Learning in the Global Classroom - A Guide for Students in the Multicultural University

This unique and fascinating book is written for tertiary level students in the multi-cultural classroom, whether studying abroad or at home alongside international students. It relates a genuine understanding of the student perspective of learning in a multi cultural classroom, highlighting how students possess different learning styles and attitudes to teaching and learning and demonstrating that students not only face language issues, but also numerous other unanticipated challenges. The contributors present both theoretical and practical examples of various teaching and learning strategies that international students will encounter, and reveal how to maximise the benefit of these different approaches. They provide invaluable guidance on how to overcome many of the often-unexpected factors that arise when students are faced by a different cultural environment or people who have different cultural expectations and behaviour patterns. Students arrive in the tertiary classroom with a set of behaviours, characteristics and expectations derived from the educational practices of their home-country communities. With these in mind, the book asserts the importance of the student considering what they hope to learn, why they chose the particular institution enrolled with, and whether they will use their newly acquired skills in their own country, the country in which they are studying or somewhere else entirely. It illustrates that understanding exactly what a student wishes to achieve can greatly help get the best out of the international experience both inside and outside of the classroom. This highly original and insightful book will prove invaluable to all tertiary level students who move abroad to study, or who are studying in an international classroom at home.