The present study is concerned with interpreting Chinese families' experiences of British education. In the previous chapter, the views of parents and children were elicited in interviews; in the present chapter, the focus is broadened to include the children's teachers. A discussion of the importance of an understanding of cultural differences for the educational outcomes of ethnic minority children will from the backdrop for an analysis of four parent-teacher meetings and interview data gathered before and after the meetings. The issues which will emerge make it possible to explore both facets of cross-cultural communication and differences in educational philosophy between Chinese parents and British teachers. 

Cultural differences and education

The importance for teachers of an understanding of children's cultural backgrounds is widely recognised. As early as 1983, Heath notices the different reaction of students in a multicultural classroom. She analyzes this phenomenon from an anthropological point of view, suggesting that teachers should be conscious of cultural differences and modify their teaching behaviours in relation to minority children. Garcia(1991: 2), for instance, points out that:

Culture and linguistic identity provide a strong and important sense of self and family belonging, which in turn supports a wide range of learning capabilities, not the least of which is learning a second language. 

Similarly, Peregoy and Boyle (1993) suggest that teachers in multicultural classrooms should know something about minority students' family structure, life cycle, roles and interpersonal relationships, religion, food, health and hygiene, history, tradition and holidays. According to Grant(1995: 12), such an understanding will help teachers to 'analyze the level of cultural congruence in the patterning of teacher-pupil interaction, identify cross-cultural similarities and differences, and utilize aspects of culture to help children achieve'. 

A wide range of studies points to the ways in which differences in cultural norms within the classroom affect relations between teachers and parents. Viilarruel et al (1995), for instance, argue that characteristics such as families' racial, ethnic, socio-economic group membership, the sociocultural history of the group, immigration status and length of residence influence social interactions among diverse children, families, teachers and educational settings. Similarly, Cummins (1996) maintains that educators with an intercultural orientation should demonstrate an awareness of children's language and culture and make active attempts to involve parents and community in students' learning.  

Research on effective Black teachers also points to the importance of acknowledging students' cultural roots. Foster(1991) draws attention to a phenomenon 'connectedness', which emphasises the presence of strong kinship bonds and a sense of mutual obligation in Black communities. Ladson-Billings & Henry (1990) and Callender (1995) discuss the use of Black communicative behaviours including participative patterns such as call-and-response, repetition, proverbs and characteristic non-verbal and paralinguistic features to establish such connectedness. 

McPake & Powney (1995) analyze the experiences of Japanese children at school in the UK. They draw attention to the difference between eastern and western learning styles. The western view is that children are active learners; that speaking and listening play an important role in the learning process; and that teachers can use children's classroom talk to assess what they have understood. In contrast, the Japanese believe that children learn by listening to the teachers; that they should speak only in response to teachers questions and talk between pupis should not be tolerated. McPake & Powney argue that Japanese children are reluctant to speak, partly because of limited competence in English but also for cultural reasons. Japanese parents, for their part, expect their children to be silently respectful and are frustrated by teachers' advice to encourage them to talk. 

This difference in philosophy is also found in China. Cortazzi and Jin  (1996) describe their observations of a kindergarten and a primary school in China. They notice, for instance, that the whole class works on the same material at the same speed and that 'children are consistently attentive, listening, speaking together in a disciplined chorus'(p.175).  Different educational expectations make Chinese children's behaviour seem 'good' in a UK context. Typically, they are happy to follow the teachers' instructions. Cortazzi & Jin also explore what it means to be a good teacher or a good student in language classrooms in China. The Chinese emphasise accuracy in vocabulary, spelling and grammar as the legitimate outcomes of learning. Students are encouraged to imitate and memorise and pay more attention to mental activity. In contrast, western classrooms stress communication skills, language use and the process of learning. They focus on student-centred activity and classroom interaction and pay more attention to verbal activity.  

Edwards (1997) states that discourse conventions cannot simply be described in terms of linguistic differences. Rather they are inextricably linked with different cultural values. Indeed it is sometimes difficult to see how accommodation can be reached between groups which hold highly divergent views of education and society. 

Teacher training

The presence of students from a range of cultural backgrounds and speaking various languages is a feature of schools in many different countries. The preparation of teachers for work with students from diverse backgrounds is, however, very variable. In the USA, for instance, Peregoy & Boyle(1993) comment on the very low level of pre-service or in-service training for teaching second language learners, in spite of the fact that half of all public school teachers have language minority students in their classes. Edwards & Redfern(1992) draw attention to similar issues in a British and Canadian contexts.  

In the UK, Edwards (1998) discusses the ways in which the implementation of the national curriculum effectively stopped the professional development of teachers in work in multilingual classrooms for a period of six years until, in 1994, a three year programme targeted at mainstream class and subject teachers, 'Meeting the needs of bilingual pupils', served as a focus for activity in this area. This programme has acted as a catalyst for a large number of professional development initiatives reported in Intercultural Education Partnership (1998). Maggie Gravelle, for instance, discusses issues in pre-service teacher education; Peter Nathan examines an innovative approach to in-service training in school based projects;  Amy Thompson looks initial teacher training and professional development for bilingual classroom assistants; Helen Abji describes a strategy for improving the effectiveness of support for bilingual learners and Liz Statham discusses training for English as a second language teachers in the 21st century. The fact that this DfEE initiative has now come to a close throws a shadow over future developments. 

