Supporting international students in new cultures of learning

A student writing on an interactive whiteboard

Student-led seminar using new technologies

Introduction

These learning activities will explore some of the problems encountered by international students studying in UK universities, and then suggest several ways in which learning support might be delivered. The activities will explore:
1. debates concerning cultures of learning
2. case studies of supporting international students
3. research concerning international students

Each section has a Portfolio Activity associated with it that can be incorporated into a portfolio for personal or assessment purposes. There is also a Linking Activity which synthesises the 3 portfolio activities from each section.

Objectives

• To examine links between language, culture, learning styles, and individuality.
• To explore case studies of how international students can be introduced to, or supported in, the expectations of new cultures of learning.
• To design an appropriate framework of support for international students in our own areas/institutions.



Activity 1: Debates concerning cultures of learning

Consider the following:
‘At one time it was thought that once L2 students had learned English they would not be at a disadvantage and could be fully integrated into the work of every classroom’ (Spack 1997, p.103).

The belief that Spack is describing here (and then moves on to challenge with a longitudinal study of an international student in an American university) assumes that language is an autonomous system, capable of carrying meaning without reliance on references to settings or users. Contrary views, which link the ways we make meaning to contexts and cultures, are many, varied, and often conflicting. It must be remembered that classrooms are about more than language: other factors such as culture, psychology, the social dimension and theories of learning are included along with language.

Instruction

The aim of this activity is to introduce you to theoretical aspects of learning and their key areas of focus. Read the following brief summaries of some of the debates that situate approaches to learning within different linguistic and cultural contexts, and consider which approach or approaches are being described.

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A theoretical framework which examines the ways that language influences how people perceive and hence act on the world, it explores the extent to which different languages cut up the world in different ways, including concepts such as time and place. For Whorf (2000 [1940]), language is ‘the shaper of ideas’.

Lantolf (1999) describes ‘the power of the mental organization set up during apprenticeship into one’s native language’.

‘...the selection of categories deemed appropriate for classifying different behaviours, and forms of address which communicate and reproduce the relations between persons of different ranks and roles’ (Bruner & Haste 1987, p.5).

...the structure of texts produced in different cultures reflects differences in thought patterns

An individual’s mental representations (including beliefs, intentions, and preferences) may be shared with others by public representations (including signals, utterances and texts).

Scollon (1999) typified western education as employing dialogue, ‘the Socratic method of teaching’ (p.15), which she contrasts with the Confucian tradition in much of Asia.

Within Western culture the analytical approach typifies undergraduate teaching, and the speculative approach is expected of postgraduate students.

‘all humans are individuals’ yet ... ‘individuals are individuals-in-context’.

Discourse communities are socio-rhetorical networks with agreed public goals, whose members have ‘familiarity with the particular genres that are used in the communicative furtherance of those sets of goals’.

‘recognition of the validity of different cultural viewpoints while remaining at ease with one’s own culture’ ((Lantolf 1999, p.28, citing Byram and Morgan 1994)

The bibliography below will help you to explore this topic further:

Cultures of learning: Bibliography (Word document 32KB)

If you are following an accredited module or wish to use these materials as part of an accredited module complete the portfolio activity below.
Cultures of learning: Portfolio Activity (Word document 24.5KB)

Activity 2: Case studies of supporting international students

In the growing climate of internationalisation of UK Higher Education increasing numbers of international students are being recruited at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. A key challenge for the institution is to provide an environment and infrastructure to support the transition of these students into UK HE and to avoid problematising the very students who are both a financial and an intellectual asset. Moreover this support must be provided at all levels, not just at the level of the institution but at the level of the department, course and student.

Instruction

Read the extracts from case studies of initiatives to support international students and select which learning outcome(s) the activity described might best achieve.

"... we had already developed a worksheet which demonstrated the difference between describing a chocolate cake and evaluating it- e.g. the cake is round/square, moist/dry, too sweet/too chocolatey etc....Once people got the idea we needed something between the oral experience and the academic and hit on humour, film and art as something people would also hold different views about."

"Throughout the academic year, students are guided into a series of relatively small focused formative tasks...These include researching ‘live’ financial information about real companies and competitors, and interactive group project working."

"Each mentor will have a group of 5/6 mentees and will initiate contact pre-arrival via email. On arrival, students will meet and arrange a series of six, hour-long weekly sessions in which certain aspects of British culture are covered, including slang, travelling around the UK, the media, shopping and pub culture."

"[This] version of tandem learning has increased the number of participants from two to three and shifted the focus to intercultural learning ... The sole criterion for forming these triads is that one or more of the three should speak a first language different to the other one or two, thus making English the lingua franca for communication. The learning outcomes ... have been widened to focus on communication rather than language and in particular intercultural communication and ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ perspectives."

"learning theories are introduced in a 'culture' module which introduces the concepts in turn (and which utilises videoed descriptions from experienced students describing their own coming to terms with say, keeping reflective portfolios)."

