Preparing for Success: supporting international students in the disciplines

On Friday 12th November 50 subject practitioners and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teachers came together to explore the role of lecturers in the preparation of international students for study in the UK.

This event at the University of Southampton, one of a series of events coming from the HEA/UKCISA ‘Teaching International Students’ project, was a collaboration with the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies and as a member of the TIS team I was very grateful for their support and that of all the speakers!

For me, the theme of the day was ‘partnerships’. In discussion groups I began to hear examples of practitioners breaking out of traditional silos to seek new collaborations across the university to bring about more integrated disciplinary and learning support from day 1 of students’ arrival to the UK and even pre-arrival.

We heard further examples from speakers Liz Hauge & Natalie Lee (University of Southampton) and Sandra Hayward & Andrea Sweetman (University of Nottingham) who spoke about their programmes in Law and the Built Environment respectively.

What seemed to work? Suggestions included:

• Having EAP teachers and other learning support practitioners based within disciplinary departments.
• Conducting a needs analysis before designing a pre-sessional course.
• Setting entry requirements on language tests such as IELTS at levels appropriate to the discipline in question (e.g. law, IELTS 7.0).
• Creating discipline-specific pre-sessional and in-sessional courses – using for example:
o the referencing system associated with the discipline
o relevant case examples
o fun sessions such a film club on subject-related topics
• Bringing in subject practitioners to lead guest lectures and workshops.

There are challenges with these approaches of course, Diana Ridley of Sheffield Hallam University carried out a survey of EAP pre-sessional provision and found some respondents suggesting that tailored programmes are difficult with such a wide variety of disciplines on offer and very different student cohorts.

Despite the challenges, participants seem buoyed by the opportunity to share practice and the new connections they made. I invited delegates to think about ways they could contribute their expertise to the development of TIS resources around the induction of international students. I warmly welcome their and your suggestions! fiona.hyland@bristol.ac.uk