Home-school relations

Home-school relations, have a very important potential role in combating the cultural misunderstandings which are a feature of many schools and classrooms. The status of parents and the role which they play in their children's formal education has changed beyond all recognition in the course of this century. At one time, a line was drawn in the playground which no parent was expected to cross: education was firmly the territory of the teacher. Tomlinson (1984) points to a further evolution over time. She distinguishes between 'old-style' links (parent-teacher meetings, written school communication with homes, parent-teacher associations, professional educational liaison, and the beginnings of some limited pre-school parental involvement) and 'new style' links (parent participation in educational decision-making via governing bodies and elected committees, and consultation between the 'community' and LEAs). 

Edwards  &  Redfern (1988) make a similar distinction in their description of the development of home-school relation in Redlands, a multicultural primary school in south-east England. They show how, over a period of time, parents moved from more menial tasks such as cleaning up after art or accompanying children on trips, to helping with the core curriculum and starting to take responsibility as part of the governing body. 

Changes in the traditional relationships between schools and parents are by no means limited to the Englis-speaking world. MacBeth(1983)  reports on models of parental relationships with schools proposed by parental organisations of the European Community. These include making parents aware of the school's rights and duties; exchanging ideas on parents' expectations of the formal education of their children; and ensuring that parents are represented and participate in their children's formal schooling. 

Bastiani(1997: 2) sums up developments in this area over a number of years in the following terms:

Home-school work in Britain is now enjoying something of a high. Its potential and significance are now widely recognised and endorsed. Parental involvement in their children's school learning is now generally accepted as being both legitimate and desirable, in terms of its tangible benefits to pupils.  

The active participation of certain groups of parents has been well-established for many years; the involvement of minority parents, however, has been more problematic. As early as 1984, Tomlinson was arguing that co-operation between parents and teachers is necessary for minority children to improve their school performance and attainment. She emphasises that the minority cultural values and traditions should have the same status as those of the majority society. She also makes the point that parents' expectations of schools and English education are linked to their own educational backgrounds. Minority parents are usually dependent on teachers to explain school processes, and expect schools to be places where both equal opportunity and cultural diversity can be offered. There may, however, be a mismatch between parental expectations and what schools can actually offer. Tomlinson emphasises the importance of dialogue to release tensions and misunderstandings between minority homes and schools. 

More recently, Kenway (1994) points out that close co-operation between parents and schools shows that schools value children's families, culture and community. This is very important for children's self-esteem and confidence. She describes a number of initiatives in a multicultural nursery to encourage more active parent participation, including games workshops and the introduction of a home-school reading record book. 

Crooks(1997) points out that African-Caribbean parents are anxious to help their children in any way they can. Most supplementary schools, for instance, are staffed by black teachers and volunteers. However, they often lack of confidence to offer their help in mainstream schools and wait to be invited by the teacher. Similar observations apply to parents from other minority communities(Edwards & Redfern, 1992; Coelho, 1998: Pietroletti, 1998; Legoinha Guerra, 1998). 

Edwards(1998) discusses at length the features of school organisation which need to be in place if ethnic minority parents are to feel sufficiently confident to take an active role in their children's formal education. She highlights, for instance, the importance of home visits, an 'open classroom' policy where parents are invited to come and see their children's work at the beginning or end of the day, easy access to the headteacher, and a visual environment which reflects the cultural composition of the school. 

Slater & Jaine(1998) describe projects recently undertaken in schools in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. One project focuses on the production of a booklet for children and parents about the school, translated into 6 languages other than English. This provides  'a friendly, informative introduction to the school as well as conveying the school's commitment to value and encourage linguistic diversity'(p.28). Another project describes production of a video to inform and induct bilingual parents and children into the school. Slater & Jaine (1998: 28) also discuss an initial 20-week course for parents 'to encourage them to support their children's literacy development at home and in school; to encourage them to become more actively involved within the classroom; to help them learn about the school and curriculum'. Finally, they describe a project involving parents and pupils working together to produce and use bilingual learning materials. 

In short, many researchers realise that culture and environment play an important role in helping parents cope with the demands of educational institutions(Kantor & Lehr, 1975; Boss, 1988; Imig, 1993). As Lynch  (1992: 304) points out:

Education is far too important to be left solely to professional educators. It is imperative that educators provide the framework for parental participation in the educational process so that more parents can avail themselves of this opportunity...To promote positive parental involvement in education, educators must remove existing barriers. 

Three case studies

Since my questions deal with the 'how' and 'why' of the relations between Mainland Chinese parents and English teachers, for which I had no idea or model in my mind, case studies seemed an appropriate tool for analysis. 

In July 1997, I did an initial case study with one family. Later, in June of 1998, I collected data with another three families. Yin(1989: 59) states that 'in the event of a multiple-case design, the selection of cases may have to be modified because of new information about the cases'. Each parent and teacher has their own peculiarities; however, it was also clear that the parents and teachers shared many common concerns. Stake (1995: xi) argues 'a case study aims to catch the complexity and particularity of a single case'. 

