My dissertation includes written chapters. I would like the expert to extend the chapters with more information and with extra 40 pages. The expert can add information where necessary. For example, Literature review, discussion and conclusion sections need more information. If necessary, i will provide interviews data for adding findings chapter. I need completed dissertation.
Background and Introduction
It is commonly accepted that every international student faces by challenges in a foreign country. Challenges faced by international students must be familiar to those who have been international student in a foreign country. Common challenges can be known as cultural shock, language barrier, difficulty understanding academic lectures, academic writing and finances according to www.youuniversitytv.com website. However, being international students come across unique situations more than mentioned above. As Morita (2004) argued that this process is very complex that it is not only connected to academic learning.
In order to explore international students’ positions and their academic socialization in the foreign country, many research works have been conducted (Morita, 2004; Canagarajah, 2002; Park, 2009; Kim, 2014). Academic socialization process involves international students’ academic life, their adaptation to new community, their difficulties and success they have on this process. Specifically, negotiation of identities, power relations and cultures are also point of this process. Identity mostly defined the newcomers’ positioning in the new classroom such as outcast or good student and it can change over period of time (Wortham, 2006). Those changes and transformations may happen or not, be positive or negative in their academic learning period. Since each international student has unique and unrepeated identity, it requires deep explanations to enlighten their identities. Moreover, power relations that occur in academic socialization are one of the main issues of most international students. The main reason can be domestic students hold dominant positions in the classroom most of the time particularly in academic life of the students from Eastern countries studying in Western countries. Here, language barrier causes difficulty for international students as it is commonly stated. In terms of culture, international students come with different cultural background and this can impact on their academic socialization. Different cultures represent a variety of cultural patterns. This makes international students’ academic lives easier or more challenging while studying in a foreign country.
Mostly Western countries such as the USA, England, Australia, Germany and the other countries attracted the students from developing countries. International students in Western countries have been widely discussed by researchers. However, international students come to study to Eastern countries such as South Korea, China or Japan need more studies in order to study their true situations and assist them by it. The aim of this study is to explore international students studying South Korea by qualitative research and analyzing factors which help their academic socialization. I hope to highlight international students’ challenges faced in South Korea due to a variety of cultural identities and present the factors which can assist them in their academic life in the foreign country.
International students in South Korea
South Korea is developing its position as a regional hub and attracting international students (Jon, Lee & Byun, 2014). In this study, the researchers refer to international students as overseas undergraduate students who are studying in a Korean University. According to Jon et al., (2014), Korea is expecting to increase a large number of international students within coming years. For example, the authors point out that 85,000 international students in the beginning of 2014 are expected to grow to 200,000 until 2023. According to the National Institute for International Education (2017), the number of foreign students registered at Korean universities was nearly 124,000 as of April 2017. Around 70,000 of them attended degree programs, while the remaining 51,856 were enrolled in non-degree programs. Based on student demographics, 55 % of international students come from China, 11.8 % from Vietnam and 2 % from Uzbekistan, Mongolia and other countries (NIIE, 2017). Lee & Byun (2014) claimed that one of the main reasons for attracting foreign students to Korea is the declining number of Korean college students in the country due to the low birth rate; thus overseas students constitute the main student population in many Korean Universities. Due to the surge of foreign students, international students’ satisfactions of Korean Universities are becoming an important topic (John, Lee, & Byun, 2014). Alemu and Cordier (2017) mentioned that satisfaction in academic and education quality, a university’s ability to communicate with foreign students before coming to Korea, satisfaction in living arrangements, socializing with native Koreans and other foreigners are the top reasons of international students’visiting Korean Universities. It is without doubt that such factors influence the academic socialization of current international students. It can be seen that if expectations derived from these factors are unmet, international students experience challenges of adjusting to a foreign academic setting. For example, concerning international students socializing with Korean students, Jon (2012) explored power relations between the two student populations. He points out that these power issues are dependent on countries of origin and language communication. The results showed that Korean students tend to behave more friendly towards international students who are from developed countries compared to those from developing Asian countries, such as Vietnam and Mongolia. Jon (2012) also noted that other Asian students found it difficult to socially interact with native Korean students. The findings showed that Korean students felt socially superior compared to international foreign students. Such findings reflect that academic socialization is a complex and unique process for each international student. Yet one of the reasons for international students choosing to attend undergraduate programs in Korea is that courses are taught in English (Jon, Lee, & Byun, 2014). In such classes, both native Korean and international students can enroll. Communication and interaction with ethnically and culturally diverse students creates a friendly environment for learning in the classroom. According to Jon et al. (2014), this allows international students to adjust more easily into the new community.
Education system in Korea: teachers and teaching methods
Higher education institutions in Korea are largely divided into junior colleges (2~3 year program), universities (4-year program) and graduate schools. By establishment type, Korean universities are divided into national universities, which are established and operated by the central government, public universities that are established by local governments and private universities which are founded by private non-profit educational foundations. The target University of this study is one of the public Universities. To promote quality assurance, the Ministry of Education imposes certain requirements for higher education institutions with regard to faculty composition, curriculum, facilities, degree conferment, etc.
The Ministry of Education and Korean universities have been actively promoting ‘Study in Korea’ with a view toward increasing international competitiveness, international exchanges and cooperation. As of April 2016, there are roughly 104,000 international students studying in Korea, among which 63,000 students are in degree programs (Kim, 2019).
| Ministry of Education informs based on the year 2019 that Korean universities and colleges offer the following courses.Korean universities and colleges offer the following courses. | |
| Degree Program | Foreign students can join a degree program offered during the regular semesters with Korean students. Degree programs are taught either in Korean or English, After completion, a degree is awarded. |
| Exchange Student Program | Most higher education institutions offer student exchange programs based on academic agreements with universities overseas. |
| Summer/Winter Program | Universities run summer and winter programs offering regular courses and Korean language courses. |
| Courses taught in English | As many Korean universities are keen on internationalization, approximately 30% of courses are taught in English, some universities have a Department of International Studies, which teaches all the courses in English. |
| Korean Language Courses | Many universities have Korean language institutes which offer Korean language courses. Short intensive courses for three to four weeks aim to improve communication skills. 10 to 40 week intensive programs improve student-‘s’ communication skills through many practical assignments and cultural activities, which will also enhance the student-‘s’ understanding about Korea. |
Native and non-native English teachers in South Korea
Jeon (2009) demonstrates how English Programme in Korea (EPIK) is an example of Korea’s active response to the globalization process through which Korea not only accommodates external demands but also strategically pursues national interests through equipping its citizens with a command of English. EPIK, affiliated with the Korean Ministry of Education, was established in 1995 in order to hire native speakers of English as teachers, with the mandate to improve the English speaking abilities of students and teachers in Korea and to reform English teaching methodologies. The author highlights that the South Korean government has responded to and actively participated in the global spread of English by adopting and implementing the EPIK programme. Furthermore, the ideology of the native English speaker as the ideal teacher, readily adopted by the Korean government and people, does not grant native English teachers legitimacy as teachers in their everyday interactions with Korean teachers of English and Korean students. Jeon (2009) demonstrates that the dichotomy of the native speaker of English as a superior teacher, and the non-native speaker of English as an inferior teacher, is too simplistic to explain real-life experiences of EPIK teachers. In the current study, teacher is a native speaker who teaches EFL course in the South Korean University. The authority of teacher will be shown by the participants’ comments about teacher in the findings section.
The significance of the study
This study is qualitative study of examining international students studying in a foreign country. Each international student has unique academic socialization process and thus this study explores academic experiences of international students individually. Qualitative approach assisted the researcher to look at the each student’s case closely and learn their identity issues in the new community. Coming into new classroom in a foreign study, international students experienced complex process of negotiation of identities, academic challenges and misunderstandings of cultural differences. The current study shed light on these experiences and explores the factors which hinder or assist their academic socialization and as a result, improve academic learning. This study contributes to the idea of how to ease international students’ academic socialization experiences in a foreign country and present the factors which helped international students on the five students’ cases. In particular, among the factors presented as to ease international students’ academic lives in the new community, teacher is shown as one of the main agent to the students. Thus, the aim of this study is to suggest possible ways of teaching for teachers to teach international students to make them feel sense of belonging in the new classroom. This study suggests that the role of teacher and group work activities are the main scaffolds for academic learning for international students.
International students’ experiences and academic socialization in foreign countries are commonly discussed and studied by researchers (Morita, 2004; Canagarajah, 2002; Park, 2009). Many studies on international students and their learning experiences have focused on students’ individual adjustment issues and on cross-cultural adaptation, largely from the perspective of psychological models (Altbach, 1991; Haslberger, 2005). For example, these studies mostly focus on international students’ adaptation processes, acculturation, and cultural shock (See Ward, 2001). However, there is a need to discuss academic socialization involving adaptation process to new community and expand them to different geographical areas, not only within the context of international students studying in Western countries. This study contributes to the literature by exploring the academic socialization of international students studying in South Korea.
