How can a teacher be able to get international students engaged in a class if they are a minority?

Are you suggesting that they are NOT engaged?  As a college professor in a virtual format, I have no way of knowing who is a minority or who is international unless they tell me and they often do not.  Shouldn't we be trying to engage ALL students?  Jan Vinita White, PhD

I concur with Napoleon.  Jan

Let me assume that you have a small group of students from different nationalities in, say, Britain, and you are teaching them about the Anglo-American culture or any other culture. Engaging them, in my sense, lies partly in you and partly in them. I take engaging them to mean motivating them to learn about the new culture by being patient with them. One thing I will not do is teach them a formal course, which would bore and demotivate them. There are many possibilities that can motivate your students, especially if they are of the demotivated kind:

(i) make them participate actively in the course by asking them to google key concepts from a list of cultural issues or values in the target culture and ask them to tell you in a short oral report what they have learnt; they will love that and will learn better especially in a competitive environment

(ii) ask them, as a second step, to give you a short written report of their search if their language proficiency allows them to do that,

(iii) when you intervene, make your contribution less wordy and as multimodal as you possibly can, using video documentaries, short films, short PPT that illustrate with attention-attracting means, etc. Mostly, I would make my approach comparative and contrastive (if you know their cultures) so that the students can appreciate the similarities and differences between the two cultures. 

Even if I understood your point, I am sure there are other ways of doing what you have in mind.

Larry, I was in a hurry when I wrote my thoughts. I know it is difficult to use students' culture as a starting point especially if many nationalities exist in the classroom.

As to assessment, what I usually do is give students 30 mn for oral presentation, which leaves them ample time for questions and comments by fellow students. In such a way, students get a grade for presentation, and assessment is in place. I also often require a written copy of the presentation for assessment. I spend the other 50 mns of the two hours complementing students' presentations. When I started using this technique, some of the students who had course with me before complained, saying that they preferred my usual PPT with an e-copy in their Inbox. But when they experimented with what I descibed in my previous post, they said that they enjoyed it.  I believe that associating students in such a way gives them more opportunities for learning.  

The worst thing to do is to treat them as if they are representatives of their countries.

During my research at international departments in Japanese universities, so often I saw professors using international students as sources of data about their country of origin (So, what is the case in China? Does this happen in Korea as well? Etc), which first alienate students from the general discussion (they can only discuss the topics 'as a Chinese', 'as a Korean'), and second, misrepresent the complexity of their countries in the eyes of local students who tends to fall to the simple "he is from China, so he knows better". 

I think the better thing to keeps students engaged and feeling part of any class is to actually make them a part of it, in equal hierarchical level when it comes to discuss it. 

Do not fall into culturalist traps of dismissing a students opinion as "coming from his background as a Chinese", but instead treat it as HIS opinion and consider it in the context of the class as if one of the "majority students". 

Then, let the other students respond to it, and if any of them use the "but you are a foreigner, you dont get it", intervene by making it clear that attacks on personal origin are not to part of a rational discussion and incentive him to discuss the point based on why he thinks it is wrong and what is his opinion on the matter. Always making sure that it comes across as HIS opinion, and not "the opinion of a native". 

This is what I can tell from the experiences I've observed here in Japan.

So many thanks for these seemingly different answers but really motivating ones. This shows how teaching has different approaches and we all speak about it according to our own experiences. 

Jan... There are many ways these days to know our students before we start teaching. We can, for example, design a questionnaire and pass it to students (probably online) to know their backgrounds, countries, languages they speak, mother tongues, previous knowledge of the course, etc. I think this can give us a good idea about the class we are going to teach and may save a lot of time. 

I think, its pretty simple, just talk to them and let them feel at home.

Let it not be an assumption that international minority students are lacking something in their lives and need to be engaged only for them to 'catch up' with their home national counterparts. In fact, the question should rather be, how can we translate the rich experiences of international students into their new environment to help us--faculty and students learn from them? In fact, international students already possess many of the 21st century skills required for the job place which many of us don't possess. Some of the listed skills are, for example, cultural resilience, adaptability, cross-cultural communication, and critical analysis. It demands a lot of resilience to leave one's home; being in a foreign country demands adaptability; cross-cultural communication is what is a challenge to every international student; and, it takes critical analysis for the international student to navigate through life daily in a foreign country. So, now back to your answer. First, we can engage international students by respecting the skills that they possess and making them to know that we're willing to learn from them, that is, we're willing for them to engage us in learning because they have a lot that we don't have. Secondly, nobody learns from a stranger who does not respect your integrity and therefore it's left to us to stop being strangers to our international students, that is, we should let them know that we care for them and we respect their integrity. So, it's time for us to start learning from international students.

