ESL Services at Memorial University: Are We Doing Enough to Prepare International Students for Academic Success?

ESL Services 1
ESL Services 1
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Reporter: Venera Nikolaeva

International students in institutions of higher education in English-speaking countries bring in valuable educational and cultural contributions, fulfilling the mission of these establishments as hubs of knowledge transfer that broadens the horizons of the bright young minds. For these benefits to continue, however,universities need to be more cognizant of the adjustment issues faced by these students and provide an appropriate level of support services. One of the main adjustment challenges foreign students face in the strive for academic success is attributable to the level of their English language proficiency and culture.

As one of the largest institutions of higher education in Atlantic Canada, Memorial University invests significant amount of resources into international recruitment. For a period of ten years (2007 – 2017), its total student body has increased with about 1.3%, but over the same time span, the number of international students has almost tripled. A research project in the form of a documentary, recently conducted by a student at MUN investigated how prepared the university is to respond to the language hurdles faced by the newcomers. Fakhri Matar, assisted by Conor McCann and Rodrigo Iniquez held interviews with representatives from the respective university units entrusted with the task of assisting students throughout their academic journey. He sought a more in-depth insight into the issue and his choice naturally fell on the people who had first-hand experience by working with the foreign student body.

While emphasizing the impact of their work on helping international students keep up with academic standards, Virginia Ryan, Director of the Writing Center, also admitted that the sheer number of people that visit the center limits the time and scope of services that could be offered to each visitor. In her opinion,the university is focused mainly on getting the youngsters through the door and not much thought is given to how stressful it will be for them to cope with demanding academic workload, new culture and surroundings. Similar concerns were expressed by Renata Lang, member of the Memorial University Student Union executive team. According to her, once the orientation week is over and the excitement wears off, the communication gap becomes more pronounced.

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Sonja Knutson,head of the Internalization Office at MUN, offered a slightly different perspective. The main issue, as she sees it, is connecting the student to the right kind of help. The services to support students are there, it is just a matter of improving the distribution of information, so that they can get the most adequate help. She backed up her stance by pointing out to the results of a recent satisfaction level survey (2017) conducted among students. An overwhelming 91% of those asked were positive that the university provides sufficient support to ease their adjustment process, which ranks the university in second place among Canadian institutions of post-secondary education in that respect.

To get the other side of the story, McCann also reached out to the international student body.Ahmed Sharaby, first-year student in Computer Science from Egypt, shared that the high number of students seeking advice from the Writing Centre makes it hard for them to receive help tailored to their needs. While generally satisfied with the ESL Program at MUN, Yannick Asamoah (an Engineering student from Cote d’Ivoire) thought the university might consider increasing the exposure of international students to native speakers, as opposed to letting them find such opportunities on their own. 

While enriching,diversity in the classroom can also pose challenges that universities have to handle in a more structured and comprehensive way. Memorial University seems to be on the right track, however, language-acquisition capacity might need to move from being an administrative concern to becoming an action item on the academic agenda to help international students successfully meet the curriculum expectations.

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