Academic Project 3

AEPS Summer Course 2014

" An Analysis of Academic Writing Problems Faced by Chinese Learners

of English"

WANG
YUE
Student ID Number: 200871737
4th September 2014
Word Count: 2190
Personal Tutor: Thilini Wijeratne

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 An Analysis of Academic Writing Problems Faced by Chinese Learners of

English

1. Introduction

The number of Chinese learners of English has been steadily increased in recent

years. As it is highly accepted, academic writing plays a significant role in the

academia. However, it is considered as one of the most difficult skills because it

requires a comprehensive application of ‘neurological’, ‘physical’, ‘cognitive’ and

‘affective’ skills (Murray and Moore, 2006). Because of complexity of academic

writing, numerous Chinese learners’ articles are regarded as ‘unqualified’ due to some

common problems, for example, the ‘indirectness’, the ‘digressions’, and the ‘loosely-

development topics’ (Cai, 1993).

The purpose of this essay is defining main problems existing in Chinese learners’

compositions, and analysing possible causes of these problems. In this essay, I will

firstly describe the importance of academic writing followed by a discussion of

difficulties faced by Chinese students. Analysis will consists of the key features,

which influence Chinese students’ writing and lead to those problems. At last, this

essay will conclude with suggestions for improvement of academic writing.

2. The importance of English and the importance academic writing

Nowadays, English is the most widely spoken language in the world, with totally

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about 1 billion speakers. Meanwhile, about 101 countries or dependencies use English

as their official language or de facto status. In addition, 27.3% of resources on the

Internet are written in English, and 28% of books are published in English in the

world (Language Studies Abroad, 2012).

Even though Chinese mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, English

is the most widespread language amongst the continents. Nowadays, China is being a

fast developing country, so it is necessary for Chinese to learn English to

communicate and cooperate with others. Therefore, there is an increasing number of

Chinese students choose to study abroad. Academic writing in English is crucial for

these students

According to Murray and Moore (2006, p.5), academic writing is ‘a continuous

process involving reflection, improvement, development, process and fulfillment of

various types and in varying measures.’ It is a standard to evaluate students’ learning

outcomes and cognitive process. It can also judge students’ ability of grasping a

specialized literacy, which refers to their major-related rhetorical and linguistic

conventions (Zhu, 2004).

In general writing, an article is always evaluated by its structure, clarity and

accuracy (Gillett et al., 2009). However, according to Zhu (2004, pp.38), academic

writing requires not only the general skills but also ‘a specific knowledge of unique

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thought and communication process.’ As second language learners, Chinese students

may face up some problems in their writing process, which will be discussed in the

next part of the article.

3. Problems face by Chinese learners

Second language learners are confronted with different categories of problems, some

of them are at sentence-level, including grammar and vocabulary, and others may

reflect in discourse organization (Mohan and Lo, 1985). In this part, three main

problems will be discussed, including: grammar, structure and critical thinking.

Grammatical problem is very common amongst Chinese students. As regarded by

Chuang and Nesi (2006), English teachers find that it is difficult to correct Chinese

students’ grammatical errors. According to their research, grammar errors are often

classified according to the linguistic units they belong to. However, they mentioned

that the disadvantage of this classification is that it excluded the problems like the

placement and the word choice.

Moreover, Li (2007) pointed out another way to classify grammar problems of

Chinese students into four levels: morphemic level, lexical level, syntactical level and

discourse level. In Li’s article, he came up with a more specific definition of different

categories of grammar problems in Chinese students’ articles. He argued that

morphemic level problems refer to a misuse of case, number and tense. Lexical level

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problems include students’ inappropriate word choice, such as an ignorance of

collocation and lexical implication. Syntactical level problems can be defined as

putting words in wrong orders or using negations in wrong positions. In addition,

problems at discourse level include a misuse of coherent and cohesion.

The rigid structure has become one of the obstacles in academic writing of

Chinese students. Li argued that Chinese students’ article structure is usually

developed through Chinese writing norms, which means they prefer to provide many

background information instead of giving a topic sentence directly, for example, if

Chinese learners are given the topic of ‘The Disadvantage of Watching TV’, they will

not start their articles with presenting their personal opinions. Instead, most of them

may start like: ‘with the development of science and technology, people’s living

conditions have been greatly improved and TV sets have been more and more

popular’ (Li, 2007, p.92).

