Discuss Some of the Challenges Facing International Students in Higher Education and Suggest Some Possible Solutions.
As a growing number of international students who attempt to obtain a further education diploma or expand their horizons, has been increasing, it is often the case that they would face various challenges while studying abroad. The main barrier that they have to overcome is “academic learning that consists of strangeness, difference and integration (Teekens, 2006:17, cited in Hyland, 2008). According to Hyland et al (2008:29), to improve the quality of higher education not only the individual needs to endeavor, but also the departmental and institutional effort would be indispensable. This essay will illustrate that the main factors of overseas students who study for least one year result in academic learning challenges, are adapting to a new educational system’s assessments and English speaking only environments, then will provide possible solutions, for example, giving sufficient guidance from enrolled universities, revolutionising language certified test in reducing these difficulties.
The first main factor that directly causes learning challenges is that overseas students would probably face different methods of assessment. Most postgraduate students wish their overseas journeys were the same as ‘back home’ (Pointon, 2009, cited in The Higher Education Academy, 2012). However，for those students who graduated in other educational systems, team projects, presentations would become the barriers they have to confront. Firstly team-based learning appears to be more strange and complicated to these students because it not only depends upon academic competence，but also has to be relevant to their abilities of communication and coordination. Group work can be even more stressful because a silent student is effectively excluded, whether voluntarily or not. It is also something that many international students have not really encountered before (Sovic,2008). Subsequently, quite a number of overseas students seem to be unfamiliar with presentations as well. According to
The first main factor that directly causes learning challenges is that overseas students would probably face different methods of assessment. Most postgraduate students wish their overseas journeys were the same as ‘back home’ (Pointon, 2009, cited in The Higher Education Academy, 2012). However，for those students who graduated in other educational systems, team projects, presentations would become the barriers they have to confront. Firstly team-based learning appears to be more strange and complicated to these students because it not only depends upon academic competence，but also has to be relevant to their abilities of communication and coordination. Group work can be even more stressful because a silent student is effectively excluded, whether voluntarily or not. It is also something that many international students have not really encountered before (Sovic,2008). Subsequently, quite a number of overseas students seem to be unfamiliar with presentations as well. According to