An American Professors Advice to Chinese Students.doc

An American Professor’s Advice to Chinese Students 美国教授对欲赴美留学者的忠告?Try a little to stretch yourself and integrate into the greater society around you．It’ s definitely ?a challenge．It can be difficult and unpleasant．But? it can also be fun and enriching，rewarding and of the utmost benefit in the long run． Chinese TOEFL scores are averaging a little above 600, an amazing standard．But U．S．admissions officers ?are keenly aware that elevated TOEFL scores do not necessarily indicate truly superior command of the language． The phenomenon that the Chinese graduate student? can’t speak English is quite common and widespread among U．S．universites． Some U．S．universities now conduct phone interviews? of prospective Chinese graduate students．All this to insure that students culled ?from the highly reputed Chinese talent? pool have the linguistic ?skills to bring their talents to bear on those tasks with which the university needs help． For most Chinese graduate students t he language problem soon begins to resolve itself after arrival in the U．S．Be that as it may，a large number of Chinese graduate students continue to struggle with English years after arrival and even years into their professional lives here，which does have a negative impact on employment especially in times like these when market downturns dictate massive layoffs across many industrial sectors． The crux ?of the problem lies in the Chinese student community．Not surprisingly，most Chinese graduate students begin their U．S．experience in a shared apartment or house exclusively with other Chinese．If they happen to work in a lab where there are other Chinese graduate students then there is often hardly any need to interact with Americans． The long and short of this is that it is well worth a Chinese student‘s trouble to learn English well．Spoken English．Not just test－taking，TOEFL－blasting English．U．S．university admissions officers are less and less to be fooled by only a poor to middling command of the spoken langu