中國留學生爲何不能取得好成績大綱
For Yali Liu, the hardest thing about UK higher education is having to go to the pub. "It's how much you need to invest socially with other students," she says. "I don't like going to a pub or club, but people just keep going out and I feel the pressure to go out too." This is because, unlike in China, she says, there is so much emphasis during the course on teamwork and group projects, so socialising with other students is crucial. "It's not about what you know and how you work, it's really about working with other people – especially British people," she says. "I find that so difficult." Then there's what to talk about when she does go out. Why do her fellow students spend so much time analysing the TV programme First Dates, for example?
據英國《衛報》4月15日報道，對劉雅麗（音）來說，在英國上大學最難的是必須泡酒吧。“你得在和其他同學交際上大量投入，”她說。“我不喜歡上酒吧或者俱樂部，但其他人都去，我就覺得不得不去。”因爲和中國不同，這裏課程很強調團隊合作和團隊項目，因此和其他同學搞交際是很關鍵的。“重要的不是你自己知道什麼或者你怎麼做，真正重要的是與其他人合作——尤其是英國本地人。”她說“這對我來說太難了。”另外一個問題就是社交場合又該說些什麼。爲何她的同學花那麼多時間討論電視節目，比如《第一次約會》？
Liu, 23, who is in her final year of a BSc in business administration at the University of Bath's school of management, is one of more than 80,000 Chinese students studying in UK universities. They make up the largest group of international students – there are now nearly as many Chinese as UK full-time postgraduate studentsand over 38,000 undergraduates – and their numbers are growing fast. As a result, they are responsible for a large proportion of the more than ￡10bn a year that international students contribute to the UK economy.
劉今年23歲，是英國巴斯大學管理學院工商管理專業的大四學生。她說在英國大學學習的8萬名中國學生之一。中國留學生是英國留學生最大的羣體——目前中國留學生人數接近英國全日制研究生數目，並且超過了英國3.8萬本科生的人數。而且這個數字一直在快速增長。中國留學生貢獻了大部分英國每年100多億英鎊的留學生收入。
But while the numbers of Chinese students attending UK universities is a success story, new research shows that where their academic attainment is concerned, the picture is not so good. While nearly 68% of all students – and 52% of overseas students from outside the European Union – graduated with a first or 2.1 last year, this was true of only 42% of students from China, according to the latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa).
有這麼多中國學生在英國留學，雖然這很是鼓舞人心，新的研究表明，從他們的學習成績來看，情況並不樂觀。英國高等教育統計局（HESA）的最新數據表明，去年全體畢業生中，得到一級榮譽學位和二級甲等榮譽學位的畢業生比例爲68%，歐盟國家以外的留學生中比例爲52%，而中國留學生中比例僅爲42%。
This undermines the traditional stereotype of the hard-working, high-achieving Chinese student. "There is all this talk – almost propaganda – about how brilliant the Chinese education system is, so when they come to the UK you would expect them to do really well," says Zhiqi Wang, senior lecturer in accounting and finance at Bath Spa University and one of the authors of the new research. Wang says the reason for Chinese students' low academic attainment is unknown. "We could clearly see the poor performance of Chinese students at UK universities but we had no idea why it was." So to find an explanation, Wang and Ian Crawford, a teaching fellow in accounting and finance at the University of Bath, decided to compare the performance of Chinese and British undergraduates in each year of their degree. Taking a sample of just over 100 British and Chinese accounting and finance first-degree students who enrolled in 2008, and comparing their average marks and final degree classification, they found a dramatic drop in performance among the Chinese students between year one, when they performed better than their UK counterparts, and year two, when they performed worse. This did not seem to be explained by their previous academic qualifications.
這顛覆了中國學生勤奮努力、成績優秀的傳統形象。巴斯斯巴大學會計與金融專業的高級講師王志奇（音）是這個最新研究的作者之一，他說，“人們一直在大談中國教育體系多麼優秀，簡直就是在鼓吹，於是中國學生到英國留學，你就覺得他們會表現出色。”王說，中國留學生學習成績不佳原因還不清楚。“中國留學生表現不佳，情況很明顯，但我們不知道原因在哪。”爲了找出原因，王和他的同事伊恩·克勞福特決定對中國學生和英國本科生每一學年的成績進行比較研究。他們選取了100名2008年入學的中國和英國會計與金融專業學生作爲研究樣本，對他們的平均分數和最終學位等級作了比較研究，發現一年級時中國學生比英國學生表現更好，二年級時表現更差，兩年之間落差很大。他們之前的獲得的學歷證明並不能解釋其中的原因。
Crawford and Wang believe the slump in attainment can be put down to two factors. First, Chinese students fail to adapt their approaches to learning and so their performance declines in the later years of a degree when the complexity of the work increases. And, second, while the UK and Chinese education systems are not that different, the strong focus in China on study and achieving qualifications means many young people enrol in higher education due to pressure from family or the jobs market rather than their own motivation.
