Lectures and material presented orally in class
 

Especially when they first arrive, international students may have difficulties segmenting the stream of sound from the mouths of native speakers into recognizable words. Also, they may not be familiar with numerous aspects of US pop culture. Thus, you can help by doing the following:

·         Try to enunciate carefully so that words are not run together.

·         Speak loudly enough for everyone to hear you easily.

·         When explaining a concept or assignment that students must understand:

o    repeat it.

o    slow down in saying the key words.

o    write it on the blackboard or provide a handout with the information in written form.

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 Class participation and group work

·         When calling upon an international student, allow enough wait time for the student to collect his/her thoughts, formulate an answer in English, and get up the courage to say what’s in mind.

·         Think creatively about ways of drawing upon international students’ special knowledge of their own culture and country, and elicit information from them that will be interesting and useful for the whole class.  By valuing international students’ input, you are modeling important behavior for the American students.

·         Depending on their culture and level of English, many international students will not generally be as vocal as some US students.  Asking questions in class or volunteering comments may be viewed in their home culture as rude and disrespectful to the teacher.  For these students, you may just have to accept that their level of participation will not be the same as that of US students.

·         International students will often be more comfortable participating in small group work than in front of the whole class.  Some suggestions:

o    It is worthwhile reviewing with the whole class ways to make group work productive, such as including everyone in discussions, checking for understanding within the group, eliciting the opinions of those who have not spoken up, etc.

o    If all international students are put in one group, they may feel marginalized and alienated from their American classmates.

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Cheating and plagiarism

In many cultures, helping a friend may be of higher value than avoiding cheating; also, different cultures have very different ideas about appropriate citation and documentation of source material.  In addition, international students usually work very hard and are pressured by their parents to get good grades.  Thus, what we would call cheating and plagiarism may occur when the international student has no real intention of being dishonest.

·         To avoid the heartbreak and hassle of dealing with cheating on an exam:

o    Do not ask questions that can be answered with memorized chunks from the textbook.

o    Do not seat international students who are good friends together during an exam.

o    Do not put international students together in a separate room unsupervised for an exam.
 

*Material  written  by Janie Rees-Miller, Marietta College http://www.marietta.edu/