Furthermore, Mohan and Lo (1985) argued that it seems that Chinese learner

write academic articles are followed a fixed form, which leads to a lack of clearness

of meaning. Regarding unclear meaning, Cai (1993, p.11) also stated that ‘English

compositions by Chinese students are characterised by long-windedness, digression

and indirectness’, and a good example can be found in his research:

I am not an economic policy maker, but I have a dream of tractors singing in the fields

and trucks roaring effortlessly on roads. I am not an agricultural technical program

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 planner, but I have a dream of seeing farmers studying science and technology and

working comfortably with machinery. (Cai, 1993, p.13)

It is quite obvious that this paragraph is developed without any topic sentence.

Therefore, it is difficult for the readers to realise what is the core meaning. The author

used beautiful but meaningless words to describe a ‘blueprint’; however, this tedious

paragraph may confuse and mislead readers.

Moving on to the third problem ---- critical thinking, it is also regarded as the

most serious one in Chinese learners’ compositions. As mentioned earlier, it is

necessary to show unique thought and understanding to a specific topic in an

academic project. However, this writing pattern is hardly found in Chinese students’

academic writings.

Cai (1993) argued that in articles written by Chinese students, it seems that their

personal perspectives and feelings are always be restricted. Instead, ‘calls for a return

to tradition have frequently been made’ (Kirkpatrick, 1997, p.227). In addition,

According to Atkinson (1997), for Chinese students, writing is regarded more like an

approach of sharing a common ideology and showing group solidarity. As cited

Atkinson (1997) from Scollon (1992) says: when the writing process asks of the

writer that he or she take the rhetorical position of an autonomous, rational mind,

Chinese students can hardly understand and complete the task. Similarly, Cai also

pointed out that Chinese learners of English are inclined to avoid self-expression and

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personal opinion in their academic writing, instead, their articles are marked by

‘poetry, flowery, and florid styles, exaggerations, and use of quotations and reference

to the past’ (Cai, 1993, p.12).

4. Causes of problems

According to Li (2007) and Wang (2009), language transfer is regarded as the

most important cause of grammatical problems in Chinese students’ academic writing.

Li (2007) loosely defined language transfer as speaker or writers applying the

knowledge from their native language to a second language. Li (2007, p.89) suggested

that Chinese, as an Isolated Language refers to ‘the grammatical relationship is

represented by word order or by independent grammatical auxiliary words.’ However,

English is an Inflectional Language, its grammatical relationship ‘is represented by

adding affixes or by inflecting in words.’

Wang (2009) also believed that due to the differences between English and

Chinese, negative language transfer unconsciously proceeded by Chinese students

results in grammatical problems. In his research, inappropriate language transfer may

cause grammar problems like ‘subject omission’, ‘wrong choice of pronoun-subject or

non-pronoun-subject’ and ‘run-on sentences’.

However, Chuang and Nesi hold different opinion in what causes grammar

problem. They believed that Chinese learners continuously make grammatical mistake

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is because ‘lessons were primarily designed to develop academic literacy skills and

did not focus on the accurate use of grammatical forms’ (2006, p.251).

It can be argued that both the elements of students themselves and teachers’

pedagogy should be taken into consideration when analysing the causes of grammar

problems. Therefore, a negative language transfer can be regarded as an intrinsic

cause, and a wrong teaching method refers to an extrinsic cause of Chinese students’

grammatical problems.

When talking about structural problems, Mohan and Lo (1985) discussed the

influence of an old-line writing style, which is called ‘ba gu wen’ as one of the

Chinese learners’ writing structural problems. They illustrated that ba gu wen, which

is also known as Chinese Eight-legged Essay, required a canned format to the writers.

Articles had to follow the ‘qi-cheng-jun-he’ structure, which literally means ‘an

introduction, a elaboration on the topic, the transition to another seemingly unrelated

point, and the summing-up ’ (Cai, 1993, p.8). This writing structure was firstly

invented for civil service examination in approximately five hundreds years ago, and

its influence can even be seen in nowadays Chinese students’ writing style.

Nevertheless, Kirkpatrick (1997, p.241) against Mohan and Lo (1985) and Cai’s

(1993) opinion because he believed that ‘although China’s tradition includes in its

treasury a number of classical composition styles and structures, these are not fixed,

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but have changed over time’.

Therefore, another explanation of structural problems existing in Chinese

students’ compositions has been presented. According to Li (2007), Chinese learners’

thinking pattern is circular, which means they prefer to synthesis the parts and then

examine the whole, however, the thinking pattern of English is linear, which means

English people like to dissect things into parts and analysis their relationships. It is the

difference of thinking patterns between Chinese and English contributes to the long-

winded and indirect expression in Chinese students’ academic writing.