Four families attending three different schools were chosen for the case studies. Background information on the children in the families concerned is set out in Table 4. 1 below:

Table 4. 1: Background information on the case study children

Families were selected for two main reasons: they all formed part of the researcher's social networks; and their children attended schools where the head teacher or another member of staff had had previous contact with the Reading and Language Information Centre at the University of Reading where the research was based. As is always the case in classroom research, teachers are placed in a very vulnerable position, potentially opening themselves to criticism. This problem can be overcome to some extent when the researcher spends extended periods of time in the classroom and is able to build up a relationship of trust. The design of the present research, however, did not allow for extended classroom contact. It was therefore very important to identify schools and teachers where a relationship of mutual respect was already established. 

The data collection

Yin (1989) states that multiple-case study often requires resources and time beyond the means of a single student or independent research investigator. My own experience proved this to be the case. It was collected in three separate phases: the pre-meeting interviews, the parent-teacher meetings and the post-meeting interviews.  

Pre-meeting interviews

Open-ended, semi-structured interviews with parents lasting approximately fifteen minutes were conducted by myself and tape recorded, immediately prior to a parent-teacher meeting. In three cases out of four, the parent interviewed was the father because, in most Mainland Chinese families in the UK, the father is the higher degree student and has the higher level of proficiency in English. Teachers were interviewed and tape recorded for a similar length of time by my Ph.D supervisor, Professor Viv Edwards, in parallel with the parent interviews. The decision to use a native English speaker who had professional credibility with the teachers was taken in order to encourage them to be as frank as possible when expressing their views. The object of these interviews was to establish the concerns of both parents and teachers and what they hoped to achieve in the course of the parent-teacher meetings. 

Prompt questions for the teachers included:

●What are the main points about x that you want to cover in the Interview with his／her parents?

●What do you feel are his／her main strengths?

●What do you think are his／her weaknesses?

●Are you aware of any concerns that his／her parents may have?

●Have you experienced any difficulties in communicating with his／her  parents?

●Has the school done anything special to meet his／her needs?

Prompt questions for the parents included:

●What do you want to know as a result of this interview with the  teacher?

●What are your worries about your child?

●What are your expectations about the teacher?

●What are your expectations about your child?

●What areas do you think the teacher should be talking about?

●What problem have you previously discussed with the teacher?

Meetings between teachers and parents

These were either video- or audio-recorded in accordance with the preferences of the teachers. Parent-teacher meetings had been selected as an appropriate occasion for data collection because they represent an authentic example of parent-teacher interaction. The timing of the meetings was deliberately chosen to coincide with the schools' own schedules, although they actually took place on a different evening from the other parent-teacher meetings in order to minimise disruption. The meetings themselves varid in time between 15 and 45 minutes. In this respect, they were much longer than normal parent-teacher interviews. Both parents and teachers commented on the fact that they had felt less pressured because they were not 'in competition' with other parents. The communication achieved is therefore likely to have been more successful than in a situation where parents are being  'processed' . 

post-meeting interviews

Interview with parents were conducted by myself and interviews with teachers by Professor Edwards, again for approximately 15 minutes. The object of these interviews was to establish the extent to which parents and teachers felt that they had successfully communicated their concerns and were satisfied with the responses. 

Analysis data collected during the meetings and the interviews is presented below as three cases studies: Jiahui, Bob and Yang, and Qirui. 

Jiahui

Jiahui attends Redlands, a primary school which serves a multilingual, multicultural community. The children at the school speak between them almost thirty different languages. The staff have accumulated a great deal of experience in supporting children who arrive speaking little or no English; examples of good practice in this school has been widely documented (Edwards & Redfern, 1988; Chana et al. 1998). 

Jiahui's class teacher, Mrs Smith, is an experienced teacher and was deputy headteacher at the school at the time of the interview. She had not previously worked with children from the People' Republic of China, but was very much aware of the kinds of issues which confront families adapting to life in a new country. 

Before the meeting, Jiahui's parents expressed general satisfaction with the teacher. In their experience, parents were allowed to look at their children's books and folders before the parent meeting; then the teacher talked you through your child's achievement in every subject. However, they remarked on the fact that the focus was not purely on academic progress, and that time was also spent discussing the child's personality and social development. 

The concerns which emerged from interviews with parents and teachers can be subsumed under main headings: language issues, homework, and praise and criticism. 

Language issues

Jiahui was very fluent in English. Her teacher considered her to be a very able student. She also expressed support for the parents' efforts to encourage Jiahui to maintain her fluency in Chinese. Her parents were surprised at Mrs Smith's positive report and sought reassurance that Jiahui was performing at the same level as British born children. They were very aware of the limited help which they could offer at home because they were neither native speakers nor primary teachers. Before the meeting, Jiahui's father expressed the need for teachers to have specialist skills for dealing with  'international children' . 

