Expectation-practice discrepancies: a transcultural exploration of Chinese students’ oral discourse socialization in German academia
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Yao Long
Abstract
Analysis of German-based studies reveals a common interpretation of Chinese students’ adaptation to German academia, depicting them as learners with limited participation and critical thinking capacities. This perception stems from the perceived contrast between Confucian values, which emphasize social power distance and collectivism, and German academic expectations that prioritize values such as critical thinking and direct communication of personal perspectives. To challenge these assumptions, this study employs a transcultural analysis that explores quantitatively and qualitatively the oral discourse socialization of Chinese students in German universities. By applying Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the research reinforces the presence of cross-cultural disparities in Oral Academic Presentation (OAP)-related expectations between China and Germany. Furthermore, by centering the voices of this student cohort and their transcultural perspective, the study presents a novel insight into their silent participatory approach and critical thinking mode, thereby challenging the prevailing generalized assumptions within German academia. This study underscores the necessity of moving beyond binary dichotomies that may inadvertently overlook the diversity of interpretations. Furthermore, the research underscores the importance of academic staff recognizing and legitimizing the diversity of students from the same culture and adjusting their teaching practices to address their evolving needs and interests in multicultural classroom settings.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer and the Editors for their detailed and constructive suggestions. My special thanks to Prof. Dr. Thorsten Roelcke (Technical University of Berlin), Jiayuan Fang, Pengchao, Tianrong Pan, Lan Jiang, and Yuting Ding for their contributions in this paper. My appreciation also goes to the participants for their willingness to share their time and insights.
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Competing interests: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Interaction with instructors, professors and colleagues in oral presentation.
In the following part, the interaction with your teacher and colleagues in oral presentations will be described. Please choose the frequencies separately as to how often these situations happen in your presentation sessions, either in China or in Germany.
| (1) Students and instructors/professors interrupt presenters with questions or comments whenever they want | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (2) Students let presenters speak from the very beginning and raise questions at the end of the presentation. | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (3) Instructors and students explicitly demonstrate their critical opinions on the content of a speech | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (4) Students tell presenters directly if they like their performance or not. | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (5) Presenters obediently accept opinions from instructors/professors without defending their own opinions. | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (6) Presenters defend their own opinions immediately, if these opinions are questioned by instructors/professors. | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (7) Presenters answer questions with opinions cited directly from authoritative books/materials | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (8) Presenters answer questions with answers thought out by themselves | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (9) Presenters are expected to show their own critical opinions on the presented knowledge | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (10) Presenters raise questions to their audience at the beginning or in the middle of their speech | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (11) Presenters speak all the time, without posing questions to their audience | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| (12) Presenters use group work or discussions as forms of class activities during their presentation | |||||
| Very seldom | Seldom | Often | Very often | I cannot judge | |
| Chinese universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
| German universities | □ | □ | □ | □ | □ |
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Tribal Epistemologies and the discursive construction of COVID-19 knowledge; Guest Editor: Rodney H. Jones
- Disciplinary tribes and the discourse of mainstream media expert opinion articles: evidencing COVID-19 knowledge claims for a public audience
- Ways of seeing and discourse strategies of naming the novel coronavirus in the US and Hong Kong
- Who is our friend and who is our enemy? The enregisterment of tribalising digital discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic
- “By the way I want to give you some masks”: exploring multimodal stance-taking in YouTube videos
- Affective geographies and tribal epistemologies: studying abroad during COVID-19
- Editorial
- Tribal epistemologies and the discursive construction of COVID-19 knowledge
- Special Issue: Against Epistemological Theft and Appropriation; Guest Editors: Othman Z. Barnawi and Hamza R’boul
- The myopic focus on decoloniality in applied linguistics and English language education: citations and stolen subjectivities
- The bidirectionality of epistemological theft and appropriation: contrastive rhetoric in China
- Attempts at including, mediating and creating ‘new’ knowledges: problematising appropriation in intercultural communication education and research
- Epistemological theft and appropriation in qualitative inquiry in applied linguistics: lessons from Halaqa
- Can the subaltern speak in autoethnography?: knowledging through dialogic and retro/intro/pro-spective reflection to stand against epistemic violence
- The violence of literature review and the imperative to ask new questions
- Editorial
- Against epistemological theft and appropriation in applied linguistics research
- Special Issue: Art as social practice: language and marginality; Guest Editors: Roberta Piazza, Birgul Yilmaz and Charlotte Taylor
- ‘Art as social practice: language and marginality’: Special Issue of Applied Linguistics Review
- Objects are not just a thing – (re)negotiating identity through using material objects within the Kurdish diaspora in the UK
- “I am surprised they have allowed you in here to do this”: women’s prison writing as heterotopic space of narrative inclusion
- Walking with: understandings and negotiations of the mundane in research
- Translanguaging art – Questioning boundaries in Monika Szydłowska’s Do you miss your country?
