From English to undergraduate: the international student experience

Over 3,000 international students study at Northumbria, of whom over 70% originating from the Pacific Rim region choose to study programmes within Newcastle Business School (NBS). On a regular basis, large and small scale learning and teaching experience - based studies have been undertaken by Northumbria with all students. Demographic information, collected in all cases, allowed data extraction for both UK and international NBS students. Studies included questionnaires, distributed to students studying English Language (ELAN) courses followed up once students started their chosen programme, which drew upon established research outlining issues relating to international student adjustment to UK study. These research findings led to recommendations on adapting practice to make teaching more inclusive, which were distributed to lecturers. Following a suitable bedding- in period, an additional study was undertaken to establish whether students concurred with the recommendations made and to assess the extent they believed these were now being practiced. This paper presents the most significant findings from the studies outlined above.