During the meeting Jiahui's mother expressed a number of language-related concerns. She was worried, for instance, that Jiahui needed to ask for help when she did not understand what she was being asked to do in maths homework. Although she and her husband understood the mathematical concepts, they lacked the ability to explain these clearly in English and Jiahui was not able to follow their explanations confidently in Chinese. However, Mrs Smith reassured Mrs. Lu that Jiahui was performing at level 5 in both maths and English, emphasising that her level of achievement in English was above average for children of her age. 

Mrs Lu was also worried about Jiahui's ability to write at length in English and felt she needed more practice in spelling. The frames of reference for parents and teacher in this matter were very different. From the teachers perspective, spelling and writing did not constitute problems for Jiahui whose performance was well above average. In contrast, both parents were looking for accuracy, 'perfect scores' and development towards a goal; they also had no experience of what British born children were achieving and thus no point of comparison. It is therefore not surprising that attempts to communicate on this subject ran into difficulty:

Mrs Lu: Sometimes she's not sure if it's one word or two words. And sometimes she's not sure if the beginning of one word is  'e' or  'i' . 

Teacher: Jiahui's vocabulary is good. She reads a lot. She's interested in language. 

Mother: Sometimes she asks me how to spell this word or that word.  I don't know other children's level.  I feel she's a bit poor in this way. 

Teacher: Her spelling is at a satisfactory level. She doesn't have a problem with spelling. 

Homework

Homework also emerged as an important area of concern. Jiahui was expected to do work at home in addition to that set by her teacher. Her parents were giving her some Chinese homework, such as handwriting practice and writing sentences. They had also bought some maths books from a bookshop. They were worried by what they perceived to be the low standards in maths in British schools and offered regular support at home. They shared the widespread assumption in the Chinese community that children learn from a standard textbook(see also chapter six) and expressed frustration that their daughter was not allowed to bring textbooks home from school and that they could not find the books in question at the library or in book shops:

If we know the content of the textbook, we can check and help her if she has any problem. Now we cannot follow her... Since we cannot help her, we feel guilty. As Chinese parents, no matter how busy we are, we will spend some time in child's study. The problem is we don't know how to help her. 

They also perceived the limited amount of homework which their daughter was asked to do as a problem. Mrs Lu thought that the teacher  'should have given more exercises to students. ' 

The post-meeting interviews demonstrated that some progress had been made. The mother felt she had succeeded for the first time in explaining that she wanted her daughter to bring her maths textbook home so that she could assess what she understood and where she needed further support. She also explained that if Jiahui was asked to do more exercises to reinforce a learning point, they would not expect the teacher to mark her work. The teacher was happy to co-operate. 

Praise and criticism

Another issue which continued to perplex Jiahui's parents concerned the fundamental differences in teacher responses to children. They were surprised, for instance, that Mrs Smith seemed satisfied with their daughter's extended writing and handwriting. In their perception, an important difference between education in China and the UK is that British teachers make excuses for children in order to encourage them, whereas Chinese teachers criticise children in an effort to pressurise them to improve. They found it frustrating that the teacher seemed to spend more time praising their daughter than complaining or pointing out her weaknesses. 

The teacher, for her part, saw the parent-teacher interview as having two main functions - to celebrate Jiahui's achievements and to identify and agree targets for her future learning. The conduct of the interview embodied many of the principles enshrined in current educational philosophy and, in many ways, could be upheld as an excellent example of 'good practice': the teacher showed a genuine respect for the child's achievements, in the belief that this positive approach would enhance her self-confidence and ability to achieve still further. However, her praise in no way demonstrated complacency: she clearly identified targets which would move Jiahui's learning forward. 

In many ways, it seems as though parents and teacher had been travelling along parallel tracks, seldom making contact. From the teacher's perspective, the emphasis on the child's achievements will help to spur her on. However, she has also introduced targets and has been quite specific about what Jiahui should do to make further progress. From the parents' perspective, the teacher has failed to identify Jiahui's weak points and they therefore feel unable to take the necessary steps to help her improve her performance. The apparent failure to 'connect' may well be due to differences in educational philosophy which prevent each side 'hearing' the other. While the parents are listening for 'weak points' , the teacher actually stresses  'targets'. Although parents and teachers have the same aims, these are constructed with terminology which reflects different world views, a process which obscures the common aims. 

The achievements of the parent-teacher meeting

By looking carefully at the interviews which took place prior to the parent-teacher meeting, the meeting itself and parents' and teachers' comments after the event, it is possible to make a number of comments about what was actually achieved during the meeting. 

There can be no doubt that there was enormous respect on the part of parents for the teacher and on the part of the teacher for the parents and Jiahui. Any frustrations which emerged were related to fundamental differences between Chinese and British educational philosophy which are very difficult to resolve. On some matters, such as the parents' wish that Jiahui should be allowed to bring the textbook home, progress was made. On other issues, however, the different frames of reference which both sides brought to the meeting made it very difficult for either side  'to hear' what was being said. 

 Bob and Yang

Bob and Yang are both eleven years old and in the same class at Hillside Primary School. Yang had been to school in China for three years and Bob for five years before coming to the UK. Both children were high achievers in China and have read widely in Chinese. They now live in the same street and both their fathers are Ph.D students at the University of Reading. Yang had arrived in the UK just over two years before the interviews took place; Bob had been in the country for a little under a year. Yang was very fluent in English, while Bob was still experiencing some problems in communication. At home, both children do extra homework set and supervised by their parents. Bob keeps a diary in Chinese and studies Chinese from the standard textbooks. However, Yang's homework focuses on English and maths and she was spending no time specifically on Chinese at the time of the interviews. 

