Teaching International Students

Making academic culture visible…..

• Using surprises and unexpected assumptions/behaviours
• Turning the spotlight on ourselves …. What do we expect?
• Helping others become ‘meta’ aware: what might work?

Being explicit: about what?

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

Student Voices

• What do students find really different when they came here, socially and academically?
• What really helps them, socially and academically?
• What is/was unhelpful?
• What they would like their teachers to know and do for them, or for future students coming to the university, to help them succeed?

Support for English language

• Experiencing what it’s like to translate……
• Understanding what test scores actually mean
• Taking into account the impact of new arrival
• Being realistic about how long it takes to learn…..



• Speaking Listening
• LANGUAGE
• Reading Writing

Lighten the language load: some tips

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

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
• [The less students have to think about process the more they can think about content]