Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-tsvsl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-28T22:22:12.149Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

Simon Marginson
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Chris Nyland
Affiliation:
Monash University, Victoria
Erlenawati Sawir
Affiliation:
Central Queensland University
Helen Forbes-Mewett
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria
Get access

Summary

There's a tutor, she was about to fail my first assignment which I thought I had done perfectly. She was so awful. When I walked into her office, the very first thing she said, ‘You are an international student, right? So does this happen to you often, has it happen to you before?’ She assumed that English is my problem and it had been happening since I started university … Yes, I'm an international student, but I don't deserve the description of someone who is more likely to fail.

~ female, 23, social work, Taiwan

INTRODUCTION: LANGUAGE AND STUDENT SECURITY

Language shapes our mentalities and makes communication and association possible. For international students, cross-border mobility is mobility from one zone of social communication to another. Language fluency not only affects ease of mobility, but in some respects it also determines whether mobility takes place. Students’ capacity in the language of the country of education governs academic success, as well as with whom students talk and the nature of their day-to-day life. Language capacity also determines whether students can deal with problems and emergencies on their own behalf. Communication is essential to survival and security in almost all situations.

If there is one theme that stands out in the research literature on international education in English-speaking nations, it is that of international students’ language-related difficulties, which can be particularly severe for students from countries where English is learnt as a foreign language, being at best a medium of instruction in the classroom and sometimes merely a subject of study, rather than a language of daily interaction.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×