Teaching international students

This 1.5-day webinar aims to sensitise lecturers to the issues involved when teaching international students in German higher education. In doing so, it will consider cultural and communication challenges both from the perspective of German lecturers as well as through the lens of internationals themselves. This will give participants the opportunity to troubleshoot for their own context and consider how they can smooth the integration of internationals into their own classroom by creating a more inclusive environment.   

Participants will equally consider what ‘types’ of culture can affect values and behaviour as well as how a student’s educational background can affect how much of an educational culture shock they experience in Germany. In addition, they will be offered practice in adapting their communication style from low to high context in order to give feedback and commands in English without causing offence or embarrassment. In connection to this, participants will also practise ‘reading between lines’, a skill necessary when interacting with nationals of cultures (such as Britain, China, and Japan) where messages are typically sent implicitly, rather than explicitly (the opposite to the case in Germany, the US and Scandinavia).