As language learning advisors become familiar figures in self-access centers,their role in language learner autonomy(LLA)has attracted various researchers’ attention.However,higher education students travelling abroa...As language learning advisors become familiar figures in self-access centers,their role in language learner autonomy(LLA)has attracted various researchers’ attention.However,higher education students travelling abroad to study are less likely to be familiar with advisors, especially if they are from a country where language advisory service is uncommon, such as in China. Nonetheless, we know very little about what these students think about advisors. Therefore,this study aims to investigate the perspectives these students may have on the role of advisors,enabling their learning needs to be better recognised and supported. This case study involves 120 masters’ students originally from China's Mainland on a pre-sessional course at a research institute in the UK,as well as students at the end of their one-year study, employing questionnaires and interviews to collect data.The results show that before the course,over 80% of the students reckon advisors are monitors to supervise them or advisors are teachers to teach them. However, throughout the course,the students gradually realize advisors play complex roles in developing students’ learner autonomy. Additionally, during the first week on the course, 62% of the students perceive learner autonomy as'to study by oneself, without others’ help'. Nevertheless, at the end of their one-year study, 75% of them perceive learner autonomy as'the attitudes and abilities toward life-long learning'. Overall, the findings indicate that the Chinese students’ transition to the British academic culture deepens their perceptions of learner autonomy, and bridges their gap between theory and practice of learner autonomy, but also helps them gain understanding of the complex nature of the advisor roles.展开更多
Since the 19th century,Chinese societies,as latecomers to modernization,have prioritized Western learning.Modelled on European and North American experiences,modern universities were created to serve this purpose.Havi...Since the 19th century,Chinese societies,as latecomers to modernization,have prioritized Western learning.Modelled on European and North American experiences,modern universities were created to serve this purpose.Having little linkage to their indigenous cultural traditions,they operate in Confucian socio-cultural contexts,with constant and longstanding struggles with their cultural identity.In recent decades,these societies have progressed remarkably well in higher education.Their experience could be seen as a cultural experiment that is placed highly on their sustainable development agendas.The products of their modern education systems especially at the elite level have demonstrated a grasp of both traditional and Western knowledge,with their very best universities well positioned to combine Chinese and Western ideas of a university in everyday operation.Such a bi-cultural condition contrasts sharply to the still largely mono-cultural(Western only)university operating environment in the West.The integration opens further space for their universities to explore an alternative to the Western academic model that has long dominated world higher education.Based on fieldwork at premier universities in Beijing,Hong Kong,Singapore,and Taipei,this article calls for a reconceptualized view of modern university development in Chinese societies.It argues that the experiment enables their top universities to bring back their cultural traditions to integrate with Western values and contribute to inter-civilizational dialogue.展开更多
Governments worldwide rightly regard universities as fundamental to the achievement of many national priorities. But it is the paper’s contention that many misunderstand their true benefit to society. Investments in ...Governments worldwide rightly regard universities as fundamental to the achievement of many national priorities. But it is the paper’s contention that many misunderstand their true benefit to society. Investments in universities are increasingly based on the belief that the science labs in particular of research-intensive universities can be the source of a continuous stream of people and ideas that will spawn innovative and fast growing companies to form the nexus of the knowledge-based economy. This belief is a source of misconceived policies that offer only ultimate disillusion. It is the totality of the university enterprise that is important, as the only place where that totality of ourselves and our world is brought together, and which makes it the strongest provider of the rational explanation and meaning that societies need. In research, universities create new possibilities; in teaching, they shape new people. Its graduates learn to seek the true meaning of things: to distinguish between the true and the merely seemingly true, to verify for themselves what is stable in that very unstable compound that often passes for knowledge. It is the complex, interacting whole of the university that is the source of the separate economic, social, cultural and utilitarian benefits valued by society. It needs to be understood, valued and managed as a whole. These perceptions are a direct challenge to not only to governments but to university administrators who have been either cowed or seduced into the slipshod thinking that is leading to demands that universities cannot satisfy, whilst obscuring their most important contributions. The challenge to both is to permit autonomy without oppressive accountability, and to give staff and students the freedom to think, speculate and research. These are the very conditions of the personal and collective creativity that are the sources of a university’s deepest benefits to its society.展开更多