Research questions
The research questions are dedicated to explore international students’ academic socialization process in a foreign country:
Definition of key terms
1.Academic socialization:
Socialization is the process through which abilities, knowledge, beliefs, and practices that are common in a particular social group are transmitted to newcomers that become part of that community, as new members (International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2015). Academic socialization refers to socialization process within academic context. In this study, on the base of Community of Practice theory (Wenger, 1998), academic socialization involves new international students’ negotiation, re-construction of identities, adaptation in the new classroom and communication with the Korean domestic students.
Academic learning in the current study is defined by international students’ classroom participation and English language improvement. For example, active participation in classroom activities, English language learning improvement and learn to give opinions in group discussions refer to academic learning. Moreover, the focal students’ gaining knowledge in different areas such as social and political knowledge as a result of exchanging ideas in group discussions and improving their presentations skills also meant by academic learning.
3.Academic background
Academic background, in particular educational background and beliefs can influence of the newcomer students’ engagement and performance in the class (Nizeyimana & Osman, 2014). Keumala et al.(2019) also pointed out that educational background can be key factor for the students’ motivation in the study. In the current study, I mention the participants’ English knowledge, the University they studied to describe their academic background. Because, in some of the participants’ cases, their educational background played major role in their class performance.
4.Identity
In the current study, Identity is described by the students’ participation within the classroom (e.g. active or passive in classroom activities, silent or talker in group discussions) as Wortham (2006) indicated student identity “outcast” or not. On the international students’ cases in this study, their identities might be emerged from “sociohistorical models” (from their own society, culture) or be re-constructed in the “local contexts” (in the classroom itself) (Wortham, 2006). The international students’ identities are important aspect for analyzing their participation and level of knowledge as well. For example, some students seem silent but do the class assignments very well, where some students’ silence means their ignorance to the class or being hesitant to participate in discussions because of language barrier.
5.Cultural identity
According to Kramch (2014), cultural identity is rarely defined by ethnicity or culture. It is due to the fact that cultural identity involves larger contexts such as race, ethnicity, nationality and other cultural stereotypes. In this study, international students’ beliefs and impressions about Korean University, the teacher and classmates varied from each other. Each of them described them derived from their own perspectives shaped in their cultures. Thus, some target students experienced challenges doe to misunderstanding of Korean culture, in other words, Korean classmates’ behavior. For some of the participants of this study, for example for Chinese student, setting or environment in the class was easy to accept because he considered Korean culture and people similar to Chinese.
6.Scaffolding
Throughout education, scaffolding refers to a range of teaching techniques used to gradually push students towards more understanding and, eventually, greater freedom in the learning process. The word itself offers the appropriate descriptive metaphor: teachers provide successive levels of temporary support that help students achieve higher levels of understanding and acquiring skills (ww.edglossary.org). For the purpose of this study, scaffolding is defined by teacher’s help to international students in their academic socialization process. Teacher scaffolding is shown by her attitude and teaching methods in order to assist international students in their adaptation to the new classroom, improve language skills and also feel sense of belonging among domestic students in the classroom.
7.Collaborative learning
Collaborative learning is understood within group work activities in this study. On the base of Community of practice theory (Wenger, 1998), newcomers’ learning happens when they are involved in activities in the new community. Similarly, in this study, international students learn when they work collaboratively through group work activities. Group and collaborative work have parallel meaning in this study.
8.Community
In this study, community refers to Korean and international students studying in the same EFL classroom and also includes teacher. New community is mostly mentioned towards international students since they came to that community as newcomers.
Outline of the chapters…
Literature Review
“An internationally mobile student is an individual who has physically crossed an international border between two countries with the objective to participate in educational activities in a destination country, where the destination country is different from his or her country of origin.” (UNESCO, 2015) https://migrationdataportal.org/themes/international-students.
This definition given to international students is indicating that they come to study to the different country. Different country refers to different culture, language, nations, traditions and also education system. This variety gives international students different experiences on their academic socialization process. During academic period in a foreign country, when some students face to language barrier, power relations and cultural shock, the others experience academic challenges because of different education system. Therefore, international students’ lives are worth to discuss and analyze to see what factors are influencing their academic socialization process.
Such factors as cultural views, teacher’s role and collaborative learning are dominant on international students’ academic socialization in this study, this chapter presents academic literature regarding these topics. The purpose of literature review is to show significance of those factors on international students’ academic life in different countries and how their roles were different and unique on each international students’ academic socialization process. This chapter will first address literature concerning to international students’ cultural views in a foreign classroom, their expectations from foreign universities and also different views on politeness. Politeness will be discussed because it is also one form of culture and this concept is understood differently among international students. Thus it may also cause academic challenges to international students. Secondly, I focus on collaborative learning’ effectiveness within group work activities. Several studies will show how the international students could benefit from group work. Finally, I will analyze teacher’s role on international students’ academic socialization process.
Culture
Cultural influence on learning
Culture’s importance in students’ learning has been emphasized by several researchers (Teng, 2007; Eilisha, 2007; Raymond & Choon, 2017). Eilisha (2007) pointed out that students from different cultures have different ways of learning, as their behaviors and identities can affect their learning. Raymond and Choon (2017) researched Asian and Chinese students and discovered that even though the Asian students, including Chinese students, seem silent in the classroom according to some researchers (Murphy, 1987; Chan, 1999; Hing, 2013), they are pro-active about asking questions and welcome class discussions. Moreover, Raymond and Choon (2017) identified cultural similarities in learning among students from different countries. According to their results, Chinese, South Korean and Vietnamese students share similar learning styles based on teacher-centered learning, the high level of respect given to teachers and implicit communication among students. These cultural patterns are also shown in the study of Kim and Ruzmetova (2019). They found similarities between the learning styles of students from the Philippines and Thailand. Meanwhile, the students from Western countries, such as the UK, Australia and the USA, showed different ways of learning based on individualism.
Kang and Chang (2016) also indicated that Confucius culture impacts students learning within a Western online learning context. In particular, Mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Singapore represent Confucius culture (Biggs, 1996). Kang and Chang (2016) mentioned that Confucius culture’s impact on education is shown in the following perceptions: teachers are more than a lecturer; conflictive ways of learning are avoided, it is not an effective way of learning; academic achievement and learning should be the focus of learning, with no attention given to pleasure. In contrast, students of Western cultures value individualism and personal freedom; individual interests are important for students. All in all, Western teaching is based on collaboration-based constructivism and the development of critical thinking (Huang, 2002; Palloff & Pratt, 2001).
There is a dominant culture within every educational environment which influences all the other aspects. Culture is often forgotten or ignored in most learning environments or may be even outside the learners’ or even teachers ‘ awareness. Bates (2019) explains why faculty and teachers should pay close attention to cultural factors so that they can make conscious decisions about how to teach international students. He defines culture as “the dominant values and beliefs that influence decision-making” (p.305). The author states that every learning environment has dominant culture. For example, in single sex schools, dominant value is “being lady” or “developing boy’s skills”. He points out that changing dominant culture is difficult to change but teacher should match her/ teaching techniques considering learning environment in the classroom. Because cultural diversity can affect learning environment in the class.
An integrative analysis of research related to cultural notions of learning shows similar conclusions— that learning is strongly mediated by the involvement of learners of their culture (Choo, Austin, & Renshaw, 2007; Fischer, 2009; G utierrez & Rogoff, 2003; Ito et al., 2010; Lee, 2009; Thomas & Brown, 2011). This means that putting learners within culturally relevant contexts enables learning to occur naturally. Research that have explored culture and learning show culture as the research’s primary subject and that culture is essential to the learner’s learning habits, types, strategies and experiences. Culture is expected to be essential to learning. Such studies are guided by an interdisciplinary theory of socio-cultural, cooperative learning, cognition, culture, learning styles and language learning.
All the studies conducted questionnaires or surveys related to culture or learning to assess the learning patterns, techniques, interests, orientations or cultural awareness of the learners. The fi n dings demonstrate that there is a strong connection between the preferences of culture and learning; this indicates that learners preferred learning strategies in fluences (Boykin et al., 2005; Charlesworth, 2008 ; Ellison, Boykin, Tyler, & Dillihunt, 2005 ;). Nevertheless, learning styles are not necessarily determined by membership in a racial group, as individuals develop these biases through awareness and lived experiences (Boykin et al., 2005).
Pat (1994) presented many controversial approaches towards culture and learning styles differences in the schools. For example, while one approach shows people differ about whether educators should gain more detailed information about different cultural values and expectations the other is opponent to this opinon. Another issue is whether the culture-learning styles relationship affects student achievement or not. The author also analyzes different opinions about How cultural identity and self-esteem are related, according to him however this questions remains open. He concludes that while attempting to accommodate the cultural and learning differences of the students, it is most important to respect profoundly the uniqueness of each person.
