Language Barrier Is Not An Issue For Chinese Students

Asians are one of fastest growing minority groups in America today. During this century, various factors at home and abroad have caused people from Asia to immigrate to the United States for better or for worse. Due to these factors, Americans and American teachers, in particular, need to educate themselves and become aware of the Asian American students’ needs in terms of success and happiness. Before beginning my research, I felt I had an easy subject: studying Asian Americans in relation to their education in public schools. How simple! Everyone knows they are smart, hard working, driven to succeed in spite of their nerdish, geeky, non-athletic, broken-English stereotype. Of course they are

A big part of the problem is that they do not get enough experience speaking or writing in their parents’ native language (Population Council). However the bigger part of the problem is most immigrants’ method of parenting. Chinese immigrants’ way of raising their children to speak and write both Chinese and English fluently has proven that it is possible to raise the next generations to be bilingual. According to a study by Eddie Kuo, over 90 percent of the studied Chinese-American families mainly spoke Chinese at home, proving that Chinese are the only immigrants who truly hold on to their language everywhere they go. That is why Chinese is the most common language around the world, before Hindu and English (Ethnologue). It is such a big advantage to know multiple languages; bilingual people always have higher chances of getting hired, especially if they are in the community in which that their languages are commonly used. Other ethnic groups should really learn from the Chinese and preserve their native language.

with their friends. Both Americans and the Chinese value education and feel that education is

Having a limited to knowledge of their culture, I do know that various aspects of their culture may in fact influence their needs as learners. To be more specific, the goal of the students in Chinese culture is to pass tests. Usually these tests are multiple choice and students must pass these tests in order to move on to university. They are limited in the amount of social activities and independent, creative thinking. They often do not get the opportunity to express themselves or think critically. Because of these various cultural differences, many foreign students often struggle academically

Modern Day example would include the “English Only Movement” and the “reverse quotas for Asians in college admissions” (Ngai, p. 67). The limitations of Asian access to postsecondary education is troubling because they are amongst some of the brightest American citizens, especially when using measures of college readiness benchmarks used for college admissions. For example, Asian Americans taking the ACTs during high school scored higher on math and science portions than any other recorded racial group. In an economy where science, technology, engineering and mathematics

They know their structure and have a very superior vocabulary, so they can compose excellent essays. In addition, since American students speak English very well, they do not have any problem participating in class. They have confidence in themselves, so they will not be afraid of saying something wrong. Consequently, because American students do not have to learn any language to study their mayor, it is much easier for them to achieve excellent grades.

The belief that Asian Americans are highly successful academically gives a distorted representation to society. In reality, many of them are living below poverty level with little to no educational background. The reason Asian Americans are so successful academically is because they are aiming for a better life, one out of poverty. They understand that education can open up new doors to endless opportunities for their children so many Asian immigrants come to America in hopes that their children can have these opportunities. These Asian American students are exceedingly self motivated to make the most of their opportunity given to them through their parents’ sacrifices.

When I came to America from China at age 16, everyone around me appeared to be different. However, I didn’t just talk to my Chinese friends. I pushed myself outside of my bubble; I tried my best to make friends with American students, while I still maintained good relationships with my Chinese friends. America is very different from what I expected, everyone speaks so fast and unclear; it almost made English a completely different language from what I had already learned. As I was trying to make friends, I realized that Chinese culture had made me different from Americans; things that I was curious about as a Chinese person were very private to American students. For example, in America, people won’t mention what their parents’ jobs are when they meet someone for the first time.

As far as I know, many Chinese students have difficulty in studying English when they study abroad. Some of them choose to attend language program or ask for tutors’ help. Before I came to the United States, I could not speak English very well, so I made a schedule that I’ll learn vocabularies from 6 am to 10 am and then studied English grammar. I started reading English books. As a result, I made great progress on my English. When I read the article “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”, I found myself and the author are a lot alike in learning by ourself.

Most people have a negative misconception about immigrants and they think immigrant don’t have what it takes to become successful in this Country and they have no determination to get a higher education which is not true. Because the younger generation immigrant is determined to become successful which is why immigrants far exceeded other groups when it came to education outcomes compared to 46 percent of native-born whites is L.A. Furthermore, of the Chinese- American college graduates, 22 percent went on to attain graduate degrees. In fact, most of the elite universities, Asian-American make up a disproportionate percentage of the student population. Although they compromise, just 5.5 percent of the American population, Asian- Americans account for just under one-fifth of the entering class at schools such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. At University of California, Berkeley, they make up 43 percent of the student body, but they are just 13 percent of the population (Moxley, Par.

Each country has its own kind of education, and education always plays an important role in affecting students’ life and study on many aspects. Having received ten years of education in China and two years of education in the U.S. I would like to compare and contrast a few significant aspects of these two different kinds of educations. Knowing that no two education systems are the same, the differences between American education and Chinese education allow countries to take the essence and discard the dross through learning from each other so as to improve their own current education systems.

“In 2006 to 2007, according to the data compiled by the Institute of International Education, 582,984 students from all over the world were enrolled in American colleges and universities in a wide range of fields” (Carter, Paragraph 2, 2008). The United States has the highest number of students who are coming to study abroad than any other countries. Each year, the number of international students coming to the United States to obtain degrees is increasing by thousands, and home countries of these students are primarily India, China and Korea, all located in the whole different continent. But what are the motives of students who are crossing the sea to study? Their goal of studying abroad is to experience diversity and to adapt attitudes

The differences between the Chinese education and the American education are more obvious in people’s mind, not only to the international students, but also to the native students and some people who study on this. As more and more Chinese students come to America to have better education, we should think about why the American education system is better and how could we change our system to have a new education system in China. These differences have some deeply reason, like the American is the nation which loves freedom. It took long time to make such a big difference between the two education systems, and we need longer time to change it. An undeniable

“As a international students, I care a lot about the difference of education system between the U.S. and China.”(culture shock) I realized that the educational ideas

Because of all the factories closing, and difficulty finding jobs growing rapidly, some people are going to be forced to look for work in other countries, and maybe even another continent. And that’s where we come in. While they are losing factories (and jobs) we are making more to replace what they used to make in their factories. And the Chinese see this. They cram studying in as much as possible. They can be found studying all day on weekends, and it had even come to the point where the study so much that it damages their vision. They strive for perfection as work gets harder to find. They also have more people graduating from college each year than us. They have 7 million while we only have 2.8 million each year. This means that they have many very good student graduation that may try to come here to get jobs, which therefore takes one away from an American. This will affect me because the more they continue their changes in China, the more Chinese will look for jobs here, and the harder it will be for me to find one after I graduate college.