The Qualitative Report Volume 19 Number 21 Article 2 5-26-2014 Chinese Biology Teaching Assistants' Perception of their English Proficiency: An Exploratory Case Study Xuan Jiang Florida International University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr Part of the Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, and the Social Statistics Commons Recommended APA Citation Jiang, X. (2014). Chinese Biology Teaching Assistants' Perception of their English Proficiency: An Exploratory Case Study. The Qualitative Report, 19(21), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/ 2014.1226 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Qualitative Report at NSUWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Qualitative Report by an authorized administrator of NSUWorks. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Chinese Biology Teaching Assistants' Perception of their English Proficiency: An Exploratory Case Study Abstract Many Chinese graduate students are teaching assistants (TAs) in mathematics, science and engineering departments in the U.S. universities. TAs’ English proficiency has been a subject of concern or ve en criticism for years in the U.S. However, only one research has been found around international TAs’ English proficiency per discipline. No esearr ch has been found about Chinese TAs’ English proficiency. None has been done on Chinese TA’s perception of their English proficiency in biology. With this gap noticed, I deployed interviews to explore what the three biology TAs perceived as to their English proficiency. The study found that their perception was more relevant to their content-knowledge preparation for teaching and their previous English-learning experience than cultural influence.