Abstract

Communicating effectively with Chinese learners in ESL/EFL classrooms

There is a large body of language learning research dealing with Chinese students' learning styles, strategies, behaviours, performance, and learning conceptualisations. However, research in Chinese students' perceptions of foreign EFL/ESL teachers' teaching competence, classroom performance, communication and pedagogical skills is very rare. Teaching is a two-way communication process and reviewing of foreign EFL/ESL teachers' classroom performance from the Chinese student perspective is equally important. This paper, based on an adapted intercultural communication model, examines the multidimensional factors that influence classroom communication patterns between foreign EFL/ESL teachers and Chinese students. It points out that language teaching in an intercultural context involves a very complex communication process in which cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, role concepts and expectations, perceptions, and personal theories held by both teachers and students all come into play. The hidden cultural divide often becomes a potential communication barrier between foreign EFL/ESL teachers and Chinese students, especially when Western teaching models are directly transplanted. The paper proposes that foreign EFL/EFL teachers develop language awareness, pedagogical skills, and intercultural communication skills to bridge the rift, to communicate effectively with Chinese students, and thus hopefully to achieve shared goals.

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