The class teacher for both children, Mrs Brown, was an experienced teacher in a school serving a large modern housing developments where approximately ten percent of the children come from countries outside the UK. She was happy to share her views on the two Chinese children in her class. Yang had been in Mrs Brown's class since the previous September. Bob was described as being 'straight off the plane' , also at the start of the last school year. 

Both children were considered to be very bright. Yang was described as  'a very hard working child' with  'all the right attitudes' :

She listens, she works, she has no behaviour problems... [In a parent interview] you're fishing around thinking what can I say next other than she's doing really well, you've no need to worry, she's going to cope splendidly at secondary school and thank you very much, could I not have a class full?

Bob was also described as  'a very bright boy' . 

Language issues

The language learning needs of Bob and Yang relate very closely to their length of stay in the country. Because Bob has arrived more recently, his proficiency in English was identified as a matter of concern by his father in the interview before the meeting; during the meeting, he asked Mrs Brown for suggestions as to how he can help his son improve his English more quickly. Mrs Brown, however, does not share these anxieties, pointing out that:

He's constructing whole sentences now with his friends and with me. He does exactly the same work as everybody else. He's learning so much all the time, so many new words. 

Because Yang had been learning English longer and was already very fluent, language did not emerge as a major issue in the interviews. Mrs Brown thought the only thing which Yang need to brush up was her tenses. This was not, however, seen to be a serious issue: Mrs Brown added that the English of many British born children was not 'half as good as Yang's'. In contrast, Yang's father attached a great deal more significance to this question: 'I noted the score is not prefect. She got half in total' . Mrs. Brown's response was to assure Mr Tan that this was not a matter of concern and that Yang was already performing well above average. The problem here would seem to lie in different approaches to assessment. In the Chinese system it is possible to obtain perfect scores; in the British system a child obtaining 80 percent in, for instance, a GCSE examination, might be awarded an A grade. There are clearly difficulties - on both sides - in understanding differences in what is assessed and the marking systems used to grade children's work. As a result, this remains a problem area for parents in spite of teacher reassurances to the contrary. This is indicated, for instance, by Yang's father's request at the end of the meeting for Mrs Brown to give his daughter extra work to do at home. 

A recurrent concern which emerges from the interviews is thus the parental desire that the child should strive for perfection at all costs. Whenever the child is seen as falling short of perfection, the parents' immediate reaction is to seek advice on how to improve.   

Homework

A similar preoccupation with high achievement and perfection emerged in parents' attitudes towards homework. Yang's father admitted that they gave extra work to Yang at home and, before the meeting, expressed the hope that the teacher would set more work to help his daughter achieve perfect scores. Mrs Brown, however, looked on this situation differently and was concerned not to overload Yang at home. Bob was also given a lot of additional work at home. As his father explained to Mrs Brown:

He writes a diary in Chinese everyday. He needs to do work from his Chinese textbook and catch up with his peers in China. He spends most time in studying Chinese because when we go back to China, he has to face the challenge. 

Parents clearly believe that the more work the child does, the better the results and they treat it as their responsibility to offer support at home.  As Yang's father admitted: 'Chinese parents always worry about their children. They are too worried'. He explained that they take children's good points for granted, and pay special attention to their weaknesses to try to help them to improve. 

Learning styles

The class teacher spontaneously drew attention to differences in learning styles between Chinese and other members of the class. The most striking area was maths where the Chinese children were felt to be  'way ahead' in mechanical arithmetic:

Bob's eyes light up at something like long multiplication, division of decimals, dots for recurring numbers which the children here probably won't learn about until secondary school. 

However, both Yang and Bob were felt to be less competent on the  'practical investigative side'. It is worth pausing at this point to consider what we know about the approach to teaching maths in China and the ways in which this may be influencing Chinese children's behaviour in British classrooms. Yang is concerned to follow the teacher's instructions to the letter; she expends a great deal of effort and is very anxious about making mistakes. Investigative maths, however, is concerned with whether students are approaching problem solving in a logical way and whether they can formulate rules for the patterns they observe, rather than finding the right answer. Mrs Brown reported that Yang tends to respond to this task with comments such as, 'I haven't got the answer yet', suggesting that she has misunderstood the nature of what is required. She clearly finds open-

ended thinking more challenging than doing a page of long division. In China, students are encouraged to follow the teacher step by step in order to arrive at the correct answer. Chinese teachers tend to emphasise the right answer rather than supporting children to find solutions. In contrast, western teachers tend to stress the importance to the process of finding the right answer. As Mrs Brown points out to Yang:

It isn't the answer. It is how you get there. It's not winning the race to see how you run it. You got to show me that you're working in a certain way. 

She attaches importance to  'keeping on and seeing where it can lead you.' This difference in emphasis can clearly cause frustration for Chinese children in British classrooms. 

