Analyzing The Findings Of International Students ...

Findings The purpose of this qualitative study was to report the findings of international students’ challenging experiences in the American classroom setting in Higher Education. The activities include, but are not limited to, classroom discussions, and interactions with professors. For the purpose of this study, classroom practices in institutions of higher education in the United States are identified as a group of activities that take place in a classroom setting. After analyzing the interviews, the following themes emerged: The Discussion is in American Culture, Do Students Understand When I’m Talking?, American Professors Aren’t Controlling and Organized, Professors’ Communication is Strict. The Discussions are in American†¦show more content†¦And sometimes I don’t want to ask because they are learning too. And I don’t want to interrupt their learning process, so anything relating to American, unique to American context, I feel hard to understand at first. If someone introduced me that would be easier, but in a classroom setting usually I don’t have time to ask for detail things so its one of the challenges. Similarly Zahra, a freshman a speech language pathology and audiology major also indicated that it was hard for her to participate in certain classroom discussions because the students in her class would have discussions that were culture based which she wasn’t familiar with, or didn’t understand. She said: The culture is hard to understand too because sometimes when I talk about something if the discussion is about cultural things or something like that sometimes it is hard for me to like transfer the picture from my mind to other because they don’t see this picture. Do Students Understand When I’m Talking? Related to their challenges, both of the participants also expressed their concern about the domestic students understanding what they said. They both had fear that when they spoke the students didn’t understand what they said, and instead they would prefer to keep quiet instead, so they don’t feel embarrassed during the conversation. Yen Said: I feel umm, sometimes I feel umm I’m so silent in the group discussion, or kind of in a classroom discussion in general is because