- Reinventing the self through participatory art: writing and performing among rough sleepers
- Research Articles
- Expectation-practice discrepancies: a transcultural exploration of Chinese students’ oral discourse socialization in German academia
- Perceived teacher feedback practices, student feedback motivation and engagement in English learning: a survey of Chinese university students
- Incidental vocabulary learning from listening, reading, and viewing captioned videos: frequency and prior vocabulary knowledge
- A longitudinal study on lecture listening difficulties and self-regulated learning strategies across different proficiency levels in EMI higher education
- Secondary students’ L2 writing motivation and engagement: the impact of teachers’ instructional approaches and feedback practices
- Marked on the voice: the visibility experiences of Russian heritage migrants following the war against Ukraine
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Tribal Epistemologies and the discursive construction of COVID-19 knowledge; Guest Editor: Rodney H. Jones
- Disciplinary tribes and the discourse of mainstream media expert opinion articles: evidencing COVID-19 knowledge claims for a public audience
- Ways of seeing and discourse strategies of naming the novel coronavirus in the US and Hong Kong
- Who is our friend and who is our enemy? The enregisterment of tribalising digital discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic
- “By the way I want to give you some masks”: exploring multimodal stance-taking in YouTube videos
- Affective geographies and tribal epistemologies: studying abroad during COVID-19
- Editorial
- Tribal epistemologies and the discursive construction of COVID-19 knowledge
- Special Issue: Against Epistemological Theft and Appropriation; Guest Editors: Othman Z. Barnawi and Hamza R’boul
- The myopic focus on decoloniality in applied linguistics and English language education: citations and stolen subjectivities
- The bidirectionality of epistemological theft and appropriation: contrastive rhetoric in China
- Attempts at including, mediating and creating ‘new’ knowledges: problematising appropriation in intercultural communication education and research
- Epistemological theft and appropriation in qualitative inquiry in applied linguistics: lessons from Halaqa
- Can the subaltern speak in autoethnography?: knowledging through dialogic and retro/intro/pro-spective reflection to stand against epistemic violence
- The violence of literature review and the imperative to ask new questions
- Editorial
- Against epistemological theft and appropriation in applied linguistics research
- Special Issue: Art as social practice: language and marginality; Guest Editors: Roberta Piazza, Birgul Yilmaz and Charlotte Taylor
- ‘Art as social practice: language and marginality’: Special Issue of Applied Linguistics Review
- Objects are not just a thing – (re)negotiating identity through using material objects within the Kurdish diaspora in the UK
- “I am surprised they have allowed you in here to do this”: women’s prison writing as heterotopic space of narrative inclusion
- Walking with: understandings and negotiations of the mundane in research
- Translanguaging art – Questioning boundaries in Monika Szydłowska’s Do you miss your country?
- Reinventing the self through participatory art: writing and performing among rough sleepers
- Research Articles
- Expectation-practice discrepancies: a transcultural exploration of Chinese students’ oral discourse socialization in German academia
- Perceived teacher feedback practices, student feedback motivation and engagement in English learning: a survey of Chinese university students
- Incidental vocabulary learning from listening, reading, and viewing captioned videos: frequency and prior vocabulary knowledge
- A longitudinal study on lecture listening difficulties and self-regulated learning strategies across different proficiency levels in EMI higher education
- Secondary students’ L2 writing motivation and engagement: the impact of teachers’ instructional approaches and feedback practices
- Marked on the voice: the visibility experiences of Russian heritage migrants following the war against Ukraine
