Navigating the choppy waters of intercultural differences in an international classroom

“Internationalisation” is the buzzword of our time, and all over the world we see universities and colleges racing ahead in a bid to increase their enrolment of foreign students to boost their university rankings. As someone who has always been supportive of internationalisation, I can only state that I am personally in favour of such engagement, although it does bring a host of challenges that we need to talk about.

Over the past three decades I have taught at several universities across Europe and Southeast Asia, and the common denominator in those experiences is the fact that my classes have almost always been mixed. Much of the work I have done has also been informed by my own experience as a former international student in the UK in the early 1980s, when I had to adapt to life in a foreign country for the first time and adjust to new modes of learning that I had not experienced before. The learning curve was steep and, while learning the basics of student life, I also had to adjust to a new climate and a different kind of society. The experiences of foreign students today are hardly any different.

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Now that I’m sitting on the opposite side of the room, as a teacher rather than a student, I can see how the issues faced by international students can spill into the teaching experience as well. Those of us who have had the opportunity to teach international students will be familiar with the first challenge that has to be overcome: language and communication. For reasons that are historical in nature the reality is that the international language of academia today happens to be English. This is, as we all know, one of the legacies of Empire and it can also become a sensitive topic of discussion in some postcolonial societies where forms of linguistic nationalism have been on the rise over the past few decades, coupled with calls for the decolonisation of knowledge production.

While these debates are important, I would like to focus on something far more mundane, which is the disparity in English proficiency among international students. Sadly, there remains a tendency to assume that when a non-native English speaker speaks with an accent, that person’s competency and knowledge is possibly compromised as well. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. Overcoming this first hurdle is crucially important when handling mixed international classes, and from the first day the teacher has to emphasise to everyone the simple fact that what is said/discussed is far more important than how it is said.

A further suggestion for those of us teaching international students is that it’s imperative to demonstrate we know what our students are trying to communicate, rather than correct their speech or writing all the time. In my experience, English proficiency always improves over time, especially when non-native speakers feel they are taken seriously from the outset. Conversely, to constantly interrupt and correct our students when they speak will only alienate them further and may demotivate them entirely in the long run.

Getting over that first hurdle does not mean the race is over, though. For those of us who teach in the humanities, subjects such as history, political theory and international relations can present us with veritable minefields in which cultural sensitivity is paramount. In such subjects, contestation of interpretation can be par for the course. It’s difficult enough to deal with contestation in a lecture setting where our students already share similar cultural backgrounds or have had prior exposure to historical data that is similar in form and content. But try conducting a course where students from different countries have been taught very different – and at times conflicting – accounts of their national histories, and you will see how differences of opinion can very quickly turn into hotly contested political debates, often with nationalist sentiments in tow.

I have experienced this myself while teaching topics such as the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia or the partition of India to classes with students from countries that were affected by these events. Here is where the lecturer has to remember that our international students have come to us with their own historical baggage and years of pre-university learning. The idea that needs to be dispelled is that there is such a thing as a “universal student” who has somehow been manufactured via a cookie-cutter process, all of them imbued with the same perspectives, values, understandings and expectations.

My suggestion to teachers who will face such situations is to begin their very first class by laying down ground rules and expectations for their courses. It’s vital to remind everyone (ourselves included) that we’re there to explore and discuss openly, and that in the course of learning together, challenging our assumptions is part of the learning process itself. The first thing that needs to be established is the distinction between our personal beliefs or stances and the subject matter that needs to be studied critically and objectively. Above all, everyone in the class must be made to feel that nobody is being attacked, harassed or ridiculed when we engage in discussions about areas such as national politics or the political conduct of a certain country. As teachers we need to emphasise that the classroom is not a tribunal and that nobody is being judged in our discussions.

While there are no ready-made solutions to the challenge of dealing with radically different cultural-political attitudes and stances, our duty as teachers is to spark interest in enquiry and encourage our students to question and think. In situations where some students feel compelled to silence the voices of others, the lecturer’s role is to create a space where thinking aloud can happen. Ultimately, all students – locals and international alike – must remember that critical thinking is what universities were set up for in the first place.

Gaining that coveted university degree is a process that requires open thinking and engagement. Our task as teachers is to constantly emphasise this, while also being aware that our students may come from very different parts of the world and are not a homogenous mass.

Farish A. Noor is professor in the Department of History at the University of Malaya. He has taught at several universities across Europe and Southeast Asia, including Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and the International Islamic University of Indonesia.

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