Western and Eastern Learning Style

In the past few years, Australia like many other countries in the west has confronted a large movement of international students, who go to their universities for undergraduate or post-graduate studies. More than 75 per cent of those students are from Asia (DFAT 2012). Middle Eastern students are increasing strongly. Both of Asian and Middle Eastern students have similar learning styles --those students are from countries known as “Eastern Countries”. Eastern learning style depends on substantial aspects, for instance, memorization, while the learning style in countries like Australia, United States and European countries --also known as “Western Countries” depend on critical thinking. As a result of this movement, Australian universities challenged from those students who followed an eastern learning styles which differ significantly from western learning style, even thought the output of both learning styles somehow look similar in eastern and western countries, but, in fact, that difference influence both international students and academic staff in western countries. In this essay, I will discuss these differences, how this created problems to international students and academic staff, in addition, I will include example from my own experience. Finally, I will propose possible solutions to these complications.

International students from eastern learning styles encounter a new educational methodology and different learning style, which are extreme away from how they have been learning during their schooling days. As well, they have to adjust to totally different culture. This makes learning in Australian’s universities quite hard to adopt; consequently, students may fail, or feel frustrated and demotivated (Kara 2009). Therefore, identifying these differences will assist us to recognize its impacts on students and academic staff.

First of all, students from eastern learning culture may not expect to question their teachers, or open a