This post was written by Roudy Gerges.
International students face a lot of challenges when it comes to studying overseas. Challenges can range from making new friends, acclimating to a new culture and environment, and difficulty in understanding and communicating in a new language. As an international student, I faced all these challenges despite having high confidence in myself. In this post, I will focus on the ways academics can help international students to overcome the last-mentioned challenge of communication – which I believe to be the hardest and toughest.
Before digging in, let me introduce myself: I am an international student from Lebanon. I am currently studying the combined degree of Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Engineering honours. I’d like to discuss the importance of using captions by tutors and lecturers and, the benefits of the language support that UTS provides for international students.
How I use captions
It’s rare for tutors and lecturers to use captions while delivering their tutorial or lecture, and many may not understand the value of captions for international students. It is not a hard thing to do but I believe that tutors sometimes assume that students can understand what they are saying without using captions.
However, for us – international students – it is harder than it sounds. During my first year, I often struggled to understand what my tutors were saying, and learning to understand English in different accents was also difficult.
There is good evidence that captions can help students to work past these barriers. A study by Oregon State university reported that 66% of the students who are learning English as a second language reported that they find captions very helpful. In addition, captions improve audience comprehension. When students read and hear at the same time, it becomes easier for them to remember the lecture.
Moreover, captions provide the opportunity to follow the lecture or the tutorial in a sound sensitive environment and this benefit any student. Plus, if a student was on a noisy train or in a crowded place, captions help in understanding what the tutor is trying to explain.
Supporting international students
UTS helps international students to improve their language skills by providing a lot of interactive activities, which are faciliated by Higher Education and Language Presentation Support (HELPS). One of these activities is the Buddy Program. This program matches international students with local students and UTS staff members for weekly conversation. Another program is Conversations@UTS which brings together international students and local volunteers for casual conversation. And there is the Talkfest which is a session of discussion groups, games, and speed friending.
In addition to these programs, HELPS offers every student support in a range of areas like assignments, writing support and speaking support. All of these programs help international students in adjusting to a new environment in the Australian community and in improving their English.
Please turn on your captions
Catch Roudy in our new video, and find out more about our Turn on your captions for students campaign.
Feature image by pikisuperstar.