Individuals from different cultures learn differently. Their learning expectations are probably different. Students from some cultural backgrounds, for example, tend to study in collaboration with others, while others ‘ preferred style is to work independently. Teachers should gain awareness of the cultures portrayed in their classrooms and adapt lessons to optimize learning opportunities. The following strategies can help in this situation:
In summary, each culture has a different educational system, and these systems affect students’ learning styles. International students who come from different nationalities represent their cultures’ ways of learning in a different academic context.
Gender
Ehrlich (1997) points out that the biological conceptions of gender that emphasizes most second-language acquisition research overstate and over-generalize discrepancies between males and females, as well as ignoring the social, cultural and situational factors that form gender roles, relationships, and learner outcomes (p. 426). Kathryn & Ellen (2004) argues that all assumptions of second language acquisition research about gender issues have not been done enough.
Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (1998) conduct research about the complexity of the intersection of identity (including gender), power relations, and linguistic practices:
In the course of engaging with others, . . . people collaboratively construct a sense of themselves and of others as certain kinds of persons, as members of various communities with various forms of membership, authority, and privilege in those communities. In all of these, language interacts with other symbolic systems—dress, body adornment, ways of moving, gaze, touch, handwriting style, locales for hanging out, and so on. And the selves constructed are not simply (or even primarily) gendered selves: they are unemployed, Asian American, lesbian, college-educated, post-menopausal selves in a variety of relations to other people. Language is never encountered without other symbol systems, and gender is always joined with real people’s complex forms of participation in the communities to which they belong (or have belonged or expect to join). Individuals may experience the language and gender interface differently in the different communities in which they participate at a given time or at different stages of their lives. (p. 486)
Freed (1995, p. 3) indicates that this awareness of the dynamic, interactive, and sociocultural contextual nature of language and gender implies the need for language studies within true communicative contexts and expanded collaboration among linguists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, communications specialists, educators and feminists.
Norton & Pavlenko (2004) Explore how English language teachers countries around the world identify gender in the classroom in four ways: curriculum innovation, that is, the creation of new programs and classes that meet the needs of specific learners; feminist teaching practices, materials and activities; the management of topics, that is, how teachers can engage learners in critical analysis through introducing gender issues into already existing classes; and classroom management and decision-making practices. They draw ESL examples from a variety of contexts in Canada and the United States. They indicate that continuing discussions increase the familiarity of students with alternative discourses of gender identity, and improve their performance to objectively reflect, perceive verbal and nonverbal actions in context, and conduct gender in context-appropriate ways.
Gender and class participation
Classroom participation is recognized one of the related factors to effective learning by both female and male students and contributes to more positive views of the learning experience (Sadker & Sadker, 1994). While a substantial body of research has examined methods of teaching, addressing gender and teaching in classrooms is limited (Murphy & Laurie, Eduljee, Nina, Parkman, Suzanne, Croteau, Karen, 2019).
Murphy et al.(2019) studied the connection between gender, preferred teaching methods and participation in classroom activities for 73 college students. This pilot study examined male and female undergraduate college student’s preferences for teaching methods in the classroom. Four teaching methods (films, classroom discussion, experiential activities, and student presentations) were preferred by males and females for the study showing gender differences between males and females. According to the results no big gender differences were indicated in terms of classroom participation. For males, the highest level classroom attendance activity in the classroom included “actively participating in organized group classroom activities.” For females, the top activity included “volunteering to answer questions from professors.”
Crombie et al. (2003) explored the effect of different contextual aspects of the university classroom (i.e., class size and gender balance, discipline, teacher gender) on the perceptions of students ‘ own engagement and their teacher was also analyzed . The authors indicated the influence of three individual factors: student gender, student self-perceived general activity level, and student age. The most significant findings in this analysis refer to the activity variable: the scores of students in a particular university course on their general level of classroom activity. Students classified as active class participants considered themselves to raise their hands more frequently, interrupt more frequently, and take action longer than those categorized as less active for longer periods of time. To illustrate, students who perceived themselves to be less active did not distinguish in their specific behaviors as either a function of gender or discipline, while male active students interrupted more and those classified as active students in the disciplines of Arts / Social Science reported long and/or more regular interactions with lecturers. Active participants of the study regarded their professors as more positive, because they had more discussion and thus impression towards their instructors than the students who saw themselves as less active.
It can be seen that gender view in classroom participation varies in different classroom context. It varies according to male and female students’ perceptions.
Gender and language learning
The important role of gender in language learning academic context has been emphasized on difference for a long time. Only recently have controversial views arisen on the difference approach to understanding gender and language learning (e.g., Ehrlich, 1997; Pavlenko & Piller, 2001). Such critiques point out that differential approaches are fundamentally context- and culture-blind because they perceive gender as a rigid, context-free category (e.g., Ehrlich, 1997; Sunderland, 2000). According to poststructuralist views, gender in language learning should be learnt within particular community of practice (e.g., Norton, 2000; Pavlenko, 2001). Rather than looking at what males are like and what females are like, and creating stereotypical representations of male and female language learners accordingly, critical voices note that language learners are actively developing and reconstructing their identities in particular contexts and communities themselves. To consider these processes and to think about their possible consequences for language learning and teaching, English language teachers, researchers, and teacher educators must consider individual learners and their positioning in particular social and cultural contexts.
Schmenk (2004) discussed “the belief that language learning is a feminine domain. Generalist assumptions such as “languages are girls’ subjects,” “girls generally have more positive attitudes than boys toward language learning,” “girls are better at language learning than boys” are widespread (even though they have not remained uncontested1), and they can influence language learning environments in multiple ways” (p. 514). The author suggests that such beliefs are derived from stereotyping.
The author concludes that there are stereotypical beliefs such as women are considered characteristically expressive, and men are considered characteristically competent in the different cultural contexts over the world. However, differences are likely to vary considerably in different sociocultural contexts (p. 515).
Gender stereotyping in language classrooms must start by understanding that learners (as well as teachers) have previous knowledge and experience and are actively forming identities. However, while gender is likely to be developed into specific communities such as language classrooms, recognizing gender stereotyping cannot be confined to such cultural activities alone. For example, the assumption that language learning is a feminine domain is very likely to come from sources outside actual language classrooms, even though it is often replicated within classrooms.
Politeness in different cultures
According to Heath and Street (2008), culture is understood as involving societies, nations, racial groups, religions or ethnicities. People gain cultural and interpersonal knowledge from their own societies, nations or ethnicities. Paltridge (2012) names this knowledge the “socially situated” or background knowledge context, which is the larger ethnographic context (p 10).
Paltridge (2012) states that different cultures have different ways of doing things through language. He explains this idea by showing examples of particular ways of buying and selling items in different cultures through the use of language. For example, there is a difference between an English-speaking country and Eastern countries, such as Japan, when approaching new customers. In many English-speaking cultures, customers often verbally express “please” and “thank you” more than Japanese customers. This does not imply that Japanese customers are rude. It is rather an indication that there are culturally different ways of expressing gratitude or politeness through language in different cultures. Such practices can be misinterpreted if one is not aware of the different cultural norms of a new country. Rosaldo (1984) points out that the person who is situated in the peripheral of that culture may not correctly interpret people’s intended meanings unless one is involved in the “sociocultural milieu” of that culture (as cited in Hinkel, 1999, p. 1). The misinterpretation of cultural diversity or norms may create inaccurate impressions of people who belong to that culture. This issue is seen in participants’ cases in terms of politeness and greetings in this study.
Freedle (2000)claims that “politeness behavior is a social practice that encodes the ideology and cultural values in a particular society” (p. 3).Politeness behavior differs between Western and Eastern countries, as its behaviors and their meanings are associated with a country’s history, habits and the heritage of the ancestors of that particular country. To further examine how this meaning has significance, it is important to look into the spoken and written genres between cultures. In academia, when native English students from Western countries send emails to their professors about assignments, they directly ask what they want. However, they use words and phrases such as “please” and “could you tell me” to indicate politeness directly. In the case of East Asian students, they tend to write long introductions until they reach the main topic of request as a way to preserve’s one’s honor. Politeness and saving face are important for understanding why people choose to say things in a particular way in spoken and written discourse (Paltridge, 2012). In this study, the researcher considers the verbal and non-verbal discourse related to the notion of politeness and face.
Moreover, Paltridge (2012) emphasizes that politeness and cooperative principles are often in conflict with each other. Sometimes, only one of the principles is important according to context. For example, in an emergency, there is little need to be polite than in a normal situation. Also, politeness varies from society to society and from culture to culture. As the author notes, this can sometimes cause inconvenience among people of different cultures.
If we look at the Asian culture, Park and Nakano (2007) demonstrate that remaining silent is a sign of being polite in Korean culture, but this pattern is sometimes misunderstood by Americans as a sign of unfriendliness. Meanwhile, Koreans often perceive Americans as talkative.
