Learning in a Foreign Environment - A Student Services Perspective

Issues that staff in Student Services encounter with students new to UWA include:

• Loneliness and anxiety

  One of the biggest hurdles for new students from overseas or from remote parts of this state is the sense of isolation that may engulf them during the early stages of their studies. Social isolation is very detrimental to students´ experience of university life. Ensuring that all students make at least one friend in their course is probably one of the more important things we do. There is much data (McInnes 1994) to indicate that lack of success and under performance in first year is related to isolation. Most have made a clear, considered decision to come here and are committed to do their best to succeed, seeing study in Australia as a big opportunity.

• Language barriers

  Many students who do not have English as their first language may be able to read and understand the language but have difficulty, or lack confidence, with fluent conversation. Mostly it is down to shyness and lack of confidence about the adequacy of their English for study and their academic readiness for the course. This is easily overcome by gentle encouragement. Being able to read is one thing, but a good education also means that you must be able to verbally communicate your opinions to others in a confident and understandable manner. For students who are not confident in English, lack of opportunity for casual conversation in English hinders their progress.

• Problem based learning

  Students who are unfamiliar with problem based learning often experience serious loss of confidence, depression and anxiety while they attempt to come to grips with a new way of learning. The Learning Skills Advisors and Counsellors play a significant part in assisting many students with understanding what is expected of them and helping them learn how to learn in this new way. Problem based learning is an excellent concept but it still needs to be inclusive.

• Cultural misunderstanding

  Most overseas students at UWA experience a significant change of cultural environment when they arrive. Although they are usually excited and positive about being here, many lack confidence about their ability to fit in to the social environment and their understanding of social mores; they make few if any friends among local students, despite, in many cases, a strong desire to do so. Some students are unable to talkback and defend a position against their teacher or group colleagues. How do you undo years of good parental and social upbringing that decrees that one should never contradict one´s elders? How do we encourage students to argue constructively, to disagree with their teachers and to stand up for their point of view?

What helps the process of adjustment?

1. Explicit information about what is expected academically, reinforced by regular, good-quality feedback is very important. Although teaching staff may tell them that they are expected to question, to use their own words and to consider more than one side of an issue, some students are at first either unsure of what this means or not immediately convinced that this is really what is wanted.
2. Students benefit from being asked about their backgrounds and the differences that they experience, being asked what would assist them and having this acted on.
3. Students benefit from a variety of opportunities to interact with other students. Strategies to do this could include mentor schemes, Group projects in and out of class time, organisation of multiculturally aware student social functions.
4. Especially for NESB students´ writing, as long as it is done with sensitivity, students should receive feedback on the correctness of their English as well as the content.

It is worth reminding ourselves every so often of the terror and anxiety many of us faced as young undergraduates starting university. Then add a difference of language, a difference of colour or a difference of cultural experience to that terror. What amazes is how well these students do in UWA.

• McInnes, C., James, R. & McNaught, C. (1994).First year on campus - diversity in the initial experiences of Australian undergraduates. Melbourne: Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne.