Gita Sedghi, lecturer in chemistry at the University of Liverpool, who ran a project last year for the Higher Education Academy on preparing for the arrival of a group of Chinese chemistry students, says contacting students before their arrival, assigning them mentors, encouraging peer-assisted learning and ensuring they are properly integrated with home students can help international students adapt to a different culture. But, she says, language skills can still affect how some students perform academically, with those from China tending to perform worse in exams when written explanations are needed than in exams relying on calculations. "Chinese students' culture is that they work to get credits and marks and because they don't get credit for going to English classes, their attendance can be poor," she says. "We have now asked for them to get a certificate of attendance at these classes."
吉塔·赛德吉是利物浦大学的化学讲师。去年她为英国高等教育协会主持了一个项目，为中国学化学的留学生适应在的英国学习做前期培训。给这些留学生配备导师，鼓励同学之间协助学习，并且确保他们能融进本地学生的生活，这些都能帮助留学生适应异国文化。但是，她说语言技能仍然会影响一些学生的学习成绩，在要求写书面解释的考试中，中国留学生表现得就会比在只要计算的考试中更差。“中国学生的传统就是学习就是为了获得学分和分数，上英语课没有学分，所以出勤率就很差。我们现在要求他们有这些课程的出勤证明。”她说。
Liu says that this mentality of working only for credits could affect Chinese students' performance in another way. In China, degree classifications do not exist; working incredibly hard at school and performing well in exams to get to a good university matters more than what happens once they are there. "It's a one-off event and nothing can change it," she says. "Afterwards students just relax. They never have the same pressure again."
刘雅丽说这种只追求学分的心态还会以另外一种方式影响中国学生的成绩。中国没有学位等级制度；重要的是拼命学习考高分再上个好大学，至于上大学之后做什么就管不着了。“上大学是成败在此一举的事，没有什么可以改变这种状况，”她说，“进了大学之后，学生只管放松。再也不会有之前的压力了。”
But it could also be that UK institutions need to work harder to take into account what a big step it is for young people from a radically different culture and linguistic background to get to grips with student life in the UK. "Our home students don't go abroad because they aren't confident enough to go," says Sedghi. "These kids [from China] are coming here and facing a big challenge. I think confidence is very important and we can help."
中国年轻的学生来自一个有着巨大差异的文化和语言背景，要融入在英国的学习生活，会是一个很大的跨越，也许英国的教育机构也需要尽力把这一点考虑进去。赛德吉说“我们的本土学生不出国留学是因为他们没有勇气出去。中国的孩子们来这里学习面临着巨大的挑战。我觉得这种勇气很重要，我们可以帮助他们度过难关。”