International Students Chak-Lam Colum Yip

Sanghoun Song

Sanghoun’s experience

The quiet international student

Possible reasons why international students

aren‟t active participants in class discussions:

English proficiency

Cultural difference

Not used to the American classroom

Passive/shy, etc…

If your classroom has a lot of international students, you may want to adapt your teaching style for that population.

Group work

Most international students do not like group work.

“Do I have something meaningful to say?” “I don‟t know how to carry on a

conversation.” “I am not sure if what I‟m thinking is right.

And I feel intimidated by the more talkative students around me.”

“What if they don‟t agree with me? My English isn‟t good enough for me to defend my point. (Or my English is good enough but I don‟t like to debate with others.)”

Group work

Group work fosters learning, but if the students are too averse to it, I try to…

Put them in the same group as their friends

Let them work in pairs (or smaller groups)

If a student is still too shy to talk even in a smaller group, go to him and ask him what the group has done so far, and then ask him what his group should do next.

Other ways of contributing in class?

Doing problems on the board

Other ideas?

Test prep

International students LOVE test prep/drilling. ◦ Questions from older exams?

◦ Questions that Laura didn‟t use?

I always give them sample questions during midterm review and final review. Too much drilling may be overkill.

Writing homework/test questions

Be considerate of ESL students. Not everyone who passed ESL classes has the expected English proficiency. (It‟s impossible to learn English in 3 quarters!)

E.g. I saw her duck “red tape” (bureaucracy) Having a non-native English speaking TA

in the L100/200 team usually helps.

Cheating

My observation is that there are more cheaters in classes with a large number of international students.

◦ Strong sense of collaboration

◦ Helping out your fellow countrymen in a foreign country

◦ “Friends share answers!”

Be sensitive, but don’t be too easy on them!

◦ Grade fairly and only based on what is written. You shouldn‟t have to give anyone benefit of the doubt just because English is not his first language.

◦ X “My advisor told me I have to pass this

class or I will be deported to China after the quarter ends. Please give me 2 more points.”

Be sensitive, but don’t be too easy on them!

Example: (461 student) Explain why the following are ungrammatical sentences in

English. For each one, make reference to a rule or parameter that you have learned in this course.

*ate sushi. (Meaning: „I ate sushi.‟) Answer: Extended Projection Principle or Theta

Criterion The student got this wrong and claimed that she

should get credit for it because none of the two model answers above has the word “rule” or “parameter”.

Helpful links

More information on the immigration status of international students.

F1 visa:

http://iss.washington.edu/rules-regulations/f1

J1 visa:

http://iss.washington.edu/rules-regulations/j1