Research On Cultural Readjustment Of Chinese Teacher Volunteers To Thailand

In recent years,with China’s influence all over the world,there has been a Chinese fever all over the world.More and more countries begin to learn Chinese,and more and more Chinese teacher volunteers are sent to all over the world,among which Chinese teacher volunteers to Thailand are the most.As the subject of cross-cultural communication,their cultural shock in foreign countries has been widely recognized and caused many discussions.After returning to the motherland,will they also encounter adaptation problems?What are these problems?What are the reasons for these problems?At present,these issues are still lacking in domestic research.These are the problems to be solved in this paper.Therefore,this paper carries out an empirical research on the cultural readjustment of Chinese teacher volunteers to Thailand,and adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods such as questionnaire survey and case interview.In this paper,the model of cultural readjustment is defined as four dimensions:general adaptation,work adaptation,interpersonal adaptation and organizational adaptation.Based on Black’s classic scale,this paper tests 43 teachers by using social and cultural adaptation scale developed by Ward and Kennedy in 1999 and social and cultural adaptation revised scale developed by Wilson in 2013 to develop a questionnaire,the preliminary conclusion is that there is indeed a problem of cultural adaptation after the volunteers return to Thailand.Pearson correlation analysis of the four dimensions of the cultural readjustment shows that the overall adaptation,that is,the degree of psychological comfort of the daily living environment,has the greatest impact on the cultural readjustment.Then,in order to explore the influencing factors of cultural readjustment,this paper sets the main influencing factors of cultural adaptation into three categories:environmental factors,personal factors and organizational factors.Through independent sample t-test,Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)There is no significant correlation between demographic variables(gender,age,marital status,education level)and the level of cultural readjustment.The correlation between cultural attitudes,values and expectations of returning home and the level of cultural adaptation is very significant,and there is a positive correlation;(2)In terms of environmental factors,there is no significant correlation between readjustment and economic environment,but a significant positive correlation between readjustment and cultural environment;(3)Among the organizational factors,job expectation and organizational support are positively correlated with homecoming adaptation;(4)Among the related factors,the expectation of returning home and cultural attitude values can better predict the adaptation status after returning home.Based on the results of the questionnaire analysis,this paper selects teacher W to conduct a semi-structured case interview to explore the specific problems in the cultural readjustment of returning home,and further explore the reasons for its formation and effective strategies.The results show that:(1)The differences of cultural values between China and Thailand are the main reasons for the problem of readjustment;(2)The returned volunteers generally face the contradiction between high-level needs and reality;(3)The maladjustment problem is mainly manifested in the physical and mental impact,especially the mental health problem.