Crisis of Cross Cultural Communication on our campuses! Lorraine Brown Nicola Peacock

2 ‘We can’t reach them, we don’t know how!’

3 ‘Its so much easier to go with what’s easy.’

4 ‘The ideal of transforming a culturally diverse student population into a valued resource for activating processes of international connectivity, social cohesion and intercultural learning is still very much that, an ideal.’ De Vita (2005)

5 A comparison of two studies.. BU international students / Masters cohort in Tourism / longitudinal survey - interviews BU and UWE undergraduate students / business and arts / focus groups

6 Friendship and segregation ‘I don’t have the feeling that they have need to make interaction with us. I think they are trying to be more by themselves.’ Slovenian student ‘We do have a lot of Chinese students..there’s loads, they do all seem to group together and I don’t think they integrate quite as well.’ UK student

7 Anxiety ‘The British are weird! So cold! They don’t want to talk at all. International students don’t like the people here. They do not match with their expectations. Are they shy? Sometimes it makes me worry, don’t they like me?’ Indonesian student ‘I find always that I can’t approach them and I find that a bit…not intimidating but I wouldn’t ever approach a big group its just because it’s a bit daunting…’. UK student

8 Anxiety in the classroom ‘This sounds really horrible…when we got put into groups there were people I didn’t want to work with because of their level of English.’ UK student

9 Motivation ‘If you get on really well with people that aren’t (international), its much easier, especially if you’re tired and you’re working hard – you don’t want to have to spend a whole evening trying really hard to get on with people you don’t really get on with.’ UK student ‘Its easier being with Thais – we understand each other.’ Thai student

10 Language barriers ‘I think a lot of them who spend a lot of time socially. Their English is quite good and they are quite confident. And like the others, we don’t socialise with them, but that’s because we don’t really know them they haven’t been as approachable as people who are fluent in English.’ UK student

11 Drinking culture ‘All of the Chinese students I know, I can’t imagine any of them on a night out sort of getting drunk. That’s stupid, but that’s like the way most of us meet all our mates.’ UK student ‘I can imagine when we’re drunk, it’s a lot more difficult to understand cos that makes everything ten times more…like humour and like (banter with) people is suddenly like ten times worse when you’re drunk.’ UK student

12 Racism ‘I saw some young, maybe teenagers on the subway and they are drinking. It’s terrible for me, I’m a little nervous, I heard many bad things. So I walk quickly. A little run. When they are drunk, they may do something bad to me. It make me feel bad.’ Taiwanese student

13 Passive xenophobia ‘You are not racist, but you don’t like foreigners!’ Turkish student

14 Conclusions Human nature? Capacity for change Role of Higher Education? Recommendations for action: Teaching and learning strategies Curriculum development Orientation Accommodation Social / Buddying