Participation in class

When asked about the children's participation in class, Bob was described as being very keen to be the same as everybody else. Yang, for her part, was considered to be an independent child without close friends but with no problems in finding people she was happy to work with. Yang is a confident child but this confidence was sometimes perceived as a problem in group work:

If she's got a good idea she expects it to be taken up. She can find it difficult to work with her peers. The other children will say, 'Yang won't co-operate, she only wants to do what she wants to do.' And Yang will say,  'But I know my idea is better and will work but they don't see it.' I try and let the children sort it out rather than me imposing. We talk it through and they will concede to try both things and make a decision once they've tried them. And Yang says,  'Well that's a waste of time because my idea will work'. And she's usually right!

Children's problems

Because the two children had been attending school in the UK for differing lengths of time, their problems were seen to be rather different. Mrs Brown described the very great frustration which Bob had experienced in the early days and which led to a certain amount of disruptive behaviour: 'He became naughty - not horrendously naughty, but not on task' . His father had been called into school to discuss the problem. 

On another occasion there had been a misunderstanding over homework. Bob had been encouraged to work in Chinese but his teacher had asked if some of the work could be translated into English so that she could have an idea of what he had been writing. When nothing had appeared, she had asked Bob's father into school again to discuss the problem. When he understood what was required, he was very happy to provide the necessary support. 

One other problem was cultural in nature and related to classroom conventions. This issue is not, of course, restricted to Chinese children (see, for instance, Thomas et al, 1974; Villarruel et al., 1995). As Mrs Brown explained:

In China they stand up when they speak to the teacher. Every time Bob asked him a question he stood up to answer me and that caused him some embarrassment when he realised nobody else did. I took him to one side and explained that it was OK and giving me direct eye contact was OK. 

Yang's problems were considered to be of a very different nature. She was very much a perfectionist, drafting and redrafting every piece of work until it reached her very high standards. Mrs Brown was anxious to point out to her father during the interview that, on transfer to secondary school. Yang would either have to lower her standards or learn to work faster. Other than that, the only weakness which was identified was her use of tenses, which just fell short of native speaker standard. 

Communication with home

Communication with home appeared to be polite but limited - parents either did not come in at all or only when invited. When asked if she had any idea of the work which parents did at home with their children in Chinese, Mrs Brown explained that Yang had drawn comparisons between life in England and in China, but that she had very little idea of what went on at home. Yang's father was able to throw some light on the situation. Chinese parents, like parents in many other parts of the world(c.f.Crooks, 1997), hold teachers in high esteem. They therefore feel reluctant to approach the teacher for anything other than the most serious problems: they expect the teacher to initiate the contact and are very hesitant about behaving in a way which might be construed as causing a nuisance. They also express the view that limited proficiency in English makes communication with teachers difficult. 

Transfer to secondary school

Both Bob and Yang were in Year 6 and on the point of transfer to secondary school. Most Chinese parents have no experience of British secondary education and therefore have little idea of what to expect. It was therefore not surprising that the question of transfer was raised by both parents and teacher. The fathers sought Mrs Brown's opinion on whether she felt their children would have difficulty in adapting to life in their new school and inquired about the subjects they would be learning and the size of classes. Yang's father showed the same concern which had emerged in discussions of language and homework: 'What can we do in my spare time to help her transfer from primary school to secondary school?' Again the teacher response was reassuring: 'She'll have no problem coping in secondary school.  I can guarantee she will go in the top groups'. She was equally confident that Bob would experience no difficulties in adapting to secondary school. 

The achievements of the interview

Following the interview, Mrs Brown made a number of general observations. She was very aware that this had been a special interview  - rather different from a 'normal parent teacher' interview; no doubt this was the reason why the parents had felt able to bring up a number of issues which they had never mentioned before. 

She felt she had devoted quite a lot of time during the interview to explaining the whole child approach which guides her teaching:

Instead of pushing everything in a linear way forward, I was trying to [take a broader approach]. The fact that they weren't learning new mechanical things say in maths, because they had extended all the language and they had got a much wider perspective on things. 

She felt there had been no problems in putting across the things she wanted to say or in understanding what the fathers were saying in return but 'whether or not we were on parallel planes or whether we were actually meeting at the same point is very difficult for me to judge'. 

She was, however, able to identify a number of issues of which she had previously been unaware. It had been explained, for instance, that the very great pressure for children to succeed is due in part to the one child policy. She had not previously understood the very great concern which parents felt about their children catching up when they went back to China. Nor was she aware that they were doing work set by their parents at home. This particular discovery had triggered an ambivalent response:

They were anxious for me to provide them with material for them to work with at home to improve their children's performance. So because I mentioned in the report that Yang had problems with tenses Mr Tan wanted me to provide her with work to practice that.  I almost felt I shouldn't be making these criticisms because if I actually pointed out any weaknesses the child was going to have to suffer at home !

The parents, for their part, felt satisfied with the interview. Bob's father sought and was offered reassurance on whether Bob was likely to make a smooth transition to secondary school and whether his behaviour was acceptable. However, he also admitted that communication was limited to the basics because of his lack of proficiency in English. Similarly, Yang's father was offered information about what would happen in secondary school and positive feedback on her performance. While there was evidence of considerable mutual respect, it can be argued that there was some support for Mrs Brown's suspicion that parents and teachers were on parallel tracks. The class teacher repeatedly offered the opinion that the children would make excellent progress even without parental intervention. The parents, in contrast, continue to focus on the need to improve and ways in which they can help their children to achieve this end. 

