Prior experience in NZ

Eligibility to enrol in an undergraduate degree depended on an English criterion, generally a Band 6 pass in the academic module of IELTS, but for the ten participants who were with the Wideweb agency, just 5.5. There was also an educational criterion. Two of the 24 students in the study had met both criteria in China and could enrol directly in the university. Only those who had not completed a year of tertiary education in China needed to do a specific university preparation course in New Zealand. Of the others, most needed only to add the IELTS criterion and took the “intellectual short-cut” (Turner, 2004) of general English courses at language centres in New Zealand, seeking as direct a route as possible. A few later transferred to polytechnic business courses as another way to improve their English (see Tables 4.1 and 4.2).

Coming to New Zealand for English had seemed an obvious route to take in view of a widespread folk discourse that suggests that immersion in a second language community provides rapid access to fluency. The reality, however, had proved different, providing the first point of refraction of their expectations:

before I come to New Zealand I take IELTS and 5 mark, and then I think, ‘Oh, New Zealand, they speak English and study in that is very good,’ and then I think I will easy to improve my English but when I come to here many things is different, I should consider many things and so many problems the first time you come here. (Mike 1)

The actual experience differed from expectations on the two dimensions of process and outcome: the participants encountered new ways of learning that could cause initial confusion, and the challenge of meeting English language goals was far greater than anticipated.

5.3.1.

Experiencing new learning practices

Their language centres met with almost universal approval:

I think [the] English language centre is good, it’s really good. (Mike 4)

In the English Language Centre, always happy, do a lot of sports, meet a lot of people, Kiwis or international students. (Gao 2)

They were supportive, benign and responsive to a clientele unfamiliar with their learning practices:

Because every tutor is very good, you know, and always show their smile and they very hospitality and speak very, very slow, I mean speed is very slow and very, very clear. And if you any question they will answer you and help you. (Saul 2)

This early experience of learning to some degree seemed to define for the students what learning in New Zealand in general would be like. They mentioned a range of factors.

• accessible relationships with tutors with apparently unrestricted topics of

conversation:

In New Zealand I think there’s more relax and comfortable to talk with teacher and we just like friend and you have any problem such as my dog is not very good, such as my clothes is not very warm, and I can talk with you but in China it is quite strange. (Saul 1)

• motivation by encouragement and emphasis on the positive, rather than the

Chinese practice of public shaming

I find the great different is the teacher encourage you to study, to

understand, and make the class feel comfortable, easy to understand, and try to make good friend with you, and always praise you, I mean, always think, ‘Oh, good, very good. Oh, it’s good, very good,’ you know. (Saul 1)

• available help from teachers

If you want, you can have heaps of way to get help from the lecturer. (Saul 1)

• a high degree of classroom interaction which had been greatly valued

Maybe in the university or the language centre here you can voice out your opinion during the class. That is very good thing for us because you know we always just listen and take the notes, so that is very boring and cannot create the imagination during the class, and also you can talk to the lecturer, that will be great, I think. (Li Ming 1)

5.3.2.

Academic discourse

In terms of content rather than process, there had been some introduction to the requirements that university study would impose, such as exposure to academic vocabulary:

And I study language course and now I see the books and something I think the language course is very useful. They base on the university paper, and I see the words, vocabulary, and then, oh, I know! (Mike 1)

Scott had clearly had explicit instruction about participating in classroom discussion:

Firstly you have to show your topic sentence on what is the discussion topic and then you show your support sentence and keep going the structure, just like write assignment, and then show your opinion, and then maybe the other people will argue with you and then you go to show another more powerful opinion to this guy and make a discussion, yes. (1)

Li Ming, the only one who, having no tertiary level study in China, chose a university preparation course to meet the education criterion, had done a research essay which had given him a taste of hard work to come.

Significantly, though, and bearing out Turner’s (2004) complaints of excessive leniency, in his fourth interview Mike reflected with hindsight that a lack of rigour in demanding timely completion of homework had proved unhelpful as preparation for university demands.

