Teaching International Students: improving learning for all

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Teaching International Students improving
learning for all

• April 2006
• Jude Carroll

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What helps?

• Recognising differences in academic cultures
• Identifying the skills students need to succeed
  helping those without develop those skills
• Support and guidance for ISs before, at the
  start, during study
• Support and guidance for all students in
  cross-cultural communication
• Changes in teaching methods to encourage
  participation by all
• Paying special attention to problem areas

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New game, new rules

• All students find University hard at first
• Some find it hard and strange.
• Some .hard, strange and in a new language
• A few hard, strange, in English and
  unacceptably wrong.
• Nearly all succeed

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Rooted in academic culture assumptions

• What do I call teachers?
• What present should I give the teacher?
• What am I supposed to be doing when Im not in
  class?
• What counts as good work? gets good marks?
• Whats a seminar and what happens there?
• How much reading do I have to do?
• How will I ever manage British academic writing?
• What am I supposed to learn from lectures?

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New game, old rules .What kinds of
surprises would you expect to see?What would you
notice ISs doing that you would not expect in a
UK student?
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Explicit about academic culture

• Assessment
• Teaching methods (purpose, behaviour expected,
  how it contributes to learning)
• Writing and reading
• Relationships and expectations of teachers

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curriculum overt and hidden

• Content
• Methods and activities
• Students experience
• Everything linked to teaching, learning and
  assessment that a student might encounter at any
  time in their HE career that derives from the
  university..
• Question what in the curriculum might need to
  change to accommodate the needs of an
  increasingly diverse student body and to
  encourage a genuinely internationalised
  university experience?

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Internationalisation.what and why?

• . ..fostering global understanding and
  developing skills for effective living and
  working in a diverse world ethos
• operating in international surroundings, under
  international market conditions an
  international professional orientation
  activity
• integrating an international/intercultural
  dimension into the teaching, research and service
  of the institution content
• graduates solving problems in a variety of
  locations with cultural and environmental
  sensitivity competency

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Internationalisation a process

• Why move?
• In what direction? By doing what?
• How will that look here, locally, in my
  classroom? Our programme? Our discipline?

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Rationales for encouraging cross-border education
/ internationalisation OECD (2004)

• Mutual understanding
• Skilled migration
• (ensuring graduates stay in the host country as
  long term support to the knowledge economy)
• Revenue generating
• Capacity building
• (using others HE provision where local demands
  outstrip supply)
• (not mutually exclusive)

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.mean by internationalisation?

• What would an internationalised curriculum look
  like
• in different disciplines?
• at the level of individual courses?
• in teaching and learning practices?
• How would internationalisation operate at the
  level of
• individual teachers?
• courses and programmes?
• departments?
• the university as a whole?
• What activities need to underpin a
  university-wide strategy for internationalisation?
  

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Back to What helps? identifying skills

• Early diagnostic activities in the discipline
  area
• Co-ordinated efforts between specialists and
  discipline-specific teachers
• Showing students examples of good practice,
  teacher feedback on good and poor practice
• Early structure and get busy requirements for
  the first few weeks

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Front-ended support

• Realistic expectations of induction
• Early diagnostic tasks and activities
• Teach skills by doing, not by explaining
• Provide safe practice and feedback
• More structure than later on..

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Early English strategies

• Tensions and troubles get focused around English
• High IELTS scores . but unready for real
  English or academic writing
• Extra needs around academic writing, especially
  if IELTS below 7.0

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Lighter language load

• Plain English
• Straightforward language (common word,
  subject-verb-object sentences, plain texts)
• Finishing words
• Avoiding jargon, jokes and metaphors
• Using non-yes checking strategies

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Every student likes.

• Pre-warning and pre-reading
• Handouts and gapped notes
• Allowing tape recording
• In seminars, rehearsal in pairs before telling
  whole group
• Native-tongue discussion of ideas
• Early, safe feedback on academic writing
• Grammar buddies
• Creating a running glossary of discipline-specific
  terms
• Less thinking about process so more thinking
  about content

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methods to encourage participation

• by not allowing the fast talking, confident ones
  to dominate..
• Ensure students know each other and know what
  they can get from each other
• Provide warning and rehearsal
• Model inclusion
• Use structured discussion formats