Qirui

Six year old Qirui came to the UK just under two years before the interviews took place. He started school at New Town School. New Town is an inner city school where approximately 50 percent of children come from ethnic minority backgrounds, of which Panjabi-speaking Moslems from the biggest group. Unlike most British primary schools, New Town has a policy of setting homework and, for this reason, has a reputation among Chinese families for being 'a good school'. Mrs Lewis, an experienced teacher and deputy head, had been teaching him since the previous September. Qirui had received no formal education in China before moving to the Reading where his father was a Ph.D student at the university. Qirui has made a lot of friends in school and, in the opinion of both his parents and his teacher, had settled in well. 

Many of the same themes emerged from the interviews with Qirui's father and teacher as in those at Redlands School. However, it was also possible to build on the experience of the first series of interviews and explore new topics. The main themes which emerged were language issues, learning style and communication. 

Language issues

As was the case with Yang and Bob, Qirui's father was concerned about his proficiency in English and whether he was experiencing difficulties in understanding in class. The main reason for this concern was that he had noticed that Qirui was sometimes unsure about the homework that his teacher had set. Difficulties of this kind have, of course, received widespread attention in the literature. Kagan(1991), for instance, points to the ways in which the same 'contexts' have different meanings for children from other cultures. Because the meaning of the words, gestures, and actions may be quite different, children may misunderstand the meaning of teachers request for information, knowledge, and skills. 

Mrs Lewis's reaction to Qirui's progress in English was very similar to that of Mrs Brown at Hillside: 'Grammatically there are sometimes a few mistakes. But now he is getting more advanced with his English written work. ' She identifies the main problem as vocabulary building:

He does know quite a lot of English words now. But he may not have heard, say, volcano, English words that perhaps are not used everyday, but are used in studying science or history or geography.  So that's quite a lot for him to learn in subjects like that... He is beginning to learn some technical English, albeit at a very basic level. 

The teacher also asked Qirui's father about the language is spoken at home and, significantly, expressed support for Mr Zhao's attempts to encourage the use of Chinese. 

Learning styles

The same preoccupation with detail which emerged above in the discussion of children's approach to maths was also evident in the meeting between Mrs Lewis and Mr Zhao. Mrs Lewis described Qirui's work as 'very neat and well presented. He takes care and because of that he is sometimes a little bit slow'.  

Discussion of learning styles in Hillside had focused mainly on maths. At Newtown, attention was paid both to maths and to approaches to reading. Mrs Lewis took advantage of the interview to put across as clearly as possible various aspects of the school's approach to learning, paying particular attention to the teaching of reading. She emphasised, for instance, that reading is about understanding and is not simply a mechanical process of decoding the written word: 'It's really important that they talk about the stories and think about what's happening in the stories'. 

She also stressed the importance of children thinking about what might have caused events or what might be going to happen next, pointing out that this approach supports learning across the curriculum: 'The point is that spending a lot of time reading is very valuable for the whole of his approach to work.' she explored the question of reading beyond and between the lines, and the importance of asking questions which would make children think: 'That's the way they [children] learn to look below the superficial level of the text.' she suggested that this approach was particularly important for children learning English as a second language. Finally she touched on the importance of reading widely, encouraging Mr Zhao to take Qirui to visit the library: 'It is nice for him to go and choose books and he can borrow them and change them. That's a sort of stimilation. ' 

Maths

Mrs Lewis's observations of Qirui's performance in maths were very similar to those of Mrs Brown at Hillside. She considered his arithmetic to be very secure, with a high degree of accuracy and speed. However, he experienced greater difficulty in applying these mathematical skills to solving problems:

If you were asking questions like 'There are 23 people on the bus. Six got off in London. How many left?' He can do the numbers but sometimes he needs to think about how to apply what he knows to finding something out. And opening the investigation, he needs a little bit more support and encouragement. But he's the only child of his age we've got in the top maths group. 

Communication with between parents and teacher

Mr Zhao felt that the opportunities for communicating with teachers were rather limited: 'When I send or pick up my child, there are many children and parents there, I don't have much chance to speak to the teacher.' None the less, he felt satisfied with the school and his child's progress, and therefore did not see the necessity to contact teacher.

As mentioned above, the main problem identified by Mr Zhao during the interview was the fact that Qirui didn't always understand what was required of him in homework tasks. Mrs Lewis suggested a possible way forward:

I think you find that it will be useful to write at the top of the page,  'Qirui didn't understand this task'... so that we know that he hasn't understood... If you put a note on, we'll know that you've looked at it, but he's not quite certain how to do it and we can go through it again. 

The achievements of the interview

Mr Zhao was generally satisfied with this parent-teacher meeting. He felt, for instance, that he had a clearer picture of the school day. This confirms the view expressed by writers such as Kenway(1994) that parents are interested in general information about the school and day-to-day activities. However, he also pointed out that Mrs Lewis had attached more importance to his son's good points than to his weaknesses and felt he would have liked more emphasis on the weak points. 

