The Research On Novice Chinese Teachers' International Communication Apprehension

The purpose of this research is to investigate the influences of intercultural communication apprehension(ICA)among Chinese teachers and to propose strategies to reduce this ICA.Using novice Chinese teachers with 3 or fewer years of teaching experience as the object,a questionnaire survey was used to evaluate their intercultural communication apprehension level and influencing factors.Based on the results of the questionnaire,an interview outline was created to further analyze how these specific influences affected ICA.Using the results from both the questionnaire and interview outline,potential strategies that could reduce ICA were proposed.The questionnaire includes basic personal information,personal teaching experience,the Personal Report of Intercultural Communication Apprehension instrument,an international teaching assistant-student relationship scale and an international teaching assistant satisfaction with students scale.A total of 110 valid questionnaires were received.Using SPSS software for data statistics and analysis of the questionnaire,it was found that nearly half of the novice Chinese teachers had a moderate level of ICA.The four factors influencing ICA were: subjective personality tendency,subjective English level,the length of time as a Chinese teacher,the preparation time before a course.In addition,the analysis revealed that ICA has a negative effect on the relationship between teachers and students and teachers' satisfaction with students.At the same time,ICA has an indirect and negative influence on the students' trust and evaluation of teachers.Therefore,it is necessary to reduce ICA among novice Chinese teachers.Based on the survey results the author made an interview outline,conducted personal interviews with eight novice Chinese teachers,and studied the effects of influencing factors,and analyzed the results of the questionnaire survey.Specific conclusions are as follows:(1)The lack of English listening and speaking ability makes the novice Chinese teacher unable to communicate with the students fluently.It affected the novice Chinese teacher's language confidence,so as to increase their level of ICA;(2)Some graduate students whose major is teaching Chinese to speakers ofother languages have academic backgrounds in minority languages or management majors.Because they lack systematic Chinese grammar and cultural knowledge(in comparison to students with academic backgrounds in Chinese language and culture),their ICA was not significantly lower than that of students of Chinese language and literature,and students of Chinese language philology;(3)The lack of familiarity with the teaching materials and undisciplined students have raised the ICA among novice Chinese teachers,thus extending their preparation time.However,their original ICA was extremely high,so that even after a preparation period of 2 hours or longer their ICA was not significantly lower than when preparing for other lengths of time;(4)The novice teachers lack teaching experience so that they may not know the characteristics of students,and the curriculum,which leads to increased uncertainty before class affecting their ICA.According to these conclusions,there are three key areas where improvements can be made to alleviate ICA,which are universities,training institutions,and novice Chinese teachers.Methods to alleviate ICA include the following: To improve the novice Chinese teachers foreign language ability,and establish their language self-confidence;To enhance the grammar and cultural knowledge of the novice Chinese teachers and improve their intercultural communication sensitivity;To set up a teaching practice course for novice Chinese teachers that can simulate the real teaching environment;To improve the ability of novice Chinese teachers to use textbooks and strengthen their communication with faculty.