Hong (2009) points out that Korean politeness is shaped according to the Confucian framework and that social interaction is strongly interdependent with “Confucian values.” In our participants’ case, Koreans’ greetings can be connected to familiarity. In Western culture, people are expected to greet each other if they are in the same classroom. However, saying “hello” to a stranger is typically an unnatural thing for Koreans to do.
Collaborative learning through group/pair work
Pair work and small group activities have traditionally been used for pedagogical purposes in the development of L2 learning by teachers worldwide (Johnson & Morrow, 1981; Littlewood, 1981; Storch & Aldosari, 2012; Pawa, 2007). The current study analyses group work activities to see how these teaching methods help focal students’ academic socialization and aid these students in becoming members of a classroom community. In turn, their successful academic socialization helped their academic learning.
Harris (2014) claims that we need culturally relevant pedagogy to teach culturally diverse students. In teaching international students, we have to look at these types of teaching strategies more widely, not only to promote cognitive development but also social development. Thus, this study considers international students’ social development as well as academic learning through collaborative learning within group work activities. Such activities in group dynamics represent one form of learning community. According to Chu (2011) the concept of learning communities depends on the interdependence of all members of a classroom. He suggests that students are able to learn better and help others learn in community learning. In this setting, learning occurs through a combination of collaboration and cooperation that derives from the field of cooperative learning.
Even though some of the participants of this research did not advocate collaborative learning techniques, such collaborative learning, peer work and small group work activities, these kinds of activities gave them the opportunity to be active participants in the community. Researchers have said that the consequences of collaborative activities are conceptualized as a way to enable the individual to participate in social activities, either as individuals referenced to a social network or directly connected to others, to promote future learning and development through expanding participation, and to create the potential for the individual’s reciprocal contribution to the community (Dyson, 2000; Putney, Green, Dixon, Durden, &Yaeger, 2000). Moreover, Donato (2004) claims that, as a result of collaborative learning, students establish relations, and gives the opportunity of mutual learning. Furthermore, Platt and Brooks (2002) argue that analyses of group work need to assess “how learners evolve from loosely knit partnered practices to fully engaged communities of language learning practice” (Donato, 2004, p. 290).
Teacher’s role
Yet one of the reasons for international students choosing to attend undergraduate programs in Korea is that courses are taught in English (Jon, Lee, & Byun, 2014). In such classes, both native Korean and international students can enroll. Communication and interaction with ethnically and culturally diverse students creates a friendly environment for learning in the classroom. According to Jon et al. (2014), this allows international students to adjust more easily into the new community. Much of this responsibility is said to be connected to the teachers. Based on the researchers’ data, at the current Korean University, English language classes are taught by either Korean teachers who are proficient in English or native English teachers. Research has shown that teachers’ attitudes and teaching methods have an important role in helping international students in their smooth academic socialization experience (Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston & Johnson, 2005).
Teachers’ influential role in both secondary school and higher education classes was confirmed by a large amount of researches (Birjandi & Jazebi, 2014; Sawyer, 2006; Van, Volman, Oort & Beishuizen, 2010). Many of the research have been done on the basis of Zone of proximal development theory by Vygotsky (1978), situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991), social network theory (Milroy, 1987), and community of practice theory (Wenger, 1998). Having said this, Kobayashi, Zappa-Hollman, and Duff (2017) points out that the teacher is considered as essential agent of socialization of newcomers. There is also a correlation between teacher’s behavior and the students’ motivation to learn. Closely related to teacher behavior, Dornyei and Malderez (1999) acknowledge that the teacher identity has strong influence on every aspect of the classroom. Moreover, teacher’s scaffolding assists students’ learning and classroom participation in many ways. According to Hur’s (2016) qualitative study, the teacher had a main role in language socialization of English language learners ino ne elementary U.S. school. Through the use of literature-based activities, the teacher not only scaffold students linguistically but culturally as well. Linguistic scaffolding was given bythe teacher’s questions to help students reach a proficient level of understanding of knowledge. The teacher encouraged the students to participate in group work and provided individual assistance. This helped them to develop cultural values of individualism and collaborative learning at the same time (Hur, 2016). As this study suggests, teachers can become both a linguistic and cultural scaffolder for language learner students. In the current study, the researchers show a teacher’s role through international students’ experiences, opinions and impressions about the focal teacher’s attitude and teaching methods. Teachers have been offered particular strategies and most important factors need to be considered when teaching international students (Caroll & Ryan, 2005). These teaching strategies include teaching students through group work activities so that they can communicate with native speaker classmates, managing their expectations, allocating student time to reflect on their works (P. Warwick, “Ten tips for teaching international students”). Furthermore, teacher’s academic background, and culturally relevant teaching in the class contribute to international students’ socialization and participation in the class (Harris, 2014). For example, he studied American-born and foreign-born teacher’s culturally relevant teaching of ethnically diverse students in the same class. Harris (2014) defined that culturally relevant teaching refers to teaching strategy being aware of international students’ culture and usage of strategies to match the students’ needs (p. 74.). Results indicated that teachers had different culturally relevant teaching philosophy and both teachers were capable of assisting diverse students’ progress in learning. Also previous personal experiences of teaching international or ethnically varied students helped teachers meet the students’ needs (Dulfer, McKernan, & Brindle, K., 2017). To sum up, teachers can meet international students’ needs in their academic socialization process and academic success by organizing classroom activities, using specific strategies and paying particularly attention to students’ condition, such as challenges in adaptation to the new setting.
Methods
On September 2018, I entered the class to observe all students for my research. Teacher was explaining the task instruction. The students were sitting around four tables and one of the tables was taken by four international students, Stacy, Ksenia, Isabella and Toan. I joined to their group. The teacher asked the students to present their speech in free topic coming in front of the class. They were given time to prepare for their topic to discuss within one or two minutes. The students were randomly selected to start their speech. I started to write the topics of each student and one thing attracted my attention that majority of Korean students had chosen the topics related to marriage, love relationship and family. They talked about these topics with great interest. I thought maybe it is cultural issue. Then I noted that culture could be one interesting topic found in my research site. In turn international students presented their speech in different areas, for example Stacy talked about “how to find a purpose in life”, Steven discussed “success” topic. I noticed that the way international students present, sit in the class, and discuss the topics are different from Korean students. It could be due to their personal identity or cultural identity. I decided to pay attention to international students’ cultural patterns showed in the class. This became formulation of my research topic.
“Being an international student is difficult” said teacher who had been international student and has 10 years of experience of teaching international students in Korea. In fact, international students come from different cultures, geographical areas which constructed their identities within those areas (Kramch, 2015). As I will discuss in the coming chapters, international students’ cultural patterns are different not only from Korean students but also each international student has unique identity. This uniqueness helped for some of them where some experienced struggles during adaption process to the new classroom and also in academic learning. Thus all of these issues naturally lead to research academic socialization process of international students during their stay in a foreign country. As this study shows, inner look into their academic socialization opens factors to analyze the causes of their struggles and what factors need to be addressed to help them in their academic socialization process. Further results chapters will show that teacher could become as the main agent to scaffold them in their adaptation process. Teacher’s attitude and way of teaching assisted the students to succeed in their academic lives. Another factor which aided international students effectively is participation in group work activities. Group work gave the chance to the students to learn collaboratively and this influenced on their feel sense of belonging in the new class. The international students could turn from ‘peripheral to legitimate member’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991) soon.
Using qualitative methods, my goal is examining a group of international students closely within EFL classroom of the foreign country. I look at their challenges in the new community, their identities within and outside the class and how they re-construct identities during one academic semester. Qualitative methods helped me to look into five international students’ transformation process closely for a short of time. This created the chance to clarify important factors that help international students in their academic socialization and learning. Statistic view of many international students could not demonstrate such inner factors as qualitative approach did. As the further chapters will present, I discuss international student-Korean student, international student-international student i and also teacher-student relations. International student-international student and international- Korean student relations in the classroom assisted to analyze power relations among them. Also, cultural view of each international student towards South Korean University, teachers and Korean classmates are analyzed to show their various cultural identities which influenced on their academic learning and adaptation. Moreover, qualitative methods I chose, for example, class observations allowed paying attention for teacher-student relations and teacher’s importance in international students’ academic life. Some aspects such as teacher’s attitude, way of teaching using humor and her creating friendly atmosphere in the classroom played important role in their academic learning. Finally, qualitative approach to study assisted me to find out the fact that collaborative learning through group work activities can be main scaffolding factor to improve academic socialization process of international students.
In this chapter, I will first introduce the research site and the researcher’s position, then participants and finally data collection and analyses procedures.
