With increased mobility in the age of globalization, recent decades have witnessed a noticeable increase in cross-border student migration for pursuing higher and further education, especially in developed countries. Such a global phenomenon has led to important academic and social implications for the migrant students themselves and the host institutions. Hong Kong is no exception in witnessing the substantial increase in the number of cross-border university students from mainland China in the last two decades. 1997, the year of Hong Kong’s handover to China, saw the arrival of the first cohort of mainland students in Hong Kong for undertaking their university education, marking the beginning of an ongoing cross-border flow of mainland students into Hong Kong higher education. In pursuit of their cross-border education in Hong Kong, mainland Chinese students are likely to expect to acquire different valuable forms of cultural capital, one of which is enhanced English proficiency.

This paper reports on findings of a qualitative inquiry into mainland Chinese university students’ lived experiences of learning English as a second language in a university in Hong Kong. Data were collected via a series of in-depth interviews with a group of mainland Chinese university students who came to Hong Kong for their tertiary education. The study found that their participation in English learning and use practices appeared to be mediated by contextual conditions in the new sociocultural setting and was closely intertwined with their negotiation of identities and membership. Findings revealed that they appropriated the sociolinguistic norms of the local society to increase their opportunities to speak English under appropriate circumstances. While they negotiated fuller participation in the English-medium classroom as competent members, they struggled in gaining access to social networks of exchange students, which prevented them from engaging in meaningful English interactions outside the classroom. It was also revealed that the participants positioned themselves differently in relation to their interlocutors in interactions, depending on the interlocutors’ native/non-native status.

The findings have important implications for universities’ policies and practices in supporting migrant students’ English learning efforts during their academic studies. As English is one form of cultural capital that migrant students desire to acquire in their cross-border pursuit of tertiary education, international universities should provide adequate support for these students to maximize their opportunities to learn and use English both inside and outside the classroom. For example, universities could offer language enhancement courses that support students’ continued English language development in speaking and writing throughout their academic studies. Universities could also run workshops to raise students’ awareness of the various opportunities to learn and use English outside the classroom, especially how different contextual conditions could afford different language learning possibilities.

Author Profile(s)
Matthew Sung is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. He previously taught at the University of Hong Kong and Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He holds a PhD from Lancaster University, UK. He specializes in sociolinguistics, language ideology, language and identity, second language learning, and higher education. His recent publications have appeared in journals such as ELT Journal, English Today, System, Applied Linguistics Review, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Journal of Gender Studies, Language, Culture and Curriculum, Linguistics and Education, and Journal of Language, Identity and Education.