Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- About the authors
- Preface
- PART 1 Students in the global market
- PART 2 Security in the formal and public domain
- PART 3 Security in the informal and private domain
- 11 The universities
- 12 Language
- 13 Family and friends
- 14 Loneliness
- 15 Intercultural relations
- PART 4 Protection and empowerment
- References
- Index
12 - Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- About the authors
- Preface
- PART 1 Students in the global market
- PART 2 Security in the formal and public domain
- PART 3 Security in the informal and private domain
- 11 The universities
- 12 Language
- 13 Family and friends
- 14 Loneliness
- 15 Intercultural relations
- PART 4 Protection and empowerment
- References
- Index
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, TaiwanINTRODUCTION: 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
- International Student Security , pp. 294 - 323Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010