5.3.3.

Personal change

Inevitably the new roles and demands had led to the emergence of new aspects of identity: “I was very introvert in China, but now I am becoming extrovert” (Gao 1); and new opportunities to exercise aspects hitherto suppressed: “When I was in China my parents told me ‘Don’t be very talkative,’ but here they told me, ‘Be talkative’” (Li Ming 1).

Gao’s verdict on his language centre experience was, “I think the English study is only part of the life. More things I learned are not about English” (4).

5.3.4.

Experiencing failure

If the process had proved different from expectations, so had the outcome. In spite of the comfortable atmosphere of the centres, the first step in their journey, which they had expected to be unproblematic, had introduced several to pain and humiliation. It took them between eight months and two years to achieve their IELTS scores, and most had made more than one attempt. Saul, who had highly developed oral skills, faced a very public shame when his struggling literacy kept him from attaining his goal:

actually this is quite suffering period, because when I was in China, my major is trade English so I quite confident about my English and I think my English is quite good, and when I was study in [the] Language Centre, and I every class, you know, that morning class and speaking class and writing class, all the class

in the advanced class. And everyone think, ‘Oh, Saul is quite good and he must be study quite well and study Rutherford no problem at all,’ but I don’t know why, I take my IELTS test once, twice, second and third time it’s quite suffering and I can’t to get the 6 points. (Saul 1)

Another student used his peers as a benchmark and was devastated as they met enrolment criteria and he continued to fail:

I took three time to pass my IELTS, so that’s horrible experience for me. The second time I failed I almost think going to suicide. It’s really, really, really stressful. I was crying in my room. I didn’t eat anything two day. My flatmates start worry about me because I locked the door, didn’t let them come in. I start crying ’cause it’s really, really stressful. (Scott 5)

Public humiliation was exacerbated by costly deferment of the central experience, degree study. Participants had already made a huge investment, on many levels:

I give up everything what I got in China and come to New Zealand which is very strange country for me, and also I spend lots of money from my parents, and especially during that time the relationship between me and my ex-

girlfriend who is in China is not so good, so just like Cold War, during, so lots of thing combine together make me so stressful. (Scott 5)

The students’ proper response to their privileged position, achieved by a high degree of family sacrifice, was diligence: “our family pay the money for me and if I don’t go to school and just play all the time that will really hurt our family’s emotions” (Li Ming 1). In the presence of the unquestioned belief that learning English in an English-speaking country was easy, the only reasonable response to failure seemed to be painful and unproductive self-recrimination:

I think, ‘What are you doing here? You major in China is English and you study in New Zealand for two years but you can’t pass the very simple IELTS test. What are you doing?’ (Saul 1).

Scott’s father suggested that he should give up and go back to China. This could not be contemplated: “I don’t want to come back China, to use this road, every people know you are a loser, you didn’t learn anything” (5). Little surprise, then, that another participant found herself unable even to tell her parents: “Actually my parents didn’t know that I failed my IELTS test three times. … I think I lie to them, ’cause I think I had to” (TY).

The corollary, to be understood in the light of the Chinese valuing of persistence and hard work, was that this experience could be valuable in itself:

So actually that is another point is how can you enjoy that kind of suffering, and how can you change the suffering to a kind of energy to give you to provide you to face your long journey. (Saul 1)

and that final success produced a sense of pride and achievement:

when I told my parents this news I can be a Rutherford student they also feel very exciting. They say, ‘OK, you spend one year’s time to learn the English, that is good, you can get came out, you can be a university student,’ and also I think ‘Yes, yes, I didn’t waste one year’s time to study English.’ (Scott 1) So this year when I come to Rutherford I feel I can taste little bit sweet of the successful, because I achieve a goal and I never give up, and keep trying, keep trying, keep trying. (Saul 1)

They were stepping out on their new journey with a sense of personal agency.