Participants
For the current study five international students and EFL course teacher have been selected as the main participants. EFL course was the focal classroom and in this class there were five international students out of overall 19 students. As I asked permission from the teacher about my research purpose and class observations, I went to the classroom and I had no idea whom to select as participants for the study. I also did not consider teacher to be agent for the research. Still, in my fieldnotes I used to write everything happened in the class including class activities, teacher-student interaction, Korean and International students’ communication and their behavior in the class. These fieldnotes and observations led me to pay more attention to international students, while they were gathering in the same table in the beginning of the semester. The table was the last one near to the entrance door and I also had to sit in that table. So I noticed that four international students sitting near me had different positioning in the class, some of them were active in the class discussion, some of them were not; each of them had various cultural patterns shown in the class. Thus, I decided them to be participants and gave them consent forms of the research. The consent form explains research purpose, whether they have willingness to participate in this research or not. If they agree, I guaranteed in the paper that their privacy will be kept and pseudonyms will be used for their names. All of five international students agreed and signed the form and I gave copy of signed forms to each participant.
The participants came from different countries, including Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, China and the Philippines. All participants were between 20-22 years old, two of them are male, and three of them are female. Their academic background also differs from each other’s and Tuan, Stacy ad Ksenia’s majors at their home country were language learning ( English and Korean language accordingly). Their level of English were evaluated according to the researcher and EFL course teacher’s opinions.
| Name | Tuan | Isabella | Steven | Stacy | Ksenia |
| Age | 22 | 20 | 22 | 20 | 20 |
| Nationality | Vietnam | Philippine | China | Ukraine | Kazakstan |
| Gender | Male | Female | Male | Female | Female |
| Major (at local University) | English language | Psychology | Advertisement | Korean language | Korean language |
| Perceived English level by teacher | Intermediate | Advanced | Upper-intermediate | Upper-intermediate | Intermediate |
Stacy was born and raised in Ukraine (Europe). She was educated in Ukraine schools which was still disciplined and ruled based on Soviet Union principles according to her. She mentioned that she used to learn poems and the classes were held on the teacher-centered base. Before coming to Korea, she was enrolled in Ukrainian University and had finished 6 academic semesters. When I asked about education at her home University she said:
I don’t like my home University , we have a lot of subjects but not facilitated. My major is Korean language but our subjects are not connected with Korean language at all and teachers are ineffective. For example we have four teachers and everybody gives his or her old program and these programs overlap and we learn the same theme twice sometimes. So things we need to know, we don’t study.
Stacy was one of the active and smart students in her class, so her teacher suggested her to apply for exchange program to study in South Korea. She mentioned that she accepted the suggestion with pleasure as it was her plan. Her family members, mother and especially her sister supported her staying in Korea financially although exchange program offers tuition wave and free accommodation. During interviews she also mentioned about her wish to apply for Master’s program to one of the Korean Universities after finishing exchange program and earning her Bachelor’s degree.
When she enrolled in exchange program, she chose two Korean classes and one English class at the Korean university. She also remained as active and sociable in EFL course. However, in her academic socialization process, she came across challenges communicating with her Korean classmates. Because she expected being sociable of Korean classmates derived from her Western outlook. And misunderstandings happened between as a result of false interpretations of cultural attitudes (Kramch, 1998).
Ksenia came from Kazakhstan. She was a quiet and calm student in the class. Her Korean language skills are better than English and more interested in Korean language learning. Thus, she wanted to have more Korean class hours at a Korean university, but she could not. She was also studying two Korean classes and one EFL class with Stacy. Ksenia always sat together with Stacy and mostlytalked to her during whole semester. She speaks in Russian with Stacy. Ksenia’s ancestors were from Ukraine and moved to Kazakhstan a long time ago. Kazakstan became one of the colonies of Soviet Union in Central Asia and her grandmother moved to Kazakstan in that period because of political reasons happened in Ukraine. Ksenia has blond short hair and has more Western look than Asian. Ksenia and Stacy became friends and showed the same impressions about their Korean classmates, as she said:
Ukraine and Kazakstan is the same. So our experiences and feelings are the same.
In my view, Ksenia could not express her view well in English and thus did not want to give her opinion much about the situations in the classroom. Most of the time, she tried to agree with Stacy, however, I asked the questions in a different way to know more about her during interviews. She seemed to be proud of her original nationality, being Ukrainian than Kazakstan. Because when I met her, she introduced her as Ukrainian than Kazak citizen.
Ksenia also acknowledged that her English teacher at her home university could not teach as she wanted:
I don’t like my University, because it depends on teachers we don’t have great Korean teachers… also I wanted to learn English but our English teacher in my university (laughs)I don’t like her. She is old teacher and doesn’t care about the students. English class is here really good (Ksenia, the first interview).
Due to these reasons she does not want to continue her studying with graduate courses. She said that she is planning to work after taking Bachelor’s degree. She does not have much ambition about her future. According to her she has not decided what profession she will take after graduation.
Steven was from China. He was the only international student in EFL class who could join Korean students easily. While four of international students were sitting together, Steven was joining Koreans in the first table. He was confident and his level of English was also good to communicate easily. According to one of the informal interview, when I asked how he learnt English, he said:
In so many ways, I watch a lot of documentary movies. When I decided to study in Industrial design course, documents were only in English so it was good chance to me to learn English. I have also been in California for travel purposes.
He also did not satisfy with his home University’s education system as he described “most teachers were busy with preparing their documents than teaching. Some of them just chat not teach in the class”.
So he decided to apply for some programs to study in a foreign country in a different curriculum. He said the following when I asked why he chose South Korea to study:
The reason why I chose Korea is that I am interested in history and culture. I applied to 3 countries: Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Their cultures are similar and I am interested in how this history is joint with modern technology.
He also liked Japan education but he was admitted to Korea first so he came to Korea by this way.
Isabella was from the Philippines. She was active and one of the smart students in the class. Her English was almost advanced. I asked her academic background and Isabella described her home university as a very demanding Americanized school:
Most of us are bilingual Philippen and English. It is hard to explain. We were colonized by America and our educational system was established by them. We use English like half our language. At school and college we use English. It is not we have like vocabulary and grammar classes because we are kind of grown up already in English. We have Philippine political view at school, it is melting pot and it is the toughest University but I like being challenged. It is the best University in Philippine. I lived in Australia for one year. Cuz my father worked there to get promoted and we also had to go to school there.
Isabella had good English proficiency because of her education at her home country. She did not intend to be enrolled in EFL course because she did not want to learn English at Korean University as we will mention it further again in the next section. However, she had to take the course because she had no other option as all courses were held in Korean language. She told in one of the interviews that she always wanted to come to Korea for its drama and culture. And she considered that Korea is cheaper country to study than Japan, therefore she chose Korean University to come. To apply for an exchange program to study in Korea was competitive as she mentioned. However, she was admitted and it could be one of the sign of her smart student at her home University. Her future plan was to become doctor as her parents wanted her to be because of high status job in Philippine. Although she was more interested in Psychology and wanted to be a psychologist.
Tuan came from Vietnam. I first met him in the school tour. He had strong Vietnamese accent but he was sociable and was communicating with me without any barrier. However, later I entered to EFL class and introduced myself to the students as a researcher. Tuan kept distance in communication and I noticed that he didn’t feel himself comfortable to talk to me as before. During interviews he also tried to keep interviews more formal answering to my questions in serious way. He was mostly quiet student in the class and he seems to be shy or not confident to me. As he noted, he preferred the Korean education system. Because he admitted that he could not learn the Korean language at his home University in Vietnam because his teacher was Vietnamese. He acknowledged that in South Korea he preferred Korean and EFL course teachers to his teachers’ pedagogy in Vietnam.
Teacher
The teacher is middle-aged female. She is a foreign teacher in Korea who comes from Philippine. In education system of Philippine, English is taught from primary school as one of the major subjects (Scholaro pro Education database, 2018). Since English is the second language in the country, the teacher became a native speaker of English and had the opportunity to work in Korea as a foreign teacher. She has been teaching at the English Education department of the target University for 13 years and has trained Korean English teachers for 10 years. She taught several online courses and published two textbooks in the field of education.
Research site
Exchange program, University JBNU, education system, my position, EFL classroom, Korean and foreign teachers.
The University and Exchange program.
Korea has demonstrated, over the past two decades, what should be done to promote education.It has broadened student numbers and hours of schooling to fulfill a growing need for more education, and students from all socio-economic levels are doing very well at courses, such as the advanced issue-solving skills on the International Student Assessment Program (PISA).
Thereafter, a proportionate growth in higher education has occurred, and keeps going still. A number of divergent factors can explain this growth: cultural and historical reasons, economic development, importance placed on literacy, and government policies that encourage academic achievement.
The Korean economy’s rapid development also has made a significant contribution to the importance Koreans attach to higher education. In the past 25 years, the country has realized an extraordinarily high rate of return from education investment, hovering around 10 percent. As Dr. SooBong Uh, from the Korea University of Technology and Education has stated, “It is wiser for young people to invest their money in education than to keep it in the bank” (www.asiasociaty.org). Thus, due to this major change in higher education in South Korea also influenced to the development of the target University of this study. Here, I will shortly describe the University as the research site.
