Chinese Biology Teaching Assistants' Perception of their English Proficiency: An Exploratory Case Study

Chinese Biology Teaching Assistants' Perceptions of their English Proficiency In the 2010-2011 academic year, 157,558 students from mainland China accounted for nearly 22% of the total international student population in the United States, 8% more than India, the second largest sending country (Institute of International Education, 2011). Graduate students accounted for approximately half of the Chinese international students in the U.S. and were the biggest population compared to undergraduates and non-degree students coming from China to U.S. universities (Institute of International Education, 2011). Among those graduate students, Chinese Biology Ph. D. students have been the largest population in science fields (Fiegener, 2009). A great number of Chinese graduate students teach undergraduate students as Teaching Assistants (TAs) when they study in the United States. In general, TAs teach roughly 40% of the undergraduate courses and approximately 60% of the introductory courses for first- and second-year undergraduates (Wert, 1998, p. xvii). However, in spite of their competence and qualifications reflected by their academic records, there is a history of international teaching assistantship recipients being the subject of complaints or even criticized, mainly regarding English proficiency by domestic undergraduate students (Bailey, 1984; Rubin, 1992; Trice, 2003). Those undergraduate students are not alone in such complaints or criticism. The students' parents and general public have had similar responses as well. The state legislatures have also responded to this linguistic problem. For instance, Pennsylvania Senate Bill 539 required the certification of all instructional faculty in English fluency (Hoekje & Williams, 1992, p. 245). Other states, such as, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri and Ohio, have passed laws requiring the states' public college and universities to test the oral English proficiency of the international TAs ("Reactions to international," 1992 December). Prior to conducting this study, I found only one study where the researcher (Gorsuch, 2006) looked at international TAs' English proficiency per discipline, while different domains require various English proficiency for achieving the objectives and format of classes (Gorsuch, 2006). Gorsuch (2006) observed Chinese Biology TA's instruction and suggested that interactivity be encouraged between TAs and students in the Biology department. Currently, Chinese TAs as well as other international TAs predominate in certain departments, such as, mathematics, science and engineering department (Russell, 2002) and many Chinese Biology Ph. D. students are TAs in teaching Biology lab courses. The problem in this study was to explore the perceptions of English language proficiency of Chinese Biology TAs concerning their lab teaching at a public university in Southern United States. The primary research question was: What are Chinese Biology TAs' perceptions about their English proficiency? The secondary research questions asked from the viewpoint of the TAs were: How is cultural identity linked to their perceptions of their English proficiency? How does their content-knowledge (i.e., biology) preparation inform their perceptions of their English proficiency? What is the role of their English learning experience in their perceptions of their English proficiency? The purpose of this study was to inform university TA training program leaders about TAs' needs and weaknesses from their perspectives, so the leaders can design training curriculum in ways that may reduce the possibility of complaints from domestic undergraduate students with regards to TAs' English proficiency. In this study, Chinese biology TAs were observed and interviewed to examine how they understood their English proficiency and to explore possible links between these understandings and their cultural and content knowledge. This exploratory study was conducted in a specific U. …