Objectively, however, Mrs Lewis had spent a good deal of time on Qirui's areas of weakness, pointing to ways in which he could develop as a reader and the linguistic challenges of working in a second language. A possible explanation for Mr Zhao's perception that not enough attention was being paid to Qirui's weaknesses is the language and the tenor of the teacher's treatment of this subject. As we have seen in chapter three and five, Chinese discourse is often very direct. In the child-centred approach which has exerted so much influence in British education, the preference is for stressing the positive in a way which enhances self-esteem. Differences in discourse style may well result in parents failing to perceive that the teacher is actually identifying problems and trying to suggest possible solutions. 

Conclusions

The case studies set out above show various differences in emphasis: three of the children, for instance, were in year six and anxieties about transfer to secondary school were understandably in evidence. However, far more striking than any differences which emerged were the commonalties between the families. 

All the children were high achievers and, with the exception of Bob in the early days following his arrival, consistently on task. At the time of the interview, all were considered by their teachers to be 'model' pupils who approached their work with great care and attention and made strenuous attempts to get things right. From the teachers' perspective, however, there were a number of problems associated with this approach. Children were sometimes unable to complete work as quickly as required and this was highlighted as an area of development for secondary school. British teachers tend to see learning as a developmental activity and are happy with evidence that children are making progress towards a target. Emphasis was placed on children's need to operate in open-ended, problem-solving situations - thus Mrs Lewis placed great emphasis on reading strategies and a critical approach to reading, while both she and Mrs Brown identified investigative maths as an area which Chinese children found more challenging. In British education, process is often considered just as important as product. In contrast, Chinese teachers - and parents - are usually concerned with right answers and perfect scores. 

Language was an important issue for all of the case study parents: they did not feel they had a clear notion of their children's level of competence in English. Differences in the kinds of assessment and marking schemes in the UK and China, may be responsible, in part at least, for their confusion. They suspect that their children fall short of native speaker fluency and strive to create the best possible learning opportunities by, for instance, buying books and videos. At the same time, they want their children to maintain their Chinese. They try to speak Chinese at home and give them extra homework in the hope that they will reach a level as close as possible to that of their peers in China. Children expected to perform on a part with both British and Chinese peers are obviously subject to a great deal of pressure. 

None of the teachers share the parents' anxiety about competence in English, altough they recognise that the children may occasionally experience difficulty. For example, Mrs Lewis pointed out Qirui needs to enlarge his vocabulary in technology and learn to 'read between the lines'; Mrs Smith thinks Jiahui should read novels as much as possible during the vacation to improve both her comprehension and the production of English(c.f.Grant & Wong 1994; Edwards, 1998); while Mrs Brown points out that Yang still sometimes has difficulty wth tenses. However, they tend to take a developmental view and are confident that the children are rapidly developing native speaker fluency. 

Learning styles in China and Britain are very different. In China there is more attention on accuracy; in the UK, greater attention is attached to process. This is especially evident in the area of maths. Chinese children spend more time on numbers and calculation, whereas British children are expected to pay more attention to the development of problem solving skills. These differences in emphasis were potentially confusing for the children. Parents also had a limited understanding of the issues. They focused on their children's outstanding performance in mechanical maths but were paying less attention to developing children's problem solving skills. 

Chinese education, as we have seen, is highly competitive. Chinese parents have very exacting standards and are prepared to invest a great deal of time and effort in supporting their children. Their methods, however, are often diametrically opposed to those of the school. Chinese parents believe their task is to find their children's weak points and push them to practice and improve. In contrast, the prevailing - though by no means exclusive - philosophy in British education is to stress the positive and to build on what they have achieved. Although parents and teachers share the same goal - the best possible outcome for the child - the parental approach seems unduly critical to British eyes, and the teacher approach unhelpfully permissive to Chinese eyes. And as Kenway(1994) points out, different expectations due to the dfferent school experiences of parents inevitably affect the ways in which parents interact with teachers. 

The parents in the study experienced no difficulty in understanding and making themselves understood in basic everyday communication. In a school context, however, communication can be difficult. Sometimes parents miss nuances in meaning. For instance, teachers tend to evaluate children's work as very good, good, and satisfactory. All these terms are perceived by Chinese parents are very positive and there is a tendency to think that the teachers evaluation of the children is unrealistic. Parents also failed to realise that teachers' use of 'targets' could be equated with their own use of  'weaknesses' . 

The case study teachers, for their part, were very ready to admit that their understanding of the culture and the educational experiences of Mainland Chinese families was very limited. Significantly, they also felt a great deal better informed and more confident about the needs and expectations of Chinese parents and their children following the interviews. The parent-teacher meetings which formed the focus for this chapter lasted much longer than  'normal' interviews. They do, however, point to the potential for such exchanges. Parents clearly appreciated the opportunity to share information about both the previous educational experiences of their children and their current concerns. Teachers reported that this information allowed them to understand better various aspects of children's behaviour and parents' anxieties. Time invested in dialogue of this kind, it would seem, reaps excellent rewards.