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?

1. Recognising differences in academic cultures
2. Identifying the skills students need to succeed
   helping those without develop those skills
3. Support and guidance for ISs before, at the
   start, during study
4. Support and guidance for all students in
   cross-cultural communication
5. Changes in teaching methods to encourage
   participation by all
6. 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