If you've read my wiki, http://ilinternational.pbwiki.com, you'll know that the three major challenges international students face when they arrive in the United States are: Language barriers, American classroom/library culture, and General culture shock. These challenges must be kept in mind when giving information literacy instruction.
Here are my questions for you:
Have you ever been an international student in another country? What was your experience like?
What do you feel is the biggest challenge facing international students at UK?
Do you work with any international students? If yes, where are they from? What are they studying?
Can you describe a situation in which you assisted an international student or faculty member at your library? What were some of the challenges you faced? Were you able to help the patron?
Do you have any tips for the rest of the class concerning instruction to non-native speakers?
4 comments:
I have not been a student abroad, and in my work as a VR Curator I do not recall ever having worked with an non-native speaking, international student (how sad!). However, when I was teaching art history, I had a handful of international students over the course of four separate semesters. I wish I knew then what I know now! In one case, a Japanese student plagiarized his final assignment verbatim from the Web. This assignment was his last chance to pass the course by the skin of his teeth, and because of the plagiarism I gave him a failing grade. (There were other extenuating circumstances that led to his failure besides this assignment--he had not done any of the other course assignments, for one thing, so it's not as if our cultural misunderstanding booted an otherwise passing student out of the class with no recourse).
In many cases, the students were struggling with the essay exams (required testing format in the department as I understood it at the time)--although their written English was often superior to that of their native-speaking counterparts (do NOT get me started on THAT topic), given the time constraints, they simply could not cover as much ground in their written essays. However, in _all_ cases, when I offered the students additional writing time for the exams, they declined! (The Japanese student I described above was one of these!) I know we did not address this situation in our discussions, but do any of you have any insights into why this might have happened, or how I might have persuaded these students to exercise their right to more exam time more successfully? This would seem to indicate to me that these students did not want any preferential treatment, regardless of the grade they might receive as a result!
--Lesley
I have virtually no experience in teaching students--international or not--so I'm not sure I can offer much insight. The desire to NOT receive preferential treatment is definitely a possibility; however, maybe it was not so much the desire to avoid ‘preferential’ treatment, but the desire not to have attention drawn to possible ‘deficiencies.’
My college roommate had learning disabilities (dyslexia, particularly). Many (if not all) colleges/universities maintain an office/services to assist individuals with disabilities, and my undergrad university was no exception. My roommate was struggling with a few classes, and a zoology class was particularly frustrating. She knew the material, excelled in the labs and on homework, but was completely bombing tests because the instructor deducted points for misspellings when students were asked to regurgitate Latin terms. A trip to the students with disabilities office was all it would take to lessen the problem (she’d be given extra time, a spellchecker, less points deducted for misspellings, etc…), but she absolutely refused. She did not want preferential treatment and she did not want her classmates (or her teacher) to be aware of her difficulties.
Maybe your international students turned down the offer of extra time because it indicated that they were somehow ‘less capable’ than the other students (not that you were insinuating that with the offer…I obviously don’t think you were) and because of fear that the other students would realize that they needed extra time. I think many of the international students we encounter are very intelligent, capable individuals…they probably excelled in their home countries, so it must be difficult for them to admit to the difficulties they sometimes encounter in class and accept help.
~Trenia
We have had quite a few international student pass through our doors as student assistants. Most have been from India and have been engineering students. L'ville also has a large Somilia refugee population and we have had a handful of students from there (originally) although most have lived in other African countries after being displaced by the war. The trend seems to be that Intl students at UofL either are in the School of Business or in the Speed Engineering School.
Our intl student have had such varying degrees of Englsih comprehension/speaking level, but all benifit from working at the circulation desk. Working with the public is the best way to hone your skills and become more comfortable working with a second language.
Just a brief comment--I was in Paris, France (not Kentucky..lol) for 5 weeks in a study abroad program. All of our instructors were American and all of the classmates were American, so I don't know what it would be like to be in a foreign class, but I do know that despite having taken 3 years of high school French and nearly completing a French minor did not prepare me for actually being surrounded by French speakers. I completely froze up. I couldn't understand people when they spoke quickly--if more than one person was talking at the same time I felt completely lost. They used words I didn't know, colloquialisms, slurred things together. I was very grateful that my classes were all taught in English. One of the reasons I never studied abroad in France on my own was because I was afraid that I would fail miserably and not be able to understand anyone. I can appreciate how intelligent students coming here could think they know (and do know) a lot of English but really struggle. Maybe if everyone communicated flash cards.... :-)
--charlotte f.
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