Resources through which Chinese students learn about Western society and culture

Abstract

This article presents the results of a study conducted in order to determine how Chinese university students in Mainland China gain their cultural knowledge about Western culture and society, and the resources they would prefer to use to learn more. The study involved administration of both a questionnaire and semistructured interviews. Responses were obtained from 470 undergraduate students from 15 universities based in Beijing. The results showed that the students believed they learned more from foreign media and, in particular, films and TV series from the United States than from any other source, and that they also preferred to learn in this way. The results also showed that they learned little about Western culture and society through conversations with native English speakers, although they wanted more opportunities to learn in this way. These results have implications for those involved in developing and delivering pre-sessional and orientation programmes for Chinese university students in the Western higher education contexts.

‘Is it always so fast?’

“…Finally, another widely acknowledged benefit of viewing multimedia materials is an enhanced cultural comprehension. A study on 470 Chinese university students revealed that they gain their cultural knowledge about Western culture and society mostly from films and TV series and that they also prefer to learn in this way (Yang 2016). Thus, focusing on these danmu related to cultural topics is a valuable and viable line of future research in an effort to explore how people's ideological opinions are shaped by media representations of language and society.…”