Perceptions and Experiences of First Year International Students About Chinese Language Class: A Study of One Normal University in China

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out the perceptions and experiences of first year international student about Chinese language class in a normal university in china. The descriptive survey research was adopted, qualitative research method was used, the researcher purposefully select five (5) respondents, interview was used to collect the data, data obtained was analyzed using thematic coding on the following sub-theme; experiences: teachers’ characteristics, classroom organization, timing of the class, instructional ,materials, language partner and structure of the language; perception: difficult language, class size adequacy (number of classes per week), willingness to learn the language and challenge. The researcher concluded The findings reveal that most of the respondents are learning Chinese for the first time, and they think that Chinese language is the most difficult language they have encountered and also it was found out that respondents with language partner are doing better than those without language partners, the respondents also feels that the teachers were not using adequate instructional material that can aid learning a language.

Keywords: Perceptions, Experiences, Chinese language.