Analysis of the Final Essays of the Experimental...
In this section，by focusing on the mid-term and final essays of the experimental group，we are going to answer the final question relating to challenges Chinese international students face.As discussed earlier，Chinese international students tend to lack the ability to critically engage with English scholarship and this is demonstrated in the mid-term assessment for the control group.Now with the variable of English added in，the experimental group allows us to observe if English is a key factor interfering with Chinese international students’performance in the study of Asian cinema.As we are interested in whether the English medium constitutes a major factor affecting the experimental group in the study of Asian cinema only，we selected a smaller sample size of twelve students，referred to as E1，E2，E3...E12，with three samples from each of the four score bands(H1:80%～100%，H2A:75%～79%，H2B:70%～74%，and H3 or lower 50%～69%)as can be seen in Table 8.2.Although Asian cinema deals with more theoretical concepts and covers a wider variety of film genres from different cultural backgrounds，the assessment criteria are similar to those of Chinese cinema，which focus mainly on the strength of the students’critical thinking，and their ability to put that thinking into a persuasive written form.
Table 8.2 Assessment results(in percentages)for the experimental group in Asian cinema
The mid-term essay questions for Asian cinema deal with the following topics:①how female characters in Chinese cinema have become sites of tensions between tradition and modernity;②whether“Asian cinema”is a useful critical category for analysing cinema produced in the Asia region;and③discuss China’s Sixth Generation films in relation to the“cultural metamorphoses and uneven globalisation”that China is experiencing.The final essay questions are concerned with;④how“transnational cinema”differs from national cinema in terms of production，distribution and circulation;⑤the relationship between Hollywood and Korean blockbusters in relation to aesthetics，transnational circulation，and filmmaking styles;⑥the implications of film and/or media censorship in the Asian region in an era of transnational production and circulation of screen media.
Now let’s look at the mid-term essays of the experimental group according to the score bands they fell into.It happened that E1，E2 and E3 all chose to do question 1 about female characters and the tension between tradition and modernity.To make a persuasive argument in response to this question，students first needed to differentiate the evolving concept of modernity—western industrialism，socialism，individualism，feminism—that stands in contrast to feudal traditions in the Chinese context and then demonstrate through filmic analysis how this tension is cinematically represented through female characters.Apparently，these three students presented some good arguments for the H1 grade.Their essays were also generally well written，although a couple of minor grammatical mistakes can be detected，or their phrasing of some key concepts could have been more concise.For example，in the discussion of Two Stage Sisters(dir.Xie Jin，1964)，E2 wrote“Chunhua ran away and hid in the troupe for not being found by buyers”where he/she could have said—Chunhua escaped the arranged marriage，which is part of the feudal marriage system.E3’s statement“it was not until 1928 when the Chinese Communist Party began to realise the subjugated position of women in China by launching the peasant women movement”could be improved grammatically.E1 related“the rise of modern women consciousness”to a type of modernity but without reference to“consciousness”which makes the meaning of the whole term vague in this context.
With regard to the H2A students，E5 tackled question 3 about the Sixth Generation cinema，while E4 and E6 chose to do question 1 about Chinese female characters.The key to addressing question 3 appropriately is to unpack the two terms“cultural metamorphosis”and“uneven globalisation”and to demonstrate how Sixth Generation filmmakers explore these themes in their films.E5 defined the key terms relatively well and provided a clear road map of the essay.However，there were a couple of vague statements such as“violence，or a deviation of moral values，is the consequence of the incomplete modernisation of the past thirty years”，and“the reason for being immoral is due to the repression under the economic growth”.The first quote is a highly generalised statement，and in the second quote，the relationship between“repression”and“economic growth”is not expressed clearly.E4 and E6 had similar issues in their discussion of the female characters in Two Stage Sisters and Red Sorghum(dir.Zhang Yimou，1988).If we quote them separately，“the female protagonist maintained attachment to certain traditional femininity yet opposing values of tradition and rising modernity”and“Red Sorghum inherits the theme of nationality and humanity”，we can see there’s still a lot of space for improvement in English expression with these H2A papers.
In the H2B score band，the language issue becomes more noticeable and starts to interfere with the students’capacity to convey their ideas or construct coherent arguments.Again，we have one student，E8，dealing with question 3 and two students，E7 and E9，taking on question 1.In contextualising the changed industrial environment from which China’s Sixth Generation filmmakers emerged，E8 wrote“This industrial transformation caused the fact that these creative filmmakers who are born and grow up when Reform and Opening is in an all-round way.”This sentence by E8 clearly has syntax and expression issues.Similarly，while E9 wanted to say that Chinese people’s thoughts are constrained by feudalism，E9 wrote“Chinese people have been oppressed and imprisoned for more than one thousand years”which meant something totally different.These examples show that English expression issues can cause confusion and seriously undermine the strength of an argument.
In the next score band of H3 and lower，English remains a key issue preventing students from conveying their ideas clearly and accurately.For example，E11 and E12 took question 2 on Asian cinema，and here are two examples from their mid-term essays—“Asian artists can use a basic to conform to western audiences about their cultural knowledge and imagination”and“Japan as one of the earliest countries receiving the impact of western trend of cinematography and leads a steady process of interconnection in the Asian area of media reforming.”The weakness in grammar here is clear，and poses a real challenge for anyone trying to decipher the intended meaning of these sentences.
In terms of their final essays，six students answered question 5，four students picked question 4，and two students tackled question 6.Based on their mid-term essay feedback，students have generally paid more attention to areas in which they lost marks.But we can still identify a few factors to do with English that hold students back from achieving higher grades in the four score bands.With regard to the H1 students，the overall quality of their English academic writing，even though strong，is understandably not as impressive as their English-native speaking counterparts in the same score band.Sometimes this can come down to a word choice.For example，in E3’s statement“a deep look into the production，distribution and reception[of]director Ang Lee’s films，”a better word choice than“deep”could be made.This has perhaps resulted in the fact that none of these non-English background students achieved a high H1(90%+).The key factor that prevents the H2A students from performing better is often to do with the efficiency or fluency of their English.For instance，E4 listed all seven production companies for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger，Hidden Dragon(2000)，which was a minor point in the context.In the H2B，H3 or lower score band，students often encountered a lot of difficulties in conveying their ideas accurately and clearly，and they also struggled with English grammar.As the issues are of the same nature as those apparent in their mid-term essays，we will not quote more examples or engage in further analysis here.From the work of the experimental group，we can see that English proficiency is indeed a major challenge for Chinese international students in obtaining higher scores that they could have achieved in their native language.Their English levels can also hinder their understanding of some complex concepts as demonstrated in the mid-term test papers completed by the control group.This echoes the argument that“lecturers thought English language capability was a determining factor in CIS[Chinese International Students]success”(McCrohon and Nyland，2017:22).Of course，there are a whole range of other factors，such as the attitudes toward study，time management skills，use of available resources[15]and so on，that can influence a student’s academic performance，but we are confident that with a sample size above 10% of the total population，the impact of these factors is negligible.