The University is one of the National Universities of South Korea which is situated in suburb area of the country. It has been established in 1947 with the fund of the national university system and popular for its large campus, facilities and professional teaching. So it has been ranked the 580th place in the world , 17th place according to national rank in 2019 (www.cwur.org). The University has 17 colleges and 14 graduate schools. For approximately 32,000 students, and 2,400 full-time and part-time professors (as of October 2016), the University provides with high-quality educational, research and support facilities, cooperating with various institutions worldwide. Thus it attracts many international students over the world. The classes are held in two languages English and Korean according to the preference of the faculty and language proficiency of teachers. Foreign teachers from English speaking countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia and also some countries who has English as the second language such as Phillipine. Foreign teachers are hired to conduct courses in English especially Teaching English as a Foreign language courses. Candidates will be selected based on the University’s criteria, sometimes native speakers with bachelor’s degree are enough to be hired to teach this course. However, this position is competitive that TESOL certificate, at least two years of teaching experience are required. In the coming sections of this chapter, I will state more about it while the target EFL teacher is introduced. Now, I will describe exchange program which the participants of this study came through. The University established partnership relations with more than 300 Universities over the world. Partner Universities are officially called sister Universities and give opportunities to researchers and international students to study in South Korea by several exchange programs.
Students at sister universities may take Korean Courses and Major Courses during the invitation period overseas and obtain credits throughout this program. Students will be chosen by the overseas sister universities as per the academic exchange agreement signed by this university and overseas sister universities (www.jbnu.ac.kr).
Calendar for admission of exchange students:
| Calendar | ||
| Division | 1st Semester | 2nd Semester |
| Receive and review documents | October-December | April-June |
| Admission and submission of guidance materials | October-January | April-July |
| Dormitory payment instructions and receipt | January | July |
| Schedule flight arrival date and receipt | February | August |
| Arrival in Korea | 2 or 3 days before classes begin | 2 or 3 days before classes begin |
| Beginning of classes | March | September |
Generally six months based on the agreement however there are one-year courses. University tuition is removed from scholarship benefits. The dormitory fee is exempted, administration costs are excluded, there will be a monthly living stipend, as well as other incentives, depending on the agreement with each University.
It is obligatory for exchange students to take Korean language learning courses, however if they want to take some specific courses, Korean language or English language proficiency is required. Obligatory courses for exchange program students:
| Courses | ||
| Courses Division | Subjects | Credits |
| Korean Listening for Foreigners (Elementary / Intermediate / Advanced) | 3 credits | |
| Korean Speaking for Foreigners (Elementary / Intermediate / Advanced) | 3 credits | |
| Basic education area | Korean Reading for Foreigners (Elementary / Intermediate / Advanced) | 3 credits |
| Korean Writing for Foreigners (Elementary / Intermediate / Advanced) | 3 credits | |
| Korean Vocabulary and, Grammar for Foreigners (Elementary/Intermediate/Advanced) | 3 credits | |
Note: retrieved from http://www.cbnu.edu/eng/?menuID=334
Challenges in enrollment in specific courses
All the participants of this study have chosen EFL course as a specific course except Korean language learning courses. The focal students including Steven, Isabella, Stacy and Ksenia had the intention to take specific courses and they had enrolled in the beginning of the semester, however due to English language proficiency of teachers, international students could not study in those courses. Only Steven took Industrial design and Economic development course as extra major courses and according to him “ Professor always translated the content of the class just for him, although he is the only international student in the classroom”. Thus he did not have much problem to continue in the classes he had chosen. Unlike Steven, Stacy and Ksenia selected two English learning courses, however they had to drop one of them because of their dissatisfaction with the teacher’s English proficiency. They informed that the teacher was Korean and she had strong Korean accent that they could not understand her. But they continued with the latter EFL course. As for Isabella, she planned to be involved in Psychology course and the class was held in Korean. She described her situation as following: “professor was not good he tried to translate the class into English but he could not (laughs) so I had to drop the class”. Isabella mentioned that International Office staff did not inform her about the courses that are held in English and therefore she had this challenge in enrolling the courses she wanted. According to her she had to take EFL course, because she did not have any other option. During interviews, Stacy, Ksenia and Isabella emphasized the same issue that they were having much free time, due to the fact that they could not be engaged in the specific courses that are held in English. So, they wanted to have more Korean classes because they had much free time as Stacy said:
I wish there were more hours of Korean because we had like nine hours in whole week that’s too little. If they were more it would be great and also if you stay second semester you have less hours like 6 hours. And it was like the point it is too little… We had too much time for nothing like we could have more classes but everything else is ok.
Focal (EFL) classroom.
EFL course was the target course for the current study. As we mentioned all the participants were gathered in this class and participants were also selected in this classroom. This course was recommended to me to observe by my research advisor. The class to observe was the part of the course of my professor and in order to submit final paper for the graduate course, I needed to find research site and participants from the beginning of the semester. Then I took contact numbers of EFL course teacher and visited her office to ask permission to observe her class. She allowed me to observe and I told her possible duration of observation. When I entered to the classroom for the first time, it was the beginning of September, 2018. The students had been already introduced the course and evaluation procedure. The class was held in Multimedia classroom and there were all facilities for the presentation. For example, there were computer and projectors in the end of the class. The class has four round tables for the students and one table for the teacher. The classroom was designed for the group discussion. The students were sitting around four tables being divided into groups. The class was taken twice a week, on Monday and Wednesday focusing on speaking and writing respectively. Writing class was dedicated to teach the students how to effectively write problem-solving and argument essays. In the speaking class, the students were learning how to improve their presentation skills and speak in front of the public. Table1 presents the course schedule:
Table 1. Course Schedule
| Course Class day Class time Course assignments |
| Writing Wednesday 9 – 10 a.m Essay writing and giving peer feedback |
| Speaking Monday 9 – 11 a.m Preparation for oral presentation |
| The students were evaluated according to their performance, attendance and completing assignments. In the following table it will be shown: |
<Table 2> Course Evaluation
| Evaluation criteria | Percentage ( maximum 100%) | |
| Attendance | 10 % | |
| Participation | 10% | |
| Speech | 15% | |
| Mid-term exam | 25% | |
| Presentation 1 | 10% | |
| Essay writing(cause and effect) | 10% | |
| Final test | 20% | |
|
Data collection | ||
My data collection began before clarifying research questions and first I used class observations and taking fieldnotes methods to find out interesting categories and determine the research questions. My focus was to observe all students in the class, paying attention student-students and teacher-student interaction as well as class activities. I paid attention how Korean students and International students performed during the class activities. Also in the first classes, teacher’s unusual methods used in the class attracted my attention. For example, when first attended the class, the students were standing opposite to the wall and talking to themselves. They were preparing for their speech given on the particular topic. This preparation process differed among Korean and International students. This difference helped me to find out my participants and after figuring out possible participants for the study, I started using other qualitative methods including interviews and looking through documents. Then I started to collect data all around international students focusing on their participation, challenges and teacher-students interaction. Data was collected for one academic semester between September 2018 December 2018 through class observations, classroom field notes, semi-structured interviews and course assignments. I anticipated observing the participants’ participation in Korean classes as well, however, they were not gathering in the same Korean classes and their class schedule was different. Moreover, the class was in Korean and I could not analyse teacher-student interaction very well because of my limited Korean language knowledge. I also planned to take weekly reports of participants’ progress. This would have helped me to clarify the focal students’ transformations toward the end of the academic semester. However, the participants found it difficult to complete the written reports in addition to the assignments given by their teachers. Thus I decided to discuss everything happening or happened during interviews.
I observed EFL class for the current study and attended the classes twice a week, on Monday at 9-11 a. m and Wednesday at 9-10 a.m. On Monday, the class content was focused on speaking and it lasted for two hours. Wednesday classes lasted for one hour and the aim of the class was improving writing skills. Usually on Monday classes, the students were more active and I had many insights to write as a researcher. During observations, only interesting sights have been written as field notes. In the beginning of semester, I observed the class environment from general view without focusing on the research questions. Field notes constituted the class setting, class activities, teacher’s teaching methods and teacher’s attitude towards focal students’ class participation. In the setting, I described how the students were placed and how they settled in groups. I looked at all students’ attitude and class performance to recognize what is going on in the class. For example, Korean students felt free using jokes during class activities compared to international students. I noted each “social event” (Ellis, 1990b) happened in the class. I divided the fieldnotes into subunits to note class setting for each day ( the students’ placement, pairs, date and how many students attended on that day), class activities, teacher and each interesting “event” happened in that class hour. In class activities section, I noted the tasks and methods used by the teacher. In teacher’s section, I wrote what happened between the teacher and students and teacher’s attitude. In the end of September, I decided international students and teacher to be main possible participants I took notes any detailed information about each international student’s participation in class discussions, peer informal talk and oral presentations.
