The Eastern Train on the Western Track

Xing Xu is an English Lecturer at Sichuan International Studies University, China, and a researcher at the School of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia. She has been widely involved in research projects on English teaching and learning in China as principal investigator and co-investigator. Her research expertise includes English Teaching, International Education, Cross-cultural Studies, and Qualitative Methodology. She has a well-recognised publication record in these research areas in both Chinese and international refereed journals. Helena Hing Wa Sit is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia. Prior to joining the University of Newcastle, she worked as a teaching and research academic at Macquarie University and the University of Hong Kong. She won the Newcastle annual award for best Ph.D. thesis in 2011. In the same year, her Ph.D. thesis was nominated by the University of Newcastle for the 2011 AARE (Australian Association of Research in Education) Doctoral Award. Her expertise includes International Education, Second Language Education, Teaching Strategies for Advanced English Learners, and Cross-cultural Studies. Her research experience at Hong Kong University, the University of Newcastle, and Macquarie University is concerned with internationalisation, transformative learning, and innovation language education programmes. She has supervised numerous Ph.D. students, and her contributions have been recognised at both the national and international levels. Shen Chen is a programme coordinator for both Master of TESOL and Second Language Teaching at the School of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia. Educated in both China and Australia, he has worked at Nanjing Normal University, China, and at Melbourne University and Deakin University in Australia. His international experience includes serving as a research fellow and Visiting Professor at Cambridge, Warwick, UK; the University of California Berkeley, USA; UBC in Canada; Hong Kong University, and Nanjing University in China. His reputation for outstanding research and teaching led many international Ph.D. students to pursue his supervision, which garnered him a Supervision Excellence Award from the University of Newcastle, followed by a National Teaching Award in 2014. One of his most recent books is Teaching of Culture in English as an International Language: An Integrated Model, London, UK: Routledge (2019), co-authored with one of his former students.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. An overview of international doctoral students’ cross-cultural adaptation.- Chapter 3. Research design and methodology.- Chapter 4. Conceiving and preparing: Unfolding the doctoral map.- Chapter 5. Surviving and thriving: Navigating the doctoral trajectory.- Chapter 6. Reflecting and projecting: Evaluating the doctoral experience.- Chapter 7. Discussion:  Cross-cultural adaptation as a process of human development within the bio-ecological systems theory.- Chapter 8. Conclusion.