Page 109 - Silence in Intercultural Communication

96 Silence in Intercultural Communication

describing what they like about studying in Australia. The Macquarie University
survey (Braddock et al. 1995) results also indicated that about 60% of interna-
tional students have a desire to develop critical thinking skills, and that 69% think
developing their own ideas in learning is more important than reciting pregiven
ideas.
Japanese students also perceive themselves as having sufficiently adapted, par-
ticularly in written assignments. For example, one of the Japanese students said
he often used manga (cartoons) in his presentations to compensate for his lack of
confidence in oral communication skills. Some Japanese students see the Austra-
lian framework as ‘important,’ but they cannot adapt themselves to it easily:

(54) I know that for questions, for questions, we Japanese students only look for the
answers. It’s like ‘So what is the answer?’ But it looks like students here often
pour out things which make me think ‘It’s got nothing to do with the question!’
... But the lecturers don’t say things I would say such as ‘You are off the track,’ if
I was them. Rather, they seem to value these comments. ... I think these things
may be important, but for us, it is the most difficult thing, for Japanese people.
[27:123 F4]
Comments by lecturers in the questionnaire responses generally did not reveal an
awareness that students may have had difficulties in expressing their own ideas
or relating their own experiences. Only the lecturer who gave accounts (through
personal communication, mentioned earlier) of Asian students actively partici-
pating in class had students talk about personal and culturally familiar topics. It
may be worth mentioning here that neither this lecturer, who was a Malay-Aus-
tralian, nor the only lecturer in my survey study who perceived Japanese students
to be active participants, spoke English as a first language. Below is a comment by
the latter lecturer in response to the question about the strengths of the Japanese
students in her class:

(55) Open-mindedness and desire for learning, confident and independent
approach to own learning, generally high level of participation in class [LQ31]
It is possible that, because of shared Asian backgrounds, there may have been more
opportunities, with this lecturer, for Japanese students to bring up their background
knowledge in class. Conversely, if Anglo-Australian lecturers predominantly re-
quire local background knowledge and experiences to be articulated, it may reduce
participation opportunities for overseas students.