ABSTRACT
Much of this book considers and advocates for decisions made either at the level of the individual teacher, at the level of the programme team or at the strategic level by the institution itself. Graham Webb, summing up Chapter 12 on internationalisation of the curriculum, notes: ‘the development of organisation-wide systems is necessary … however … such “culture-change” cannot be effected by university edict alone, but only through the creative utilisation of the imagination and agency of those who comprise the university’. This means that internationalisation and effective teaching of international students relies on individual teachers working with colleagues, using opportunities as they arise and creating them when they do not. Some authors (Peters, 1997; Farkas-Teekens, 1997) consider it unlikely or highly unusual to find the broad range of skills necessary to teach international students effectively within one individual. Instead, they advocate team teaching and working in groups. Another reason to collaborate is the need for professional development for teachers of international students, something that is confirmed by own research and that of others (e.g. Dunn and Wallace, 2004; Dixon and Scott, 2003). This chapter considers how you might foster efforts to increase the overall pool of knowledge and expertise within teaching teams, departments or the university as a whole. We focus on professional development and collaboration as this is a significant contributor to better experiences for teachers and all students.
