Keynote presentation delivered by Janette Ryan at the 2012 BLA conference held in Stirling from 4-6 July.

1. Supporting international students to
develop academic literacy skills
Janette Ryan
Director, Teaching International Students Project,
Higher Education Academy
Business Librarians’ Association Conference
July 2012

2. Outline
• Changing teaching and learning contexts
• Misconceptions about international students
• Challenges facing international students
• Providing holistic support for international
students
• Academic literacy skills for international
students

3. Changes in teaching contexts
• 17% overall are IS
• 14% of first degree students
• 70% of full-time taught postgraduates &
46% of all PGTs; 48% of full-time research
degree students & 41% of all PGRs (UKCISA, 2012)
• Increased TNE programmes, branch
campuses, online learning

4. (UKCISA, 2012)

7. Misconceptions about international
students
• ‘Deficient’ learning styles: rote learners, lack
critical thinking skills, prone to plagiarism
• Don’t want to participate in class discussion
• Only interact with others from similar
backgrounds
• Homogeneous group with similar learning styles
and expectations
• Don’t consider contextual teaching, learning and
assessment factors and role of previous
experiences and expectations

8. Outstanding issues
• ‘Frontloading’ or ‘add on’ leads to ‘deficit’
approach
• Takes responsibility away from academics -
‘someone else’s problem’
• Lack of connection with foundation
EAP/programmes
• Focus on technical skills eg paraphrasing,
plagiarism rather than discipline-based academic
skills
• Not embedded within discipline, extra costs

9. International student issues
• Language and assessment issues
• Don’t know the ‘rules’; unclear expectations
about academic literacy skills
• Lack required background knowledge
• Know they are viewed as a ‘problem’
• Difficulties participating and making friends
• Do achieve well overall but need support
• When things go wrong for IS, they go terribly
wrong (academic progress reviews, plagiarism
accusations)

10. UK National Student Survey
Q22 Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course
83
82
81
80
UK students
79
Int students
78
77
76
75
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

12. Can we provide more holistic
approaches?
• Generally do ‘welcome’ well but ….
• IS feel welcome in some areas not others -
shock after foundation programmes
• 3 levels of shock - cultural shock, language
shock, academic shock…

13. Underlying causes of IS’ difficulties?
• Cultural shock
• Language shock
• Academic shock
Need to understand these in order to address
them

14. Language shock
• Their English is not as good as they thought
• Harder to do reading, understand lectures
• Role of language in dialogue and expressing
thought - feel ‘deaf and dumb’
• Developmental nature of learning language and
academic writing & different cultural approaches
to writing and expression

15. Academic shock… Persists…
• Academic literacy practices assume local linguistic and
cultural knowledge
• ‘Rules of engagement’ - modes of classroom
participation, forms of academic writing
• Expected to conform to implicit ‘norms’ (how to
structure and express an argument and use evidence)
• IS can feel their knowledge and experiences are
undervalued, impacts on self-esteem and identity

16. Developing more holistic
approaches

28. Case stories from students and staff…

29. It takes us extra time
The biggest problem I have found is the listening
skills. As an international student, one has to
catch up with what the lecturers have stated in
class. The teachers speak at a normal native
speaker’s pace. It is hard to follow the instructors
in detail, which can be a barrier to grasp the key
elements in handouts. Often, international
students are ashamed to ask questions in class
and even after class and let it be. Day after
day, problems stick together and I do not know
which to tackle first…

30. ‘Autonomy’ versus ‘text-centeredness’
‘OXFORD!’ I cheered to my colleagues as I opened my letter of
acceptance from the University of Oxford. Little did I know that it was not
just the course that I would be attending at the University but I would be
struggling with a whole range of perceptions, attitudes and value systems
that came along with it... For instance, my course expected me to write
an argumentative essay every week, but I was more interested in reading
what other great minds had to say beyond the ‘reading list.’ Writing
essays every week seemed more of a distraction to what I really wanted
to read and think about as writing seemed to consume more time. I soon
learnt that this, being an Asian learner (from India), could be viewed as
‘text-centered’ and lacking the ‘autonomy’ to produce what I think. On
the other hand, I wondered if my tutor lacked ‘autonomy’ as they have to
follow the system and I was being ‘autonomous’ in terms of deciding on
my learning. I assume the Oxford system and I attached different
meanings to the notions of ‘autonomy’ and ‘text-centeredness’ and we
measured them through different parameters.

31. Supporting international students
• More coordinated approaches to academic skills
training (joint sessions)
• Use of sources (avoiding plagiarism)
• Providing support at all stages of the
‘international student lifecycle’ – eg Open
Educational Resources, Facebook, podcasts
• Use of foreign language sources and databases
• The role of ‘frontline’ staff – good
communication skills
• Broadening cultural academic paradigms and
academic skills?

32. Learning about other
knowledge, language and academic
values and skills
China as a case study…

33. ‘UK’ ‘Chinese’
• Critical thinking • Follow the Master
• Independent learning • Dependence on the teacher
• Student-centred learning • Respect for the teacher
• Adversarial stance • Harmony
• Argumentative learners • Passive learners
• Achievement of the individual • Achievement of the group
• Constructing new knowledge • Respect for historical texts
• ‘Deep’ learners seeking meaning • ‘Surface’ or rote learners

34. What is ‘internationalisation’?

35. “Internationalisation is the process of
integrating an international, intercultural or
global dimension into the purpose, functions
or delivery of post-secondary education.”
(Knight, 2004, p. 11)

36. “The internationalisation of education can be
expressed in the exchange of culture and
values, mutual understanding and a respect for
difference…The internationalisation of education
does not simply mean the integration of different
national cultures or the suppression of one
national culture by another culture.”
(Gu Mingyuan, 2001, p. 105)