克勞福特和王認爲，學習成績的倒退可以歸結爲兩個因素。首先，中國學生沒有學會調整學習方法，所以一年級以後隨着學業難度的增加，他們成績就開始下滑。其次，儘管中國和英國教育體系差別並不是那麼大，但中國特別強調通過學習獲得學歷，這就意味着很多年輕人上大學是迫於家庭和就業的壓力，而不是源自內心的動力。According to Cristina Iannelli, professor of education and social stratification at the University of Edinburgh, part of the problem may be the changing socio-economic background of Chinese undergraduates. Using figures from the Hesa, Ianelli found that while 85% of Chinese undergraduates at British universities in 2000 and 2001 were mature students, often funded by the Chinese government, since 2004, they have have been younger, more likely to be women, funded by their families and therefore more in need of support. "We accept all these students but we don't know much about them," says Ianelli. "I see some of them struggling because they really don't know before coming here exactly what is expected of them." She says it can be difficult to measure how well they are prepared academically because it is hard to benchmark the qualifications they have against A-levels. "Are we just opening up our universities and we don't care what their prior attainment is, or are we actually comparing qualifications across international education systems?" she asks. "We may be accepting students who aren't as good as they should be. Or it could be language, or experiencing a different culture."
愛丁堡大學教育和社會等級專業教授克里斯安娜·伊安內利表示，部分問題可能在於中國本科留學生的社會和經濟背景正在發生變化。根據HESA的數據，伊安內利發現2000年和2001年在英國大學的中國留學生85%是成年人，多是由政府提供資金；自2004年開始，中國留學生年齡更小了，很多是女生，都是家裏出錢來學習，因此需要更多的支持。“我們接收了這些學生，但並不瞭解他們，”伊安內利說，“我看到一些人很掙扎，因爲在來這裏之前他們並不知道自己應該做什麼。”她說很難去衡量他們在學業方面準備得如何，因爲很難以他們的普通教育高級證書（A-Levels）作爲基準來評估他們的資質。“我們的大學是否就只顧接納學生而不管學生之前的表現如何呢？我們有沒有就國際上不同教育體系內的不同學歷做過比較呢？”她提出這樣的問題，“也許我們接納的學生並未達標。也可能是語言障礙的原因，或者是他們在異國文化裏還不適應。”
Gita Sedghi, lecturer in chemistry at the University of Liverpool, who ran a project last year for the Higher Education Academy on preparing for the arrival of a group of Chinese chemistry students, says contacting students before their arrival, assigning them mentors, encouraging peer-assisted learning and ensuring they are properly integrated with home students can help international students adapt to a different culture. But, she says, language skills can still affect how some students perform academically, with those from China tending to perform worse in exams when written explanations are needed than in exams relying on calculations. "Chinese students' culture is that they work to get credits and marks and because they don't get credit for going to English classes, their attendance can be poor," she says. "We have now asked for them to get a certificate of attendance at these classes."
吉塔·賽德吉是利物浦大學的化學講師。去年她爲英國高等教育協會主持了一個項目，爲中國學化學的留學生適應在的英國學習做前期培訓。給這些留學生配備導師，鼓勵同學之間協助學習，並且確保他們能融進本地學生的生活，這些都能幫助留學生適應異國文化。但是，她說語言技能仍然會影響一些學生的學習成績，在要求寫書面解釋的考試中，中國留學生表現得就會比在只要計算的考試中更差。“中國學生的傳統就是學習就是爲了獲得學分和分數，上英語課沒有學分，所以出勤率就很差。我們現在要求他們有這些課程的出勤證明。”她說。
Liu says that this mentality of working only for credits could affect Chinese students' performance in another way. In China, degree classifications do not exist; working incredibly hard at school and performing well in exams to get to a good university matters more than what happens once they are there. "It's a one-off event and nothing can change it," she says. "Afterwards students just relax. They never have the same pressure again."
劉雅麗說這種只追求學分的心態還會以另外一種方式影響中國學生的成績。中國沒有學位等級制度；重要的是拼命學習考高分再上個好大學，至於上大學之後做什麼就管不着了。“上大學是成敗在此一舉的事，沒有什麼可以改變這種狀況，”她說，“進了大學之後，學生只管放鬆。再也不會有之前的壓力了。”
But it could also be that UK institutions need to work harder to take into account what a big step it is for young people from a radically different culture and linguistic background to get to grips with student life in the UK. "Our home students don't go abroad because they aren't confident enough to go," says Sedghi. "These kids [from China] are coming here and facing a big challenge. I think confidence is very important and we can help."
中國年輕的學生來自一個有着巨大差異的文化和語言背景，要融入在英國的學習生活，會是一個很大的跨越，也許英國的教育機構也需要盡力把這一點考慮進去。賽德吉說“我們的本土學生不出國留學是因爲他們沒有勇氣出去。中國的孩子們來這裏學習面臨着巨大的挑戰。我覺得這種勇氣很重要，我們可以幫助他們度過難關。”