Find example in which they can contribute or recognize them as you would do it for any other majority student group, so they learn how they can learn from each other. It is ridiculous to act "as if" they were not there and didn't bring with them their own experiences.  Help them to look at their own situation (as immigrants, foreigners students, etc.) critically, and to develop analitical perspectives towards their country of origin too, considering it as complex as the host society. Stimulate interest  for exchanges between students. Their experiences converge in the class (mixed, cosmopolite) where they are all trying to understand the same phenomenons in a diversity of perspective. I have every years some Chinese students in Spain. Their level of language comprehension vary a lot. A take time with the one who speak less after class or during the break and try to find with them in the internet some chinese examples of what I pretend to teach them. This often brings to the class new reflexions that we can put in common and share with others. Chinese student's reaction about my analysis and the chinese example found in the internet surprise them and help them find their own space in class and in the subject studied.

Saudi,

i  can almost visualise your class, with international students fresh from their comfort zones of similar fellow students and predictable teaching methods. What Larry calls "the fullfilment of pursuing their own interests, being creative, thinking critically, doing independent research, responding to subjective feedback, and collaborative problem solving" is, for most of them, completely new and frightening.

If by "engaging" you mean have them participate in discussion and ask direct questions, some (particularly the Asian ones -Thais, Indonesians, Cambodians, Malaysians, four countries in which i either taught or did research-....) will keep very quiet and anxious to jump in a debate. It might take them more than a term to feel comfortable. Bright they are, but their learning "style" is different. Besides all the propositions above, your idea of starting a dialogue that will feel non threatening for them, like the questionnaire, is excellent, specially if you have time later to discuss it with them and talk about their strong areas, expectations or past experiences. They will be more at ease in a one-to-one relationship (although in a much more deferential mode than British or American students). How large is your class ? Can you organise smaller study groups and have the shy ones be the reporter/ minutes takers ? I disagree with Rafael, international students, specially the first year, are constantly comparing what they see with what they knew. Without "nativising" them, ask them what is different in the way the university is structured, the teachers deliver their classes or even campus life. What Shahid says is right, they still do not feel at home and you cannot realise that all by yourself. And it will take time.

I think this a question regarding classroom management. To invite the attention of the students and be engaged the teacher must have abundant preparation before coming to her or his classroom.

I agree with Soizick and Hélène that  we need to adapt to different cultural communication and participation norms and that there are different ways of engaging in a class- also with Seth's wish not to view International students as a deficit model. I guess it also depends on what subject you teach but we find our Language classes with a mix of about 50/50 French and International students are much richer for that. At last there's a reason to speak a foreign language together which was much more difficult to manage when getting all French students to speak together in Spanish for example. We found in Management classes that giving case studies where, for example Chinese students knew more about the topic and therefore became sought after experts was very helpful, eg a Case Study on technology transfer from a US company to a Chinese one. I don't know how much time you spend on group management but if you do have some time, then including a question about how the students intend to include everyone, what roles they are going to have etc usually works well - our students often suggest choosing a mediator who can help explain language problems for example (not neccessarily always the same person) also the idea of partners from different cultures, using techniques of reformulation, writing out instructions isntead of relying on verbal ones, setting up rules for the group (eg time management which is often very different), using other languages as working languages ... .      It all sounds very obvious when written down but not so obvious in practice! Good luck anyway :)

As an "EX" international student, I know how awkward it could be when the professor "tried" too hard to get me "engaged."  Sometimes I wish people would just leave me alone until I felt comfortable in the class.

With that said, I do not "tried" to engage my students, international or not, I just have a relaxed environment for them to be comfortable enough to be involved.

There are a couple things I do throughout my classes.  I shared my own story and many stories from my 30 years of work experiences, which involve interactions with people from various backgrounds.  Those stories spark many questions and some can be very personal, but my students are comfortable enough to share in the classes.

Another thing I do is putting students in the discussion groups randomly for various topics, but the rule is that they do not need to talk if they do not feel comfortable enough.  What usually happens is that a couple students will not share at the beginning, but when others begin to share, they eventually feel the urge to share their own experiences as well.

The other thing I do is putting up butcher paper on the wall around the classroom with various questions.  Students can walk around to answer whichever question they feel comfortable answering.  Then we go through the answers and allow students to comment on them and/or add to whatever we already have.

I think that the most important thing is to be relaxed myself so students do not feel the pressure to "perform" and they will be comfortable to be a part of the class.  :)

If students decide to ignore what they are supposed to study, then they don't belong in your class in the first place, don't you think?

