Teaching "Soft Skills" to Chinese ESL Students

TEACHING “SOFT SKILLS” TO CHINESE ESL STUDENTS!

Most experienced teachers will tell you that Chinese students are shy (so they struggle with communicative speaking activities) and accustomed to rote learning instead of critical thinking (and thus have difficulty with generating opinions, taking linguistic risks, and producing novel utterances rather than spewing out only what they’ve heard before).  This argument, while truthful, is often used to explain Chinese learners’ common reluctance to share opinions or listen to classmates in group discussions.

I argue that shyness and the rigidity of China’s education system aren’t the only culprits.  China, after all, was the battleground for the Cultural Revolution.  The poverty and starvation throughout the country resulting from Mao Zedong’s purge of historical successes created an every-man-for-himself, dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest culture.  This mentality is often interpreted as selfish or course.  This can explain the apparent “loudness” and “rudeness” that can often be observed in Chinatown communities in the United States.  It’s this “can’t afford to care about anyone but myself” mindset that’s been passed down to the current generation of young Chinese people (though it’s gradually dying out) and is responsible for the unwillingness to cooperate or actively listen to group discussions in the ESL classroom.

An argument might be, “Well, as ESL teachers it’s our job to teach the correct discourse functions and soft skills to get these Chinese students prepared for academic life or careers in the U.S.”  To an extent, this is true.  However, such deeply engrains cultural norms are hard to change.  And should we even be trying to change them?  What constitutes teaching students the soft skills we think they need, versus stripping them of there cultural heritage?  After all, most of the successful Chinese immigrants in this country probably got that way by being hardworking and, not least, selfish.  A healthy selfishness is important in a capitalist culture such as America.  After all, one can go around caring too much about others, leaving no attention for himself.  The question is, is “a healthy amount of selfishness” an element of what it means to be Chinese?  Should we be trying to change this common personality trait of our Chinese students?  Is it even possible to change it?  Of course it’s good to teach open-mindedness and the ability to accept and discern others’ opinions in reference to your own, but how far is too far when it comes to pushing these soft skills?  As teachers, we need to be aware that the soft skills we’re teaching are western skills, and that some of them may not be “teachable” to students of certain cultures.

This could be applied to the teaching of foreign languages to American students as well.  An example is teaching Japanese to American students.  Japanese culture has a strong emphasis on humility, respect, and indirectness, and the language closely reflects this.  It’s thus common for American students to make social faux pas when trying to get their meaning across in Japanese.  It’s also common for an American to simply lack the words to accurately and directly express her opinion through a medium such as Japanese that doesn’t allow for such directness.  A teacher of Japanese might wish to train her American students in the soft skills of Japanese culture, so as to prevent these mistakes and make their speech more native-like.  However, Americans are direct and casual by nature and it’s hard to change this.  Students from other cultures may be dealing with the same struggle when we push soft skills in ESL instruction.