A Study On Cross-cultural Adaptive Problems And Their Countermeasures Of Chinese Interns

With the rise of Chinese language learning around the world, foreign teams for learning Chinese language and culture are growing rapidly, and the demand for Chinese teachers has increased dramatically worldwide. In order to adapt to the development of the situation, a large number of Chinese teachers, Chinese volunteers and Chinese interns have been sent abroad. Except for they must complete the mission to disseminate Chinese culture, they have to experience a process of cross-cultural adaptation. Compared to Chinese teachers and Chinese volunteers, Chinese interns’identities are much more special, so studying their cross-cultural adaptation has a more special meaning. The author takes this as a starting point combined with the actual situation, and he chooses Chinese interns who have went to Thailand for the study. Based on cross-cultural adaptation theory and combined with the factors that affect cross-cultural adaptation, the author employs a combination of methods of quantitative research and qualitative research and from perspectives of the socio-cultural adaptation, psychological adjustment, and teachers’roles to probe into situation of cross-cultural adaptation in Thai of Chinese interns.After analysis of the quantitative research’data, it reveals that the problems and difficulties that the Chinese interns encounter in the process of cross-cultural adaptation mainly reflect in the following three aspects:First, it embodies in the socio-cultural adaptation, including climate, diet, accommodation, transportation, daily communication, participation in social exchanges, understanding of the humor of the Thai people, participation in religious activities etc. Second, it reflect in the aspect of psychological adaptation which expresses in low personal emotion, anxiety, irritability, homesick, lonely, sensitivity and suspicion; Third, it incarnates in the aspect of the adaptation in the teachers’role which manifests in language use in teaching, teaching methods, teaching plans, classroom management, students’Chinese exam and class hour. Furthermore, from further analysis of qualitative research, it can be seen that for Chinese majors in Thailand in the internship process of cross-cultural adaptation, everyone will encounter problems and difficulties more or less, although in many cases they are in common, but due to varies from person to person and place to place, each person’s feelings and experience are different. In addition, even for the same intern, problems he encounters in the process of cross-cultural adaptation will change over time, that is, the problems inters encounter differs in time. According to the conclusion of this study, the researcher puts forward some suggestions for cross-cultural adaptation of the Chinese major interns who go to Thai, for example, further improve the level of Thai of Chinese major interns, and be more specific in cross-cultural training before going abroad and so on. Finally, the researcher sums up the limitations of the study, and proposes some problems for further study in cross-cultural adaptation of Chinese major interns.