Dear Saudi,

you raised a very important question, apparently: i have never so many answers and debates on this forum ! Hope it is not overwhelming. Can you tell us in a few months which of the methods you use proved more efficient ? Your's is a problem we all have.

Greetings.

How interesting that everyone answered without questioning a specification of what is meant by "international" students and "minority."   Here I am in the US and instantly wondered, since here both have very specific meanings.

Hello.

First of all uts important that the "different cultural" students will have a friend from his origin, in order to make it easy for hime. On the other hand its important that there will be only few studdents from the other origin, in order not to create two groups.

Second, learning together is not result in integration. The integration arise from informal activity, mainly social. 

its very helpfull that the class will here stories from the forigner students about their origin and its culture, in order not to judge but understand special and unique norms in the origin, even if they look strange in the absorption culture.

Many thanks, Larisa, for the suggestion and making the paper available. 

Rafael Munia. What a great answer. The question i can identify with and empathise with too; the initial feeling of fear that students who are cautious in class at first due to being unsure yet of cultural peer norms may feel exluded exists. I have heard it from the students themselves. while it may take great courage and mental resiliance to switch country to study the challenges entering a homogeneous classroom setting are there. To treat them as representative of a country or culture is the first thing to avoid to enable feelings of security and mindfulness.

As an international student in Spain last year, I really wanted my teachers to reach out to me. I was only there for a semester, so I wanted to hear about the cultural activities they did with their families and get suggestions about what activities I should do. I wanted them to facilitate, if possible, my meeting of Spanish students, because making friends in a different country through a language barrier is both very important and very scary. And I wanted them to treat me like the competent student that I was, even though my language skills were not perfect. I think a lot of the time we're tempered to think people with lower language skills are less intelligent or less capable, when in fact they just need more practice and could be brilliant in their native tongue. Asking about their interests and their studies is a good way to give them that respect. 

Saudi, a colleague and I published a paper discussing ways in which to incorporate the experiences of international students into the teaching/learning activities for the benefit of the class. Parts of this paper may be relevant to your context. 

Eisenchlas, S., & Trevaskes, S. (2007). Developing intercultural communication skills through intergroup interaction. Intercultural Education, 18(5), 413-425.

Hi Saudi,

I think the answers have been really helpful so far.  Everyone has a culture and there are very few countries which don't have diverse groups of students, whatever that diversity may be.  As teachers, we need to create active environments in which student can learn. These environments should be safe places in which students are encouraged to share cultural knowings.  We need to take the time and make the effort to help students cross perceived barriers to communication. I have now worked with large diverse cohorts of engineering students, with over 20% international students, for some years at several different universities in Australia.  For details of what I found worked and why, please see Towards Globo Sapiens: etc.my PhD on this topic. You can find this linked on this site. It has the details of practical exercises you can use. Since then, I have used different Ice breakers such as speed meeting, followed by a focused discussion, after which one student presents their group to the wider group. 

These activities can all be geared to you particular area. You might like to use a 'Culture bag" activity too as used by the REACH organisation.  However, you can only use such activities successfully if you set the scene for safe sharing of only what students are comfortable to share.  I attach a PPT showing you how this works in an engineering setting.I have left out some other work we do on Rank, as this is a colleague's domain. I also suggest you read G. Badley's wonderful paper on the Globally Competent Practitioner. This challenges us as teachers. What do we need to do and to be in order to teach effectively in diverse settings in the 21st century. I hope this helps. Badley, G. (2000). Developing Globally-Competent University Teachers. Innovations in Education and Training International (IETI), 37(3), 244-253.

Hello Saudi,

Here's a thought...

The level of comfort that any student has for active classroom engagement (allowing for personality differences) is greatly impacted by existing classroom norms.

In order to gain perspective on this, one would need to look at what beliefs make it comfortable for those who do participate (again allowing for personality).

There is an assumption that we make, that suggests that if I belong to the host culture, that my point of view is the norm. The level of confidence demonstrated in my responses is conveyed as a  degree of certainty. 

An observer may wonder what makes one so certain about something that is so impacted by  personal experience?

What follows then is anticipating the response to my experience;a perspective that may challenge another's core beliefs related to their experience?

Add audience to this and the chances for adversarial responses (wrong/right) greatly increases.

Add the instructor's unknowing contributions to host norms, and responding becomes downright risky.

Since teaching approach is included in the environmental norm...

But it's just a thought.

