Foreign Students' Language Proficiency, Their Perceptions of Language Adequacy and Their Performance At the Graduate Level.

Abstract

Studies on cross-cultural education have extensively documented the many problems of foreign students during their sojourn in foreign countries. These problems range from the singular culture shock phenomenon to problems of an academic or social nature. One of the most common problems concerns the language difficulties that most foreign students experience within the academic environment and the open society as well. This research study was mainly concerned with some of the socio-academic language-related problems of the graduate foreign students within the academic environment at The University of Michigan. One specific purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the language proficiency, the perceptions of language adequacy, and the academic performance of the population of graduate foreign students mentioned above. The methodology devised for this study consisted of a self-administered questionnaire mailed out to 200 foreign students, and direct interviews with selected foreign students. The students' responses to the questionnaire were analyzed using correlation, regression, and analysis of variance procedures. The results of this study indicated that the students' language proficiency does not have any relationship with respect to the students' academic performance; that the students' perceptions of language adequacy are significantly related to: (a) their perception of language proficiency; (b) their perceptions of academic satisfaction; (c) their perceptions of interpersonal relationships with faculty members and advisers, and other graduate students, native speakers of English. Even though the sample of graduate students had been able to derive some satisfaction from the education received at The University of Michigan, they felt that such education has no relevance for future work plans in their home countries. The implications of such findings was discussed as having profound repercussions of a politico-economic and philosophical nature. It was recommended that: (a) more attention should be paid to the language-related socio-academic problems of foreign students; and (b) other studies of the nature of this one should be conducted with the double idea of not only validating the results obtained in this study but also of developing more pragmatic paradigms which could guide foreign language teaching and testing procedures.