ABSTRACT
Higher education (HE) institutions in English-speaking countries now contain a more socially and culturally diverse student population than ever before, including increasing numbers of international students. Such changes present challenges for teachers in higher education, especially as increasing workloads add further pressures. In this book, we speak of ‘international students’ when we mean students who have chosen to travel to another country for tertiary study. They may or may not have attended some secondary or preparatory education in the country they have selected for higher education but most of their previous experience will have been of other educational systems, in cultural contexts and sometimes in a language that is different (or very different) from the one in which they will now study. We also speak of ‘home students’, meaning those who have chosen to remain in the country where they attended secondary school or had their prior educational experiences. In this book, the authors concentrate on issues arising in programmes delivered in the home country (termed ‘on-shore’ in Australia) where the numbers of international students can range from just one or two to a significant majority. Off-shore programmes, where universities deliver their own programmes in other countries, bring their own set of challenges; many of the themes and activities discussed in this book will also apply in off-shore teaching although this is not the primary focus.
