Working with international students

In the video on your right, Dr Jon Wright talks through some of the features that can interfere with effective communication when teaching an audience of international students.

The resources below outline approaches that are of particular importance when welcoming international students into your classroom. This includes sections on: Getting to Know your Students; Coaching for Academic English; Intersectionality and Active Learning.

International Students in the Classroom

Getting to Know your Students

Our student population at Manchester Met is enriched and enlivened by a growing number of international students. Some of these students are speakers of other languages, or different varieties of English; most have experience of different ‘cultures’ of education where expectations regarding student and staff roles, typical classroom activities and assessment patterns, support services, accommodation, etc may be varied. Getting to know students as individuals, where practicable, and ensuring we anticipate recurrent difficulties will greatly help these students to contribute fully to the learning community and enjoy their time at Manchester Met.
Familiar classroom techniques include ‘warm up’ activities where students share notions of ‘a good mark’ (there is surprising variety here), their favourite ways of learning, their first memory of school, etc. If a simple ‘Find someone who’ type activity isn’t feasible (please also see Promoting Positive Classroom Cultures) use audience response software (e.g. Padlet) to gather a sense of the international ‘room’.
relationships [are] at the heart of teaching […] emphasising that a meaningful connection needs to be established between teacher and students as well as between students and their peers, if effective learning is to take place
- Co-Creating Learning and Teaching, Catherine Bovill
In many teaching situations there are also benefits to practice based on relational pedagogy. Relational approaches foster ‘reciprocity, joint involvement, intuition, wisdom and trust’ in order to create a space for learning that connects with the participants’ interests (Hedges and Cooper, 2018: 4). Such approaches are particularly important when welcoming international students into your classroom for the reasons explained above.
Coaching for Academic English

Current Manchester Met students who are international users of English can take part in the Coaching for Academic English programme, which is free and includes English for Academic Purposes and Academic Skills classes, 1-2-1 writing consultations and online independent study materials.
The Coaching for Academic English website provides more information on their classes and workshops, writing consultations and the online language forum.
Intersectionality and Active Learning

It is worth considering the fact that we all have multiple facets to our identities and that as such individuals can be marginalised and indeed privileged in a number of ways. One helpful model for thinking about the complexities of lived experience is ‘intersectionality’, a term that emerged from Black female scholarship, but that is primarily associated with the theorist Kimberelé Crenshaw (1989). Being open to having conversations with students about their experiences of education is another route to developing an Inclusive Curriculum for all.
Active learning is an umbrella term for a method or process of learning that places learners at its centre. The process normally involves learners ‘doing things and thinking about the things that they are doing’ (Bonwell and Eison, 1991: 2). Active learning benefits all students but offers disproportionate benefits for individuals from underrepresented groups (Fiske et al, 2020).
More information can be found on our active learning webpage.

knowledge check

Good practice

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is an innovative pedagogical approach to facilitate development of intercultural competences and digital skills via meaningful online collaborations between students and educators in geographically distant locations (de Wit, 2013). We will showcase how fashion design educators in Manchester Fashion Institute have facilitated intercultural learning experiences for students and staff through COIL projects that nurture new perspectives on design values, and create conscious and inclusive international exchange that benefits staff development and addresses calls for the decolonisation of fashion education. It will cover the COIL process and principles, from development of equitable partnerships and co-creation of project briefs, to organisation of the project schedule, teambuilding and maintaining student motivation online. It will showcase examples of projects with Pearl Academy (India) and Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (China), and the virtual technologies used, culminating in a pedagogical framework that situates common processes of exchange, participatory communities, and curriculum that is responsive to real-world issues. Through sharing lived experiences, we can co-create pedagogy and expand design values and thinking. Thus, we can centre design practice in empathy, human connection, and cultural heritage, whilst disrupting notional hierarchies of taste and creating a methodology that links past, present and future.

This work has been undertaken by Rebecca Neary, Patsy Perry, Kat Scott and Elizabeth Kealy-Morris.

Rebecca Neary, Kat Scott, and Patsy Perry’s 2023 LEED summer conference presentation touched on many of these topics. Click the button below to download their presentation and learn more. Alternatively, find their presentation on the LEED conference website (third presentation under G).

Further Resources

The International Student Group

The International Student Group (Students Union) is the community of International Students at Manchester Met. They organise events, trips and campaigns that resonate with the international student experience. The group is led by the International Council, which is composed of international student representatives from every faculty whose role is to represent the international student voice.

Collaborative Online International/Intercultural Learning.

These slides from Oxford International University Partnerships provide an overview of training on internationalising the curriculum and the teaching and learning experience through experiential learning with international peers, as well as information on the acquisition of intercultural competences.

Safety First booklet

Also useful for International Students is the Safety First booklet available from the British Council.

UKCISA website

If you would like to find out more about sector-wide information and advice for international students, visit the UKCISA website (UK Council for International Student Affairs).

Building Cultural Competence

For resources on cultural competency, try this Building Cultural Competence short course from RISE at Manchester Met.

Say My Name

This University of Warwick Say My Name webpage outlines useful guidance on intercultural awareness and the pronunciation of some international names.

Critical Internationalization Studies Network

To find out more about critical perspectives on internationalisation, visit the Critical Internationalization Studies Network website.

The Criticality Project

The Criticality Project short course, which is delivered by the Manchester Metropolitan Study Skills team, is designed to support home and international students develop their critical thinking and independent study skills.

Critical Questioning Cycle PowerPoint

These slides offer an animated version of John Hilsdon’s Critical Questioning Cycle developed at the University of Plymouth (2010). This resource was adapted by Charlie Knowlson as part of their work in the Learner Development team at Manchester Metropolitan.

Effective Practice in the Design of Directed Independent Learning Opportunities

For further information on using Directed Independent Learning during teaching, please see this Effective Practice in the Design of Directed Independent Learning Opportunities guide, produced by the QAA and Higher Education Academy (2015).