The interviews were taken two times in the beginning of academic semester, in September and the end of semester, in December, 2018. The first interviews were taken to figure out their academic background, the courses they were taking, and their impressions about new University. There were also questions regarding their performance in the classroom at that time, those questions were made up on the basis of field notes taken. The second interviews were taken on the basis of the main research questions concerning their cultural identity, teacher’s attitude and international students’ opinions about collaborative learning within group/peer work activities. After interviews, I listened to their views about class condition and I often contacted the teacher to clarify some situations happened in the class. I also took interview with the teacher to know more about the international students’ positioning in the class and academic progress. Even though the questions were predetermined before interviews, these interviews were called as semi-structured (Nunan, 2008). Interviews were held individually. The interviews were taken in the coffee shops with the students to create a comfortable environment. The teacher interview was held in her office because I asked her to show course documents. Moreover when the students left for their home countries after finishing their program in December, 2018, follow-up interviews were conducted through online messenger. The participants sent their responses through the messenger. Teacher-student interaction, face-to-face interviews and interviews by kakao talk messenger were audio-recorded. They were transcribed for data analysis.
Documents regarding exchange program curriculum and University education system were taken form the official University website. To get access to course materials of the target class, the researchers addressed the classroom teacher and gained course assignments and final grades of students. Course documents were needed to compare participant students’ participation with each other and also to see improvements in the students’ academic learning. In particular, the documents that reported the students’ grades in the beginning and end of the semester were taken. Moreover, teacher gave access for her online curriculum database, however now this database is not valid anymore. I took course evaluation procedure information from this database and course evaluation table was introduced in this chapter above. Besides the course documents, the teacher gave me the letter written by Tuan to the teacher in the end of the semester. This letter presented gratefulness towards the teacher and described his transformation process during academic semester. It also became significant document for the current research.
Data analysis
The data was analysed on grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Grounded theory works in opposite way to traditional research and it may even appear to contradict scientific method. An inductive methodology, grounded theory methodology comprises the following four stages:
In the current study, my data and analysis followed this theory in the same way. I collected preliminary data and hypothesis emerged from this data. I continued collecting data to support this hypothesis. I observed the classroom and found out that international students have much more interesting and complex process of learning and participating in the classroom rather than Korean students. Thus they became focus of this study from the data. Then I looked at fieldnotes and interviews of preliminary data to identify keywords and concepts.
Constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was used to compare and analyse data. I observed the class and wrote field notes, then took the interview. During interviews, I took notes some interesting points the participants pronounced. Patterns showed in the field notes, were compared with the interviews. After first interviews were transcribed, I coded keywords in the fieldnotes and transcription. Contents were about international students’ different experiences because of their various cultural beliefs and attitudes towards teachers, classes and Korean classmates. During first interviews they all showed great interest towards EFL course teacher and teacher also became the focus for the observation. Then I continued taking fieldnotes, audio-recording the classes and interaction between the students and teacher. I took informal interviews with the teacher about interesting points happened in the classroom. This procedure lasted till the end of the semester. After coding all patterns shown in the data, those patterns were grouped into similar ones. From similar keywords, categories were found. Throughout the analysis, the following categories emerged from data:
Category A: cultural identity, cultural beliefs and patterns
Category B: teacher’s role, teacher’s academic background influence, teacher attitude and using sense of humour in the class.
Category C: collaborative learning, group/pair work activities
After the categories were apparent, my research questions were obvious. I took interviews again with the students in the end of semester to confirm those categories. As I mentioned the first interviews were taken before identifying the main research questions. The second interviews were based on the main categories and research questions. Finally, interview with the focal teacher was conducted. During interviews teacher presented the students progress by course documents such as their sample essays and grades in the end of semester.
The role of the researcher
According to Corbin & Strauss (2015), the researcher has an ethical responsibility to self, to participants, and to the profession to produce the highest quality work that he or she is capable of” (p. 14). Thus, feeling this responsibility, the researcher first contacted the focal teacher about the study’s purpose and gained permission to observe her classes. After observing a few classes, the international students became target students and the researchers contacted international students one by one to ask permission participant in the study. The research interest was introduced to them and their agreement was signed by the research participation agreement form. The form had explanations about the research. The researcher attended the classes as an observer and observed the participants without disturbing their class participation. The researcher collected and analysed data, not influencing the student’s academic learning and adaptation process. However, during interviews, as knowing the researcher herself is an international student studying in Korea, the participant students told their personal stories to the researcher as a fellow colleague and as somebody who is going through a similar academic socialization experience. As I mentioned above, I met one of the participant, Tuan before recognizing the participants for the study and we had friendly contact with him. However, later as I introduced myself as a researcher to the class, Tuan changed his attitude to me and he was communicating with me as a research participant. I still tried to keep my position not as a researcher but friends to have more open conversation during interviews. Steven and Stacy also gave me information about their experience and feelings about their home Universities, EFL class and teachers as in a friendly conversation during interviews. Within the classroom, I did not try to communicate but tried to observe them more as a researcher.
Results
Cultural patterns and beliefs
Silence differs
Each of the participants has a unique identity, and their positions were identified through their performance and silence in the classroom. According to the field notes (September 2018), Tuan was mostly silent in the class and spoke English with a Vietnamese accent.
Tuan: Obviously, In Vietnam it is easier to communicate in the class because of language. Language barrier here is very strong (September, Interview 1).
Tuan describes his silence in the class as language barrier. He acknowledges that his English is not enough to actively communicate with his classmates and in Vietnam he felt comfortable to interact in the class. However, nature of silence is complex in the class with domestic and international students. Home culture, expectations and social norms can also be factors of silence of Asian students in a foreign country (Bista, 2012).
Stacy was fluent in English. As we mentioned in the participants’ section, the students’ English proficiency was judged according to the teacher and researchers’ subjective evaluation. She used to answer teachers’ questions with confidence in the classes. When we had informal talk outside the class, Stacy was sociable and ready to answer all the questions openly. On our first meeting, she described her feelings and impressions about the whole University, teachers and Korean people. As a researcher, at that time I assumed that she must be active student in the class as well as outside the class.
Steven was calm in the classes and spoke only when questions were asked but participated in class activities. Steven’s identity was connected to Confucianism traditions of learning that silence in the class means respect to teacher and not undervaluing him/her much by discussions (Littler, 2005).
Ksenia was also calm and did not try to participate actively. According to her, she was not used to be active in her home University as well (Informal talk, September). Moreover, she preferred to be enrolled in one of the Seoul Universities and ended up with this suburbian University because of some reasons. This became also one of the reasons that she had no much intention with hard studying ( Interview 1, September).
Isabella was active and fluent in English. She usually sat with international students on the same table, however, she mostly joined Korean classmates’ talk and discussions. Despite of the fact that she did not need EFL course and learn English language (Interview 1, September), she always tried to actively participate in the class discussions and projects.
Descriptions of the participants were based on the researchers’ observations, informal talk and the first interviews with the participants. These assumptions about the focal students’ identities were checked and confirmed during class activities. In particular, when the teacher asked the students to describe each other and label other students either as “a listener or talker” in the classroom, this activity could help determine their level of classroom participation. Among the participants, Tuan and Ksenia were described as listeners. Stacy was described as a talker (October 2018). “Listener” was used to describe students who were mostly silent in the class and were not active in class discussions. “Talker” denoted students who were active and spoke often in English.
Students could have been silent or “listeners” for different reasons. First and foremost, it can be linked to their personal identities. However, the researcher is not going to analyze these factors in depth because only factors that influence learning are of interest in the present study. One of the influential factors is the participants’ cultural identities. In the coming section, the gender views derived from their cultural background are discussed.
Gender views about class participation
Finding out the focal students’ opinions about which gender members are more active in class also helps define their cultural patterns. These cultural patterns and beliefs have important roles in their participation and academic learning. The participants showed diverse views about students’ class participation. For example, Steven was more biased towards boys that the rest of the students when the researcher asked who participates more in the class:
Steven: Of course boys! They are active. Girls are also active in class but they don’t express much – everything is in their mind. It is the same in China and Korea, there a lot of things common between Korea and China, we are the same race.
Steven believed that boys are always active in class, both in China and Korea. He was the only international student in the target class who joined the Korean group while all the other international students were within one group. He also mentioned that among Korean students, boys are also more involved in class activities. Steven’s view encouraged him to join pairs/groups easily and did not disturb him when communicating with the other classmates.
One more factor that comforted Steven regarding his academic socialization and participation in the new classroom is view about the similarity between China and Korea. He considered China and Korea as having many things in common in terms of culture. Thus, he did not feel like as much of a “stranger” as the other focal students:
Steven: Here the same. Korea and China are similar. Boys are active because it is traditional culture. In Eastern Asia, Chinese culture, Korean culture, Japanese culture girls are expected to be tender, kind-hearted, behave well, maybe keep silence, elegant.
