Excerpts from Nick’s Narrative
Nick is enrolled in the engineering program and had been in Canada for six months when I spoke with him. Nick completed two months of language coursework before he officially started his undergraduate study. He was admitted to the university with an overall IELTS score of 6 and a spoken score of 5.5.
Figure 6. Artistic representation of Nick’s story, photograph taken by Nick.
Nick’s description of his artistic representation.
The photo I chose as my narrative representation is a photo I took in the library. I see it as the best description of my life here because I often stay there until midnight or 1 a.m. in the morning before I go back to my dorm. When I walk home in the dark and quiet midnight, I cannot help asking, “Why do I have to spend a supposedly happy weekend in the library like this?” It gets very depressing sometimes. You can almost feel that depressing feeling in the seemingly never-ending stairs in the picture. Every day, I was running up and down those stairs, but unable to read any of the books that I wanted to read because it was already too much for me to handle my academic course content. I really wanted to grab some books from the literature shelves, but I found myself not even able to afford the time to grab the book.
When I was looking down the stairs from the top floor of the library, I felt like I was being suffocated by all the review and preview for my exams and quizzes, desperately trying to catch a breath but to no avail. For a task that took one hour for the Canadian students, I would probably need five hours, because they could understand the lecture content in class and ask questions, while all I could do was take notes and record the lectures to review afterwards.
Nick’s narrative excerpts.
My inability to orally communicate could have serious direct impact on my grades, which stresses me a lot. A lot of assignments are based on group projects here, for which we need to communicate with other students in order to get the grade. Participation is often part of the grade. For example, recently, we were assigned a project for which we needed to write an individual report and also a group report comprised of several segments. Usually, each group member would be responsible for writing one segment of the group report and then all group members’ names would be on the assignment cover page for grading. I would not speak during group discussions unless they asked me something directly. Usually, my group members would just discuss among themselves, rarely asking me anything. I sensed that they assumed that I would not be able to produce quality work due to my language problems, so they did not even assign me any group task. I was very lucky in the sense that my group members still put my name on the group report cover page, although they did all the work themselves. So, I got the full grade for that project. But I felt guilty about getting the unearned credit and frustrated about not being able to help. I truly wanted to participate. If only my spoken English were better!
Although I was lucky, I know I cannot be lucky all the time. My roommate, for example, was not as lucky as me. His group project grade got severely reduced as a result of his language communication barrier. His group members were very strict on academic workload and standards. His group manager even sent an email to the professor claiming that my roommate did not cooperate or contribute to the group work. The professor even talked to my roommate in person asking him why he would not cooperate with other group members for the project. I know that it was not that he did not want to, but that he was not able to contribute due to his inability to communicate properly in English. His group members assigned him his portion of the group task but were very unsatisfied with the work he produced and asked him to rewrite it again and again, until they finally said, “Fine. You don’t need to write it anymore.” In the end, his group members did the work and did not put his name on the final group report for grading. He went to the professor to appeal, but the professor said, “Because you did not contribute, you do not get the grade.” This was a very serious problem because that assignment counted for a very big portion of the whole grade. In the end, his contribution grade and peer assessment grade were all zero, which significantly influenced his final grade. It has become well known among Chinese students that we cannot get a good grade in courses with group projects unless we can work with Canadian students. In my geography course, Chinese students’ grades are generally 20 points less than the Canadian students’.
The truth is I don’t like staying in the Chinese students’ community in Canada. I feel that Chinese students always like to compare and compete. Many are snobbish and selfish. Some just fool around not caring about studying at all. Some do really well academically but are arrogant and not easy to approach.
Honestly, I prefer making friends with Canadian students over Chinese students, because Canadian students are generally more friendly and helpful, and also more straightforward compared to the Chinese students I know. For instance, Chinese students usually would not say “Hi” to you when you walk on campus unless you are very close, but a lot of the foreign students who I have only briefly encountered would happily greet me if they ever see me. I remember a Canadian student caught up with me on campus just to say “Hi” because I did not see him walking behind. I felt really happy every time when Canadian students greeted me but I felt frustrated about not being able to say more than just simple greetings back. After a while, they might get the impression that I was not friendly, but the truth is I just did not know how to talk with them properly.