Indeed, different cognitive skills, which can also be expressed as thinking

patterns, have impact on how students may develop their article. However, the effect

of ancient Chinese writing style cannot be ignored, as it lays the foundation of how to

organise the structure for Chinese students at the beginning of their academia.

Moving now on the problems of critical thinking, Atkinson (1997) suggested that

educational system in China greatly influenced the critical thinking abilities of

Chinese students. Because of in the teaching process, ‘memorization and choral

recitation are promoted as major learning strategies, and writing instruction focuses

centrally on the memorization and use of various formulaic phrases’ (1997, p.83).

Therefore, the significance of thinking independently and individual creativity are

easily ignored, which may result in a lack of critical thinking ability showed in

Chinese students.

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 Howecer, Cai (1993) argued that the main cause of critical-thinking problems is

the effect of Confucian and his value system. The core of Confucian’s value system is

‘ren’ (benevolence) and ‘li’ (propriety of behavior and loyalty to the best social

traditions). Nevertheless, this value system was established to manage citizens, to

create a harmony society and to consolidate the rule of the emperor. In ancient China,

to realise the goal of social harmony, the importance of individuality was ignored, and

personal opinions were restricted.

In fact, the situations have been changed and there is an urgent need to

reconstruct the Chinese curriculum. In Chinese students’ academic writing, taking the

College Entrance Examination as an example, they are not allowed to criticise the

educational system or talk about policy. They are required to write articles in a fixed

format, quote famous writers’ classic words and express the positive feelings toward

their life. Therefore, most of Chinese students are not familiar with ‘critical thinking’

because the ability of expressing their own opinion and judging whether a sage is

correct or nor has been deprived in their former learning process.

5. Suggestions

To begin with, teachers should transmit a correct way to use language transfer and

stimulate their students to discover the positive functions of language transfer (Mu,

2007). Furthermore, cultural background should be included in the teaching process.

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Students can be encouraged to get familiar with English literature, customs and

religions, which can acculturate them to target language community. At last, to inspire

students to think independently and encourage them to question their professors or the

books they have read. Teacher should provide students with chances to express their

questions and own perspective.

6. Conclusion

In conclusion, there are three main problems faced by Chinese learners of English,

including: grammar, logic and critical thinking. These problems are embodied in

various forms. The causes of these problems are diverse, however, it is believed that a

negative language transfer and an inappropriate teaching method may lead to

numerous grammatical problems. In addition, the different thinking patterns between

Chinese and English together with the effect of classic writing style are main causes

of structural problems. Moreover, the educational system and cultural background

impose great restrictions on Chinese learners’ ability of critical thinking.

Therefore, English teachers need to optimise their pedagogy of academic writing,

such as encouraging students to get familiar with English literature and customs.

Chinese learners of English also need to synthesise their knowledge acquired by

reading and listening with academic writing. An encouragement to student to bravely

express question the authority and express their own opinions is also crucial for

teacher who want to help their students to improve their academic writing.

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References:

Atkinson, D. 1997. A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL. TESOL

Quarterly. 31(1), pp.71-94.

Cai, G.J. 1993. Beyond ‘bed writing’: teaching English composition to Chinese ESL

students. ERIC. pp.1-24.

Chuang, F.Y. and Nesi, H. 2006. An analysis of formal errors in a corpus of L2

English produced by Chinese students. The Centre for English Language Teacher

Education. 1(2), pp.251-271.

Gillett, A. et al. 2009. Inside track: successful academic writing. Harlow: Pearson

Longman.

Kirkpatrick, A. 1997. Traditional Chinese text structures and their influences on the

writing in Chinese and English of contemporary Mainland Chinese students. Journal

of Second Language Writing. 6(3), pp.223-244.

Language Studies Abroad. 2012. The most widely spoken languages. [Online].

[Accessed 3 September 2014]. Available from:

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Li, J.H. 2007. Negative language transfer in college English writing by Chinese

students: problems and Strategies. CELEA Journal. 30(2), pp.88-94.

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Mohan, B.A. and Lo, W.A. 1985. Academic writing and Chinese students: transfer

and developmental factors. TESOL Quarterly. 19(3), pp.515-534.

Mu, C.J. 2007. An investigation of three Chinese students’ English writing strategies.

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approach. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press.

Wang, X.R. 2009. Exploring the negative transfer on English learning. Asian Social

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