In a class where the international students are the minority, any action to remedy the situation would depend on the size of the class. Where the number of students is small, the teacher should make an effort to understand the individual needs of the students – language barrier or cultural diversity and/or what the student intend to achieve. With these in mind, the student (s) can be assisted in tutorial groups or one-to-one basis either by peers or the teachers themselves.  Larger classes might to complicated, however, after initial individual assessment have been completed; be it via exams or other means, the teacher would be able to formulate some teaching aids to facilitate learning for the minority students who are struggling.  Once the student has been empowered and developed the confidence, they would potentially participate more in the classroom and amongst their peers.

Nonetheless, there is no quick fix, but the teacher has a responsibility to create a conducive learning environment for every student.

Saudi,

There are great suggestions from colleagues in this post already. The student abroad in Spain also should give us some perspective. Some cultures are very different and the norms of discourse in a classroom are far apart as well. Subject matter in the course can be used to draw in to "bring out" international students' participation. Trying to stage an "exchange" too early (like in the first session) may unnecessarily humiliate international students, especially if it is done within the norm of the host university. Seth points toward one path to avoid that.

Here is an idea for an exercise before any country of origin exchange is carried out in the first class meeting. If you can construct an exercise where skills for problem solving are necessary - Let's say it is in architecture (whcih is not my field).  Assigning each student to complete a quick draft drawing of a shelter or building from local materials (local to the environment they came from) can open up their knowledge to others.The assignment is to do a quick one page drawing with a listing of local materials in a legend at the bottom of the page, without identifying on the drawing their country of origin. The country of origin is the country the person is from, already known to the classroom instructor.  Have them turn it in before the second class as an outside class assignment.

Before the second class,  chose from among their drawings a few for further consideration that are the most different (one per group of four students), The  small groups of students can then be asked to analyze their peers'  reports  and describe the materials in small groups in class, and you can then ask the entire class to guess the zone that several unique drawings originate from (tropical, semi-tropical, temperate, polar, etc). Then ask students choose the country where the materials came from, even asking questions from the student if her/his country was not announced.  Allow the student who wrote the piece to "confirm" the closet answer to the country he/she is from.

This takes an entire class session - but if successful, you will have accomplished several things:  Heightened the knowledge of everyone about building materials from local environments, sharpened their analytical skills based on cultural differences, and held up the differences - as desirable knowledge. The resilience Seth spoke of will be rewarded instead of dismissed, or ignored. That is part of our job as teachers, I think.

The same exercise can be applied to your subject area. A simplistic version would be to choose several common phrases for functional tasks from different language s and then ask for literal translations into the common classroom language. You can often get cultural clues to the importance or approach to that function in distinct cultures. This can be done quickly.  For example, take the word " computer". Some native languages have translated this into unique phrases that are now evolving, and that reflects its function within their cultures, which are not always the same as in cultures that are deeply embedded with computers in every day life.

Thank you so much everybody, for this great input. Now, I have got a very solid background about the topic raised above. Best regards. 

I think you have gotten really insightful responses to far and I am only now seeing your question. I have had the experience of being an international student that prompted my research on your topic. My attached article addresses the invisibility of international students in the classroom and what can be done to engage them. I hope you find it useful to your question.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Debra

Perhaps an interesting prospect is the guardian friend. Our experience at the University of La Laguna is a good experience, the tutor accompanies foreign friend guiding students in their learning process. There is a program for tracking international students to prevent school failure.

Many thanks, David

Very interesting comments indeed.

Perhaps, the teacher could also promote group work in smaller groups where the international students from minority groups, and all students within the group are encouraged to participate in the group discussion. This may mean little presentation where every member within the group will take their turn.

Wishing you all festive season celebrations.

Peter

All the teacher need  to do, is to put the students in groups  where the minority students can mix up with others and gradually become acquainted with the members of the group. As the work together, the minority students will gain confidence and progress steadily in their academics.  

The most important thing is to include communicative activities in your lessons which provide students with the chance to mingle with others and speak to someone they may not have spoken to before. An example would be a simple "find someone who..." activity which involves students communicating with all of their classmates to complete the activity. If students are reluctant to communicate with those outside of their social circles, form groups for activities based on what they might be wearing, e.g. while you are teaching make a note of who is wearing black shoes, and put all those people in the same group. This is a really good way to split up students who may otherwise refuse to work separately.

It is also important to encourage international students to become involved with the local culture and customs. This could be targeted in lesson time by creating a CLIL environment (Content & Language Integrated Learning), or by asking the class as a whole to create a tourist brochure for the town. This would be a constructive way for the international students to learn more about where they are living.

I hope this helps!