Below is a list of the case studies referenced in this activity together with some additional material:

Chocolate Cookies: The Route to Critical Analysis (Word document 80.5KB)
Integrating Skills Development into the Curriculum (Word document 102KB)
The International Experience at Home: Managed Intercultural Interactions (Word document 115KB)
Experiential Intercultural Learning for International Students Through 'Tandem' Teams (Word document 97KB)
EAP: Not just English for Academic Purposes but also Epistemologically Appropriate Practice (Word document 97.5KB)
Supporting the Transition to Studying at a UK HE Institution for First Year International Students at the Leeds University Business School (Word document 105KB)
Addressing the Support Needs and Expectations of International Students for Teaching and Learning within an Innovative Medical Education Curriculum (Word document 108KB)
Supporting International Students’ Integration into the Learning and Wider Communities (Word document 120KB)
Language Support for International Students and the Internationalisation of the Student Body (Word document 131KB)
An Implementation of Genre-based Pedagogy in Academic English Provision for International Students. (Word document 96KB)
Supporting the Experience of International Postgraduate Students in the Humanities and Social Sciences (Word document 108KB)

If you are following an accredited module or wish to use these materials as part of an accredited module complete the portfolio activity below.
Portfolio Activity: Case Studies (Word document 29.5KB)

Activity 3: Research into supporting international students

This activity considers research into areas of need for the acculturation of international students.

Instruction

Consider the following issues identified using a questionnaire distributed to Chinese and Indian postgraduate students at a London University and decide how many culture domains students are being required to negotiate when they come to study in the UK.

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"Well you use slides and things and they will only write on the board. Not this slides and everything."

"I am living in ******* and most of them are Punjabis or Sikhs...it is quite confusing seeing black faces like me, I mean, without seeing a white one."

"No, I don't have problems understanding the tutors because, you know, they speak professional English. But I do have a problem understanding the staffs and when I go to the bank, you know, the way they talk, I do have a problem understanding accents."

"It is clear that the image held of England in general and London in particular was not extensively supported by their perception on arrival."

"The tutor only gives you a guideline or something like that. It won't go through the lesson chapter by chapter."

"Her first holiday she was Easter and she was looking forward to learning about and participating in the celebrations. She was bitterly disappointed to find the 'celebrations' for her meant closed shops and no one around."

"The sense of history and the 'kind and gentle' people were explicitly stated as powerful components of the image of the UK."

"It was generally felt that there was a dearth of opportunities for the students to integrate into the social life of the university."

"You have to memorise lots of things but here we don't need to memorise."

"And then here, besides you studying in the class, you need to spend more time, even more than the lecture give you the time, spending more time learning."

"Sometimes your pronunciation is not perfect and then they don't understand you."







Note down any other cultures that you can think of that students may need to negotiate and which may have an impact on their learning.

Consider the following terms and make notes about how their meaning changes depending on the context:

Semantics / the Semantic Web

Deconstruction

Morphology



Now consider the following extract describing what students might experience on a course in Discourse Analysis and note down areas that you think exemplify this culture of the subject to which students need to acculturate:

...students may be encouraged to critically engage with the definition of discourse as ‘supra-sentential language use’ and explore how the meaning and interpretation of a text may be negotiated around the selection and use of particular syntactic and lexical forms or even aspects of pronunciation. For example, recent class-based analysis undertaken by my final-year students reveals how Tony Blair’s use of vernacular phonological features in party political broadcasts has increased over the past ten years. Critical examination of the reasons for Blair’s changing pronunciation leads students to consider, for example, the extent to which politicians may use strategies to ‘sound’ ideologically attractive to public audiences and, in the case of Blair, to manipulate his voice to (re-)construct himself as a ‘man of the people’.

Further reading:
The induction needs of international students at postgraduate level (PDF document 200 KB)
Exploring the development of discipline-specific language skills with increasingly diverse art and design student groups (PDF document 187 KB)

Download Portfolio Activity (Word document 24KB)

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References:

Whorf, B. L. (2000). Science and Linguistics. In A. Girvin (Ed.), The Routledge Language and Cultural Theory Reader. London: Routledge.

Slobin, D. I. (1996). From "Thought and Language" to "Thinking for Speaking''. In S. C. Levinson (Ed.), Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lantolf, J. P. (1999). Second culture acquisition: Cognitive considerations. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bruner, J., & Haste, H. (1987). Making Sense. London: Routledge.

Berger, P., & Luckman, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality. London: Penguin.

Kaplan, R. B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in inter-cultural education. Language Learning, 16(1), 1 - 20.

Zamel, V. (1997). Toward a Model of Transculturation. TESOL Quarterly, 31(2), 341-352.

Sperber, D. (1996). Explaining Culture. Oxford: Blackwell

Cortazzi, M., & Jin, L. (1996). Cultures of Learning: Language Classrooms in China. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Society and the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ballard, B. (1996). Through Language to Learning: Preparing overseas students for study in Western Universities. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Society and the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Atkinson, D. (1999). TESOL and Culture. TESOL Quarterly, 33(4), 625 - 654.

Lantolf, J. P. (1999). Second culture acquisition: Cognitive considerations. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Spack, R. (1997). The acquisition of academic literacy in a second language: a longitudinal study. Written Communication, 14(1), 3 - 34.

Scollon, S. (1999). Not to waste words or students: Confucian and Socratic discourse in the tertiary classroom. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Byram, M. & Morgan, C. (1994). Teaching-and Learning language-and-culture. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

© Dave Burnapp, University of Northampton / Alison Dickens, Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, and University of Southampton