A review of support for academics to the international

student experience at UAL

The Brief

To review the current activities and assess how UAL might work effectively in supporting its international students, particularly in relation to staff development for the teaching staff.

International students (IS) – students who have to come to UAL from another country outside the UK for their tertiary education

The Methodology

Interviewed:1 international support coordinator2 members of the staff from the Teaching and Learning Exchange1 associate dean for teaching and learning 10 members of teaching staff across the different colleges

The Methodology

Interviews lasted 30-40 minutes

The interview and discussion were based on 8 questions Aim of the questions:to find out how well prepared they feel to work with IS at UALTo find out of anything in particular that has helped them work

successfully with ISTo find out of any other support they feel would be beneficial for them

and their colleagues

The Limitation

No international students were interviewed.

The Findings

The analysis of the data from the interviews identified the following:1. Key challenges faced by IS as reported by the tutors2. Key challenges face by teaching staff in their work with IS3. Support and training received by teaching staff at UAL4. Most impactful support, training and information received by the

teaching staff

Key challenges faced by students as reported by tutors - language‘There are international students whose languages are not good enough despite them supposedly having achieved things.’

‘Students are struggling with a lower language skill’ and some are arriving with low IELTS’.

‘How international students access language, particularly descriptive language. I’m a terrible person for that. I throw many metaphors. Metaphors are so embedded and I never thought about it as an issue. But you don’t want to stop using descriptive language. But I realised how difficult it is for the students and alienating.’

Key challenges faced by students as reported by tutors - language‘they have their little dictionaries and stuff that they use but it's not necessarily helpful’

‘This was flagged up to me when I went to China. They got me an interpreter out which was great but he had no [subject specific] background, and it was just really lucky that there was a student from the course whom I didn’t know because I was new to the course then. So she came in to all the lectures. He was translating things but she was saying ‘no it does not mean that’. Because she had to learn all this glossary.’

Key challenges faced by students as reported by tutors - language‘There are a few first years who have come and maybe have just passed their IELTS, only just and really struggle. It’s unfair to me that they are having to submit written work that pulls them down when they are getting good marks in other areas’

‘With the amount of writing that the students have to do particularly in the final year dissertations and stuff like that. They come here thinking they are coming to a design and technical course and yes the cultural and historical studies are really important, but actually they won’t leave with decent degrees because their written English skills even with study support and all that sort of stuff they are going to struggle with that.’

Key challenges faced by students as reported by tutors – adapting to different learning context‘It’s almost, here’s your space, here’s your tutor, you are going to have crits, seminars and discussions.’

‘To come from a risk averse environment into an environment which celebrates risks…the learning process could be very difficult.’

‘For Europeans it’s not so difficult but our teaching method is so different. You know, self-directed study. The English kids don’t get the hang of it for a while and that’s a problem. We do have different teaching methods. Questioning and arguing. Dialogue is very much part of what we do. And it’s not what they do. It can actually make some of these students very unhappy because it’s different to their comfort zone.’

Key challenges faced by teaching staff communication‘it takes a serious amount of energy. If for instance (now this might not sound terribly PC), if I have to do say 10 or 6 tutorials on the trot with people who don’t speak English, that’s hard work. I have to listen more carefully than I’ve ever listened in my life with this group of students.’

‘If someone is very eloquent in their agreement, and yet. if they have learnt their scripts to present and then they’re eloquent in agreeing. Essentially just nodding their head and saying yes, and you can get to the end of it and you say great, everyone agrees everyone agrees, that’s fine. And you walk away and you see them maybe a week later and you realise ‘Oh none of that went in’ It’s a very difficult situation.’

Key challenges faced by teaching staff self segregation and lack of connection with the home students

‘We have to understand that by the time they reach year 2 they are segregated into their niches. And then try to break that down is like the Berlin Wall, it’s like the years of preconception of the relationship between black and white people, like the relationship between China and Japan or the East and West during the Cold War. To then expect a tutor to single-handedly overcome that is an absolutely unrealistic expectation.’

Key challenges faced by teaching staff Self segregation and lack of connection with the home students

‘there is a disconnect not only between the tutor and the student but also between the students and the students. They are like two cohorts running along-side one another and their ability to integrate is not very good. Some of it is language but a lot of it is culture as well. You know the idea of speaking your mind is culturally different.’

Disconnect between course team and international student recruitment team The challenges caused by this disconnect:

Course teams have no idea on who and how many IS to expect

Recruitment of students who may not be suitable for the course and the course not suitable for the student

Disconnect between the courses’ and the students’ expectations

Staff development, training or support ‘I’m with the view that we don’t support our staff enough in cultural competences. I believe for a long time that we should have mandatory cultural competences induction, discussion.’

‘There is nothing that I am aware of. There may well be one – maybe but I’m not aware of it, and I have not done it. There’s a lot of staff development in the university but it’s usually structured around managing difficult conversations in a work place, giving effective feedback, interview skills, things that are more personal- professional development rather than developing your teaching and learning skills.’

Staff development, training or support Other responses were:

attending Dialogue

attending a conference on Attainment

attending a workshop called ‘Mind the Gap’

doing the PGCE Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication

Most impactful support or training received The PGCE and specifically the unit on Inclusive Learning and teaching in HE

‘helped me to become more reflective with the language used in classrooms.’

‘Realise that they do have different needs. It’s not just the language thing. It’s much deeper than that. The way you think is different, different culture, basically different educational backgrounds, trained in a different way to the Western way. So yeah, that’s the problem. It’s not just a matter of words. Well not a problem but something that has to be addressed.’

Most impactful support or training received Retail Overview

The Retail Overview was ‘run at the point of induction for international students only, to introduce them to the UK fashion retail market because a lot of our teaching is around visiting stores seeing fashion products in location. We gave them a lecture session on the shape of the UK retail fashion sector and we took them on an escorted field trip. That worked very very well. It was very well received.’

'The Retail Overview gave them something that was hard value. That they [international students] could see that they were brought into the debate was really impactful.’

Most impactful support or training received

‘I’ve had none’

‘I don’t’ know how to answer that because I don’t really feel that we have had any.’

Conclusionimportance of training in cultural awareness

awareness of inclusive teaching and learning

a more structured support and training in teaching a diverse classroom

training on how to facilitate better international students engagement in the classroom

stronger connection between course teams and international recruiters

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