Caroline Matautia

The numbers of international students undertaking post-graduate courses in the UK is increasing and emphasis on these courses often includes preparing students to be career ready upon graduation. Skills for this include critical thinking, communication, negotiation and presentation and are often developed using active learning activities during lectures and seminars. A small-scale qualitative case study was based on a group of international post graduate engineering students from India, studying at UEL. It used interviews to discover their views and experiences concerning the potential barriers that can be caused by holding English as an additional language during active learning activities.

 

Data revealed that language caused a significant barrier to participation for many students, but not for those students who took part in the research themselves, as each of the students who volunteered to be interviewed held good levels of conversational English. However, most participants shared experiences of the way that they regularly support other students by translating and explaining tasks for AL activities, as they do not understand. Recommendations are made to suggest that teaching staff should hold awareness of the additional language needs that some International students hold and provide additional language support for these students during active learning activities.