International+students

I think that our experiences in teaching international students tells us a lot about ourselves as teachers and our Selves in the face of Otherness. In my experience, when most academics in Australia talk of 'international students' they generally mean learners from diverse cultural, language and educational backgrounds. Actually, they are operating from the point of 'difference' rather than 'diversity'. That is, it's mostly about students who speak English as Another (or an Additional) Language (EAL) and come from a non-Western background. In Australia over one in four of the 600,000+ university students are full-fee paying international students and the majority of them are from non-Western countries; mainly Confucian-heritage and sub-continent cultures (especially China and India). A lot of faculty indicate that they struggle to know //how// to teach international students and the challenges they voice have to do with English language ('they don't speak it'), participation in class ('they don't do it') and approaches to learning ('they rote learn it').

For me, teaching international students is experiential in the same way that all teaching is experiential. A good teacher is simultaneously a learner. I like the work of John Biggs around inclusive approaches to teaching which, I think, is a big part of the solution to challenges around teaching international students. It's about universal teaching principles, that is, 'good' teaching will address the needs of all learners (well, theoretically at least.) But for me the icing on the cake is to marry this teaching with an openness towards other cultures and an appreciation that there are more ways to understand the world than the way we may see things. I am reminded of this in a book I'm presently reading by Everett (2009) about his time as a missionary living with Indigenous Amazonians. This exerpt is taken from pp. xv-xvi:

//"Look! There he is, Xigagai, the spirit." 'Yes, I can see him. He is threatening us." "Everybody, come see Xigagai. Quickly! He is on the beach".//

"I was now completely conscious, awakened by the noise and shouts of Pirahās. I sat up and looked around. A crowd was gathering about twenty feet from my bed on the high bank of the Maici, and all were energetically gesticulating and yelling. Everyone was focused on the beach just across the river from my house ... Their excitement was growing ... I was rubbing sleep from my eyes. I turned to Kóhoi, my principal language teacher, and asked, "What's up?" He was standing to my right, his strong, brown lean body tensed from what he was looking at.

"Don't you see him over there?" he asked impatiently. "Xigagai, one of the beings that lives above the clouds, is standing on the beach yelling at us, telling us he will kill us if we go into the jungle."

"Where?" I asked. "I don't see him."

"Right there!" Kóhoi snapped, looking intently toward the middle of the apparently empty beach.

"In the jungle behind the beach?"

'No! There on the beach. Look!" he replied with exasperation.

The PDF below provides information about working with international students, especially English as Another Language (EAL) students, during their life and study in Australia.

(PDF 48 KB)

Many of the strategies in the PDF above are similar to those listed below. The 20 strategies outlined below are distilled from qualitative research data from Sanderson (2006) who interviewed six academic staff from an allied health department at an Australian university. The department was peer-recognised for leading practice in teaching international students.

1. Speak clearly. 2. Speak slowly. 3. Explain idiom. 4. Explain acronyms. 5. Contextualise information. 6. Use email for communication. 7. Ensure that students know the learning resources at their disposal. 8. Check for understanding. 9. Clear presentation of written and verbal information to students 10. Discuss case studies before seeing patients. 11. Spend more time with international students. 12. Get to know students’ names. 13. Pronounce students’ names correctly. 14. Enable international students and Australian students to work together in small groups. 15. Let international students be the experts by relating their experience from their home culture. 16. Provide early assessment with feedback. 17. Explain assessment requirements, for example, what it takes to succeed in essays and assignments. 18. Provide one-to-one support where applicable. 19. Encourage international students to actively participate in small group activities. 20. Encourage, applaud, and celebrate risk-taking in class.

Note that the majority of these strategies will benefit all students. This suggests that they are 'universal teaching strategies'. See how this suggestion sits with the information on the Good teaching page. I think the idea of universal teaching strategies resonates well with Bigg's Level 3 teaching and it helps make sense of his claim that the ethnicity of students has nothing to do with classroom teaching. In promoting this view, I don't think Biggs is devaluing cultural diversity. So, when running workshops and working with faculty on the matter of 'teaching international students', recognise that they will mostly be focussed on 'culture in the classroom' and be prepared to unpack and discuss this ... but do lead them to the idea of universal teaching strategies. It's funny but I think faculty will be somewhat relieved to know that they //only// have to become a better teacher to meet many of the learning needs of international students than to become an expert on culture! Phew! However, becoming a better teacher is in itself a significant commitment to developing knowledge, skills and attutudes/dispositions in this area; but at least that work can done within the cultural framework that they are most familiar with. It gives them permission to 'be themselves' and not seemingly have to become a 'cultural Other' in order to work with the cultural Other. Again, I think most faculty will breathe a collective sigh of relief on this.


 * References:**

Everett, D. (2009). //Don't sleep, there are snakes: Life and language in the Amazonian jungle//. London: Profile Books Ltd.

Sanderson, G. (2006). //[|Examination of a profile of the ideal lecturer for teaching international students]//. Adelaide: Flinders University.