A new initiative: ‘Teaching International Students’

1. A new initiative:‘Teaching International Students’ Dr Fiona Hyland ESCalate, Subject Centre for Education QUILT Conference University of Cardiff 8 February 2010

2. A presentation in 2 parts: Listening: The ‘Changing World’ project & IaH Acting: A new national initiative – Teaching International Students

3. A Changing World: the internationalisation experiences of staff and students (home and international) in UK Higher Education Fiona Hyland, Sheila Trahar, Julie Anderson & Alison Dickens

4. http://escalate.ac.uk/5248

5. Aims To explore the perspectives of students and staff on: what the terms 'internationalisation' etc, mean to them, the extent of internationalisation within their institution, the effects on teaching and learning, their challenges & successes.

6. Methods 15 Focus groups in February to May 2008 5 locations with participants from across UK A range of disciplines e.g. Business, Engineering, Education, Sociology, Arts, English, Mathematics Separate groups of international & home students Topic guide

7. Key Challenges as perceived by staff & students in the study

8. HEI strategy & staff buy-in “internationalisation means recruitment; it means reaching out and pulling students in". Staff “probably in a lot of cases the people who decide how many students (as many as possible) are not the people who then have to deal with them... So I think the problem is basically that the system has become too financially driven without, you know, care for the quality” Staff

9. Entry requirements Concerns about how English language tests (IELTS, TOEFL) are used, what scores are required “one person I lived with actually … it’s a sad story, because she was doing a music course, and she actually had to quit her course because she couldn’t cope. I was like ‘Well why did the University let her in?’ – I, kind of, got a bit angry… they really shouldn’t have let in if her English was so bad that she couldn’t cope with the course.” (Home Student)

10. The Curriculum For the international marketplace Embedding internationalisation vs tagging on extra modules / case studies Different disciplines, different approaches Accreditation restrictions Graduate attributes

11. Teaching & Learning “Yeah, when I came to the lecture room it seems like white people sit at the back, white people, and then in the middle some like me, yellow coloured people, and then at the front, black people. And when they divide groups, just like Malaysia students will go with Malaysia students. Muslim students would like to go with Muslim students. White people will get white people together.. people are still sitting (like this) for a whole year” International Student

12. Teaching & Learning Staff suggestions: what worked for them Group work was seen as challenging, but effective when encouraged

13. Student Interactions Cultural cliques Language HEI and degree course barriers Cultural differences in socialising

14. Student: I guess we didn’t mention it (alcohol), because it’s so obvious, it’s just there. Student … my interpretation of the word sociable is: helpful, supportive, friendly, maybe patient, things like that. It turned out to be different here. Moderator what is it here, your perception? Student As experienced in my hallway, it means being able to drink more than 10 pints of beer an hour. If you can do that, you’re very sociable. Otherwise, you may be intermediate.

15. Internationalisation at Home We don’t do it actually (make the effort to get to know international students). I mean that’s the problem. It’s also our responsibility to find out and we don’t actually do it, we find so many excuses, like ‘I have to do this, and this, and this’. (Home Student)

16. Generally, this is a positive report: internationalisation enriches lives So no matter how much I might have tried it’s only by having students from Ghana, from Nigeria, from Taiwan and from India who when they talk about (their contexts) you can begin to understand the parallels and the contrasts and comparisons and it brings a dynamic to the learning that is so real, so alive, so energised, that no textbook, no amount of me preparing to remember to say ‘oh and in Singapore it might be different, oh and in Canada they do this'. There’s no way that I could have created that. That is a very dynamic and creative element of the learning for students and for me. (Staff)

17. Conclusions

18. IaH through the Curriculum Internationalising the lecturer? Sanderson (2008) Teekens (2000) How ‘local’ is the content? CICIN, Oxford Brookes University Haigh (2009)

19. IaH and intercultural competencies e.g. Stier (2003) Content – knowledge about other cultures Intrapersonal Cognitive e.g self-reflection Emotional e.g. avoiding judgements Interpersonal Communication competence

20. IaH and student interaction Doesn’t just happen you need strategic interventions (Leask, 2007) Managed (long-term) group work Mentoring/buddies Using learning outcomes which value cross-cultural learning Global citizenship schemes

21. At the same time, in 2008/9, a national initiative was being proposed …

22. Teaching International Students Run by the Higher Education Academy Funded through the Academy, UKCISA & PMI2 2 year project

23. The Team Janette Ryan Jude Carroll And many others across UK

24. Teaching International Students - Aims Raise the profile of teaching and learning for international students Establish a repository of national and international research Identify and disseminate information and guidance Provide guidance on staff development strategies Establish a network of interested people

26. A one stop shop…

27. Strategies include: Considering with students how knowledge/content might be alternatively constructed in different cultures. Ensuring that learning outcomes include values and skills as well as knowledge. Discussing relevant ethical issues in international contexts. Giving time in sessions to considering how professional practices might differ across the world. Building-in experiential learning so that students can experience and reflect on the intercultural aspects of their learning alongside the core disciplinary learning. Extract from Internationalising the Curriculum section

28. Empathy Game – ‘Not knowing the rules’ Based on Leask, B. (2000). Teaching NESB and International Students of the University of South Australia, Teaching Guide. Adelaide: University of Adelaide. Also quoted in Carroll & Ryan (2005; p. 143) Make a simple set of cards by cutting up paper and with different colour pens writing the numbers 1 - 10 on a few of them (draw a line under 6s and 9s to show which way is 'up'). On the remaining cards draw a few random marks such as black dots in some corners, green triangles at the base, perhaps a blue square in the top left corner and so on. Then divide participants into smaller groups of five or six people. Tell them to devise a simple card game based on Top Trumps or Snap. The rules need to be easy to learn and they need to use the numbers and markings on the card. The game needs to identify who is a winner and who is a loser in each round of play. Groups are bullied NOT to devise too complex a game! Allow groups to practise for three or four minutes until everyone is an expert. Then ask one person from each group to leave the room. Pass round the room a sheet of paper that specifies a change in the rules – for example, that all red numbers are doubled for everyone who has stayed in the room but not for the returner (i.e. a 3 becomes a 6 etc). Or that anyone with a green triangle is automatically the winner – which applies to incomer plus the remaining group. Or that black numbers don't count. The groups now play the game with the additional rule, until it goes smoothly - maybe a minute or two. Invite the people who had gone outside to return and re-join the game. The groups are instructed to be friendly but not to explain what is different, just play. The groups are allowed to play for a maximum of five minutes. After this, ask groups to discuss how they felt about the outsider; and ask the outsider to express how they felt. What was going on for the outsider? How much 'head space' was devoted to trying to understand the new situation? Ask groups to consider how they could have helped the outsider?

30. Provisional dates for collaborative Subject Centre events 5 March BMAF in Leicester 11 May ESCalate in Bristol 30 April Economics Network, LSE London May: Psychology June: Engineering June: Languages, Linguistics & Area Studies

31. Strategies for supervision & assessment A TIS / ESCalate event Tues 11th May 2010 University of Bristol Facilitators: Jude Carroll Sheila Trahar http://escalate.ac.uk/6560

33. Further details from: Fiona.Hyland@bristol.ac.uk Katherine.Lagar@heacademy.ac.uk http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/home