Medidas objetivas

Corresponding to Bergan and Restoueix’ (2009) proposed strategies to promote intercultural dialogue as discussed in chapter 2, the data in this study also showed that when seeking to integrate into the host institution, overseas students faced two issues, namely a perceived language barrier, and a lack of inclusiveness in the host community.

The language barrier

Language competence can be a major factor that inhibits intercultural communication and interpersonal relationship building, as has been demonstrated by numerous empirical studies (e.g., Brewer, 1997; Chen, 1998; Gao & Prime, 2010). This claim is also evidenced by the

present study. The data analysis shows that language inadequacy in Chinese emerged as one of the main obstacles that prevented the international students from participating in activities outside the classroom. The students constantly found that the information, be it online or in print, used to advertise extracurricular activities was mostly in Chinese. In the two episodes below Matthew and Michelle illustrate how their language inadequacies intensified the difficulty they had over joining intercultural activities:

I think there are a lot of opportunities for me to interact with Chinese students, but the biggest barrier is the language. I see a lot of texts about Pingpong group organised by postgraduates from the Department of Economics, they are all in Chinese, and I didn’t know where to go to join them. (Matthew)

I think again it’s mainly the language barrier, because they have a website with all the columns served in Chinese, so it’s quite difficult to navigate the way around it. (Michelle)

To overcome this problem, Michelle suggested that ‘the societies [needed] to be more

international minded’ and to ‘have the English version along with the Chinese version on their website’. In fact, the dilemma Michelle confronted resonated with other participants, who also

tended to attribute the challenge of integrating into Chinese clubs and societies to their language deficiency:

I can’t debate by taking some examples, because of the language problem. I really don’t know many foreigners at all who are involved in societies where there are also Chinese people. (Struan)

It seemed that from Struan’s point of view, the lack of language proficiency impinged on foreign students’ ability to join societies organised by their Chinese counterparts. He further highlighted the pivotal role that language played in furthering international students’ affinity with the host community and, at the same time, minimising their feelings of alienation:

I think improving language makes it easier, if you can say more to people around you, you feel more at home; if you can’t speak to anyone, you feel by yourself, and you are not relaxed. (Struan)

These accounts reinforce Fantini’s (2012) assertion that mastery of the target language facilitates one’s entry into and adaptation to the host culture. However, given the fact that the ‘psychological climate’ on campus, which Bergan and Restoueix (2009) saw as an institutional strategic choice and a promotion of initiatives to genuinely integrate foreign students into everyday academic life, was perceived as militating against involving international students and

subsequently triggered feelings of isolation. This topic relates to the notion of having a ‘sense of belonging’ which is discussed next.

The role of institutions in involving foreign students

According to Kim (2012), individuals who perceive the receiving environment as welcoming, hospitable, and tolerant are more likely to show positive engagement and integration with the host culture. However, as described above and further developed here, international students aspired to more engagement with the host institution, and at times felt alienated and lost track of updated information that was necessary for joining institution-led clubs and associations:

Besides the class, because they don’t have student clubs that you can join, it’s quite difficult to find out how to join them, since nobody told me, I don’t know how to find out. (Lauren)

I was hoping there would be more to involve us with other Chinese students, but there wasn’t. Even if there was, I didn’t hear about them, they are not very good at publicising events. (Olivia)

In effect, Lauren and Olivia’s experience was not unique. Some international participants attributed the difficulty in becoming involved with Chinese students to ‘segregation’, a perception which was, in itself, triggered by the attitudes and behaviour of home students who ran the campus clubs and societies:

In terms of advertising and handing out flyers, they see you are white, maybe they just ignore you, sometimes they probably ask but it’s nice to be given the option, like to be included as the Chinese are. (Michelle)

Here Michelle demonstrated one of the major intercultural adjustment challenges that most of the international students confronted when attempting to become involved with the host context. They lacked of ‘a sense of belonging’. As evidenced by earlier studies, a sense of belonging is developed through a form of student engagement which constitutes far more than mere participation and instead involves some measure of emotional commitment and investment (Hoffman, Perillo, Hawthorne Calizo, Hadfield, & Lee, 2005). This form of engagement is not based upon programming and publicity, but rather on a holistic student experience that fosters student engagement. This point was also captured by one of their Chinese counterparts, Du. She ascribed the foreign students’ lack of involvement in extracurricular activities to the ‘taken-for- granted’ attitude of those who were in charge of campus societies:

感觉这些活动外国学生参加得挺少的，感觉不太适合他们。比如说首先有的标题可能不 太明确，可能他们在设计的时候就没有考虑要让外国人来参加，他们用了很多现代的流

行词，外国人可能不会懂，但是对于中国人来说很吸引人. （杜）

I just felt that not a lot of foreign students would like to participate in those societies, which was attributed mainly to their fitness to the students’ interest. For instance, the title of some activities was quite obscure, maybe they didn’t take involving foreign students into account when organising activities, since most of the words used in the title were quite popular, which seemed difficult for foreign students to understand, but rather appealed to Chinese people. (Du)

It can be seen from the above accounts that the perceived lack of inclusiveness from the host institution seemed at odds with theories of intercultural responsibility that foreground “a psychological readiness to be empathetic and to control one’s emotions, that is, to be patient and tolerant towards the other” (Guilherme, 2010, p. 8). The degree of power distance perceived by the international students may run the risk of reinforcing their negative perceptions of the host nationals. In this regard, the reflection from Struan highlighted the commitment that needed to be taken by both foreign students themselves and the institution:

Just telling people who run the societies to try to get Westerners involved. I wouldn’t say that’s the only way to do it, because if we really try a lot harder, we probably could get involved. So, it’s partly a lack of effort on our part, and then I think partly a lack of willingness and motivation to have us, because I am sure they will agree as more efforts to have foreigners, because they don’t speak the same language, you don’t have as much in common with them. So, I can understand why foreigners have to try harder, put in effort to get involved, and then Chinese societies may need to be more accepting, or be encouraged to take more Westerners. (Struan)

From Struan’s point of view, reinforcing foreign students’ engagement with the community entails the dual effort on the part of both themselves and the student organisations run by the host university. In this sense, this finding resonates with the discussion in chapter 2, in that it reiterates the idea that mere exposure to another cultural environment or being present in a multicultural community does not guarantee that intercultural communication will take place; indeed, such exposure may even reinforce language learners’ stereotypes and prejudices (Coleman, 1997, 1998). Therefore, importance was attached to the cultural inclusiveness of the educational environment, which, according to McLoughlin (2011), not only entails the recognition and valuing of cultural diversity, but also at the same time enables the world views of all students to be expressed through teaching and learning, thus contributing to increased acceptance and interactions among students from diverse cultures (Thompson & Byrnes, 2011).