Enjoy Rendering!: Сборник текстов для перевода и реферирования. Батурина С.А. - 30 стр.

                           Western Promise                                      ing with life in Britain often involves hanging out with other Chinese
                                                                                students – meaning that one big hoped-for benefit, exposure to an Eng-
      Chinese students are flooding in to British universities                  lish-language environment, is muted. Yvonne Turner, an academic
        Seen from close to, Britain's universities are in a sorry state:        specialising in the Sino-British cultural gulf, says some Chinese stu-
overcrowded, cash-strapped and demoralised. But from far away they              dents tell her that their English-language skills decline while in Britain.
can look very attractive. Their marketing to foreign students is excel-                 This fits in with a second problem. Chinese university teaching is
lent, especially in China, where educating children abroad is increas-          different to that in British higher education. Class discussion and ques-
ingly fashionable . The latest firm figures, from 2001, show around             tioning the teacher are rare and often discouraged. Exams are very im-
18,000 Chinese students in British higher education. That makes them            portant; group-based activities and course-work hardly feature. Memori-
the largest group out of a total of 143,000 foreigners. And it is a 71%         zing and regurgitating texts matter a lot; use of other source material and
increase on 2000. Preliminary figures for 2002 show a further increase          critical thinking skills, especially at undergraduate level, are minimal.
of 67 %, taking the likely total over 25,000. By far the most popular                   Coupled with the often-hesitant spoken English of many Chinese
subjects are business studies and accountancy (35 %) followed by com-           students, that can create irritation in the classroom. British students of-
puting (14 %) and engineering (11 %).                                           ten feel frustrated by their Chinese colleagues' silence. Academics find
        On the face of it, that benefits everyone. Chinese students pay         it hard to know if they have got their points across. For their part, Chi-
handsomely – at least £15,000 ($24,000) for a one-year MBA, or £8,000           nese students are often scornful of discussions that they regard as little
annually for a three-year undergraduate course. That helps fill the univer-     more than "playing". Coming from a highly competitive system them-
sities' rattling coffers, especially at the hard-up ex-polytechnics, which      selves, they often find the British system of assessment overly fluffy
are finding it hard to attract British students. With cash comes enthusi-       and sympathetic. Another big difference is that Chinese university
asm. Chinese students tend to be brighter and harder-working than their         teachers abandon formality outside lessons and develop close ties with
local counterparts. An engineering lecturer at a midlands university newly      their students. In Britain it tends to be the other way round.
popular with Chinese customers waxes lyrical on the subject: "Compared                  There is a scramble to solve these problems before customers
to my British students they are a joy to teach. They actually like to work,     look elsewhere. Other countries are competing for the Chinese market
and they actually know the necessary maths, like calculus, already."            too. One private outfit in Germany offers an English-language MBA
        But there are big problems elsewhere, mostly reflecting a fun-          specially tailored to Chinese students. Australia and New Zealand are
damental difficulty: it is easier for universities to sell their courses than   stepping up their efforts too.
to deliver what the customers want The most mundane example is day-                     British universities need to manage expectations better. The Brit-
to-day life. British universities assume that students are, to most intents     ish Council, the government's cultural diplomacy outfit, offers training to
and purposes, independent adults, able to make choices about both aca-          the agents who help Chinese families choose universities for their chil-
demic and private life. Accommodation is mostly self-catering. Social           dren. A website provides feed-back and advice from Chinese students
life revolves heavily around alcohol.                                           already in Britain. The better universities offer specially tailored induc-
        By contrast, arrangements in China are more paternalistic. Stu-         tion courses for new Chinese arrivals – ranging from tips shopping and
dents either live at home or sleep six to a room. Take-away food is ex-         public transport to thorough training in how to write essays and give
tremely cheap. Few know how to cook or do housework – especially if             presentations. That differs sharply m the boozy welcome given to local
they are the pampered offspring of the one-child families encouraged            freshers. Chinese students' main priority extra-curricular activity is not
by China's population controllers. British habits such as pub-crawls and        social life, points out a British Council specialist, but finding some
binge drinking are mystifying, even repellent, to them. As a result, cop-       workplace experience to go with their studies. Odd, or what?

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