文摘As language learning advisors become familiar figures in self-access centers,their role in language learner autonomy(LLA)has attracted various researchers’ attention.However,higher education students travelling abroad to study are less likely to be familiar with advisors, especially if they are from a country where language advisory service is uncommon, such as in China. Nonetheless, we know very little about what these students think about advisors. Therefore,this study aims to investigate the perspectives these students may have on the role of advisors,enabling their learning needs to be better recognised and supported. This case study involves 120 masters’ students originally from China's Mainland on a pre-sessional course at a research institute in the UK,as well as students at the end of their one-year study, employing questionnaires and interviews to collect data.The results show that before the course,over 80% of the students reckon advisors are monitors to supervise them or advisors are teachers to teach them. However, throughout the course,the students gradually realize advisors play complex roles in developing students’ learner autonomy. Additionally, during the first week on the course, 62% of the students perceive learner autonomy as'to study by oneself, without others’ help'. Nevertheless, at the end of their one-year study, 75% of them perceive learner autonomy as'the attitudes and abilities toward life-long learning'. Overall, the findings indicate that the Chinese students’ transition to the British academic culture deepens their perceptions of learner autonomy, and bridges their gap between theory and practice of learner autonomy, but also helps them gain understanding of the complex nature of the advisor roles.
基金the General Research Fund project entitled“Integrating Chinese and Western Higher Education Traditions:A Comparative Policy Analysis of the Quest for World-Class Universities in Chinese mainland,Hong Kong,Taiwan and Singapore”(751313H)supported by the Research Grant Council,Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
文摘Since the 19th century,Chinese societies,as latecomers to modernization,have prioritized Western learning.Modelled on European and North American experiences,modern universities were created to serve this purpose.Having little linkage to their indigenous cultural traditions,they operate in Confucian socio-cultural contexts,with constant and longstanding struggles with their cultural identity.In recent decades,these societies have progressed remarkably well in higher education.Their experience could be seen as a cultural experiment that is placed highly on their sustainable development agendas.The products of their modern education systems especially at the elite level have demonstrated a grasp of both traditional and Western knowledge,with their very best universities well positioned to combine Chinese and Western ideas of a university in everyday operation.Such a bi-cultural condition contrasts sharply to the still largely mono-cultural(Western only)university operating environment in the West.The integration opens further space for their universities to explore an alternative to the Western academic model that has long dominated world higher education.Based on fieldwork at premier universities in Beijing,Hong Kong,Singapore,and Taipei,this article calls for a reconceptualized view of modern university development in Chinese societies.It argues that the experiment enables their top universities to bring back their cultural traditions to integrate with Western values and contribute to inter-civilizational dialogue.
文摘Governments worldwide rightly regard universities as fundamental to the achievement of many national priorities. But it is the paper’s contention that many misunderstand their true benefit to society. Investments in universities are increasingly based on the belief that the science labs in particular of research-intensive universities can be the source of a continuous stream of people and ideas that will spawn innovative and fast growing companies to form the nexus of the knowledge-based economy. This belief is a source of misconceived policies that offer only ultimate disillusion. It is the totality of the university enterprise that is important, as the only place where that totality of ourselves and our world is brought together, and which makes it the strongest provider of the rational explanation and meaning that societies need. In research, universities create new possibilities; in teaching, they shape new people. Its graduates learn to seek the true meaning of things: to distinguish between the true and the merely seemingly true, to verify for themselves what is stable in that very unstable compound that often passes for knowledge. It is the complex, interacting whole of the university that is the source of the separate economic, social, cultural and utilitarian benefits valued by society. It needs to be understood, valued and managed as a whole. These perceptions are a direct challenge to not only to governments but to university administrators who have been either cowed or seduced into the slipshod thinking that is leading to demands that universities cannot satisfy, whilst obscuring their most important contributions. The challenge to both is to permit autonomy without oppressive accountability, and to give staff and students the freedom to think, speculate and research. These are the very conditions of the personal and collective creativity that are the sources of a university’s deepest benefits to its society.
