A Study On Intercultural Adaptation Of Foreign English Teachers In Chinese Middle School English Classes

China has employed thousands of foreign English teachers since1970s in orderto improve foreign language teaching quality. Foreign English teachers have beenplaying important roles not only in higher education institutions, but also middleschool education. They come from different countries with different culturalbackgrounds and encounter the challenging problems of intercultural adaptation. Thisthesis focuses on the intercultural adaptation of foreign English teachers from theperspectives of Integrated Intercultural Adaptation Theory, analyzing the levels andthe inlfuential factors of adaptive problems. Questionnaire and interview have beenadopted as the main research instruments in this study. The research result shows thatthe main problems foreign English teachers meet in Shanghai are their lack of hostlanguage competence and most of the foreign English teachers can adapt themselvesto the new culture well. Among the influential factors,“language competence”，“previous inte’rculturcil experience" and “social support from the host communit"y arethought to be the most salient and important influential factors for interculturaladaptation of fo”reign English teachers and "ethnic proximity，“host conformitypressure” and "adaptive "personality are thought to be the least important factors forthe adaptation of strangers. The thesis, as both a theoretical exploration and a practicalexperiment, can not only fill the deficiency in this ifeld but also help those who wantto be better adapted to a new culture.