Another participant in this study, Tuan, believed that girls are more communicative in English class. One of the reasons for this, according to him, is the language barrier for boys:
Tuan: Girls are better in communicating than boys. Because boys, in my case, I don’t know what to say… but in Vietnam I speak a lot. Because of the language patterns, different language, I express well.
Interviewer: So you think that girls participate actively than boys?
Tuan: It depends, because my University is about social science, so females than males are passive. In social science we are active, we speak a lot… our major is tourism, so we have to communicate.
According to Tuan, the girls’ language proficiency is better than that of the boys. Thus, the language barrier was the main problem that prevented his active participation in the class. He acknowledged that he actively participated in class activities at his home university but that expressing his opinion in English is very difficult. He admitted that girls can be more active because of their strong English-speaking skills.
The rest of the participants also pointed out that girls are more active participants in the class than boys. Even though Ksenia claimed her passive participation in the classroom, all of these views about gender in terms of class participation were directly connected to their academic experience and cultural beliefs. In the next unit, the researcher looks at the participants’ beliefs about their Korean classmates. The essential thing to note is that their cultural beliefs naturally affected their academic socialization and academic learning in the beginning of the semester.
5.1.2 Different cultural view towards Korean classmates
Each of the focal students had a dissimilar experience, adaptation process. In this study, some of the participants were more flexible to their new environment, while others had challenges. In this process, the participants’ communication with their Korean classmates played an important role in their learning and adaptation to the new classroom in a foreign country. International students who got along well with their Korean classmates also felt a sense of belonging and showed more motivation to study (Lewis, 2016) than those who had difficulties in doing so. This paper will provide examples of three students’ cases that describe their relations with their Korean classmates and adaptation to the classroom. They expressed their impressions about their classmates using representative words “cold” and “cute.”
Stacy and Ksenia described Korean students as ‘cold’ because of non-communication. Both Stacy and Ksenia expressed their discomfort about this situation. Stacy mentioned her effort to communicate with her classmates.
Stacy: We have a problem with Koreans. They are cold. She [Ksenia] already mentioned that they can’t talk to you while—
Ksenia: They don’t even say ‘hi.’
Stacy: Yeaahh. It is so strange to me that they don’t say even ‘hi.’ It is weird.
It can be seen that saying ‘hi’ to classmates means a lot to the participants from Ukraine and Kazakhstan. They have a Western viewpoint about greetings in that greeting someone is a form of politeness to them. In contrast, these attitudes of Korean students were more easily accepted by the participants who were from Eastern countries such as the Philippines, China and Vietnam. According to Park and Nakano (2007), remaining silent is a sign of being polite in many East Asian culture. Some participants from those East Asian countries expressed their satisfaction with their Korean classmates and their nice behavior or treatment towards them. For example, Steven even called them ‘cute’:
Steven: Shion [Korean classmate] is my best friend. He is honest – honest and friendly and helpful. Koreans are ‘cute’. ‘Cute’ is their personality, more like children, oh not children mentally healthy. In China everbody is – they want themselves to look like mature and they are chilly. Now I am in a new class, I meet friends. They answer my questions with a few words in China. Everybody is so nice in this class.
Steven compared his Korean classmates with his Chinese classmates in English class, and he preferred Korean students’ behavior and their way of communicating to those of his Chinese classmates.
Another participant from Asian country, Philippine, Isabella described her Korean classmates as being shy:
Isabella: Korean students get shy of foreigners who speak English well, but they are really nice. I think everybody reacts the same way to foreigners because of cultural differences, different languages. I think they are not ‘cold’. When you meet somebody you are not immediately friendly with them.
In the interview, the researcher used Stacy and Ksenias’ descriptive term “cold” while asking from Isabella about her communication with Korean classmates. Isabella disagreed with their opinions about their Korean classmates.
The participants described their Korean classmates according to their cultural beliefs or ideologies that were framed in their native countries. Underlying the concepts about their views of their Korean classmates was politeness. Koreans were perceived as polite by some and as impolite by others. According to Stacy and Ksenia, polite people should be friendly and should smile; they should also greet others when they meet. For Steven, they should not interrupt each other, and they should respect each other.
This section described the participants’ identities and the students’ challenges in the new community because of differences Eastern and Western cultural views about politeness. The next section refers to group activities, which helped the participants get along well with their Korean classmates and promoted their academic learning.
5.2 Group work and collaborative learning
The EFL teacher consistently employed group work activities in the class. At first, the students chose their seats themselves, and most of the time, all international students gathered in one group. Later, the teacher asked the students to mix Koreans with international students in the groups. According to observations and analyses of the focal students’ transformation process towards the end of the semester, group work assisted the students very much. The challenges the participants faced in communicating with Korean students disappeared. Most importantly, the students shared knowledge with foreigners, and as a result, class participation improved and the students learned from each other about topics ranging from social knowledge to the technical use of computers.
However, most of the participants stated their distaste for group work, as they were used to working individually in their home countries. Still, they realized the benefits they received from group work:
Stacy: It is like easy to put responsibility on other people and do the nothing. Some people do everything, some people do nothing… and also you need to wait for other people to prepare their part and everything goes slow. When you do it alone, it is just your own problem. If it is group work, mark is given for everybody but efforts aren’t equal but marks shouldn’t be equal. But you develop your skills working in group work, communication, there are advantages, we learnt how to work in team… actually environment got warmer, it got a bit warmer like we know each other better now.
According to Stacy’s statements, education in her home university in Ukraine is regulated to make the students work individually. She said that group or peer work is not commonly used particularly in English classes. Also, studying to get good grades and Stacy’s concern about the inequality of sharing marks for everybody in a group might have to do with remnants of the Communist education system in post-Soviet Eastern European countries (Friedman & Trines, 2019, June 25).
However, Stacy acknowledged the benefits of participating in group work. First of all, she improved her relations with her ‘cold’ Korean classmates and changed her mind about them. She acknowledged that after working together in group project, she found out about their specific behavior and it was not being rude of them. This let her develop her team-working skills and learn specific skills such as getting feedback from peers and correcting her mistakes. This was shown in one specific group activity that was done as a final project at the end of the semester. Stacy stated that when she presented her part of the project to her partners, they gave feedback to add more and due to revision, she learnt how to correct her mistakes (Stacy, Interview 2).
In the community, the students “learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” according to the community of practice theory (Wenger, 1998). To complete a group project, the students often had to communicate during and outside of class time. They used KakaoTalk messenger to discuss their ongoing presentations. One of the participants of the study Isabella’s experience from a group project could be good example for learning because of regular interaction. Isabella also talked about team-working and communication among international students:
Isabella: In this class we had a lot of group work. I think the most important thing was just being able to contact to each other, the moment you become a groupmate… especially in this classroom, we had to meet other classmates to discuss our presentations … it wasn’t difficult I actually we wrote by kakaotalk like can you give me your paper bla bla… it was easy to work because we had one goal even though we were different, we were from different countries. It was like working together.
Even though Korean and international students have different nationalities, Isabella felt comfortable working with her groupmates as a result of regular interactions. Isabella also indicated her preference for individual work; however, she acknowledged what she learned from group work.
Isabella: Yeah of course in group work you can learn from your groupmates. I mean it is not I hate group work but I prefer doing alone. When you’re in group work there are so many opportunities to learn from your partners. You can learn so many things like for example I am not good at making power point presentations, making things look pretty so in group work I usually leave those things to the others but of course I look at how they do, I learn from them…To make presentation we did pair work with Black. It is easy to work with him. We contributed ideas like when we were meeting.
Learning from observing groupmates is one of the main signs of a community of practice. It is also important t to note that Isabella learned how to make PowerPoint presentations from Korean students. To sum up, observing the partners in group work gave Isabella the opportunity to exchange ideas with each other in different topics and also learn technical skills such as making good PowerPoint presentation.
Other students, such as Tuan and Steven, preferred group work to individual work and enjoyed working with their Korean classmates. Because they felt sense of belonging during collaborative learning and did not have any challenges to work with their partners. Tuan participated in project discussions a lot, and in the researcher’s view, he was not a ‘listener’ anymore. They had almost similar experiences in the preparation process of completing group projects and experienced academic transformations. However, unlike them, Ksenia remained in the same student position as a “listener” and not active in discussions, even at the end of the academic semester. This study determines why Ksenia could not work with her partners in group work and ended up doing tasks alone most of the time:
Ksenia: Mine was different…I didn’t communicate much with my partners… Susan had her own exams so she didn’t have much time to communicate with us. So we only had own our topics…Matthew did presentation. If we had questions we asked but we didn’t communicate so much… I did my own part and shared with him, he made ppt… I didn’t learn much…I didn’t feel like it was group work… It was like individual work, didn’t feel like group…so good for me…
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