose they're quite different!
— Keith
English for Academic Purposes
As China continues to increase its imports of Western education, so an awareness is developing in some of its 'key' educational centres of the need to teach, not just general English, but specifically English for Academic Purposes (EAP). However, it is likely to remain true for some time that for many Chinese students coming to Australia, the closest they will have come to writing EAP - and the longest piece they will ever have written in English - is a 250-word IELTS essay.
English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
This term covers everything that is taught in English-speaking universities by language and learning skills specials and bridging course providers about not just the vocabulary and grammatical features of academic and discipline-specific English, but also the range of spoken and written genres used in higher education and professional life, and practices such as the appropriate use and acknowledgement of sources.
Had you done much writing in English before you came here?
I took the IELTS test before, but that was a quite short essay, 250 words for one essay. But when I got [my first written assignment in Australia], I had to do about 2500 words, and just for the introduction I had to write 300 words -- it was like one whole essay, how can I do that?
— Keith
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You said that you basically didn't write any essays in China, at University at least. What about in middle school: were you taught how to write essays there?
I don't know what you mean by essays. We did write essays, in English and in Chinese; but they were on very ordinary topics, not on academic topics like this.
— Lionel