Language barrier everyone’s concern on university campus

Many international students simply ‘don’t care’ about learning English and, regularly skip lectures because they cannot understand what is being taught.

Chinese student Amy Li, studying for a masters degree at the University of Sydney, says many of her classmates struggle to get a handle on English. Picture: Jane Dempster

Many international students simply­ ­“don’t care” about learning English, regularly skip lectures because­ they cannot understand what is being taught and get everything translated into their native languages before attempting to undertake study or complete assignm­ents.

Chinese national and Univer­sity of Sydney masters student Amy Li said she was attracted to the idea of studying in Australia because its institutions had a good inter­national reputation and the country felt safe.

The 21-year-old undertook a preparation year studying at Taylors­ College, the university’s pathway program, before­ beginning her tertiary education­ proper. While she was fluent in English­, she said that many of her classmates had struggled­ to get a handle on the language.

“I have friends that always translate their readings or their homework in Chinese before they start doing them. And I have friends who never go to lectures because they feel like they can’t understand it anyway,” Ms Li said.

“It’s really hard for them to get to fit within the local little circle. So if ever they (have to do) group work (or) teamwork, they are really hard to fit if there are local students in the group.”

That situation is also obvious to domestic students. Mia D’Agostino and Alice Morgan, who study at two different Sydney universities, said it was common to come across international classmates who were simply unable to keep up with the coursework in English.

Ms D’Agostino, in her final year studying finance at UNSW, said she felt so bad for one foreign fellow student that she and her friends took notes for him.

“He just had no idea what was going on: didn’t know what textbooks to get, didn’t know what platform to use. And this was three weeks into the course. And we had an assignment due that next week. He didn’t know we already had an assignment due the week before,” the 22-year-old said.

“Often you just want to jump in and help them. I felt so bad … me and my friends. We got his email, and we were sending him stuff every week.”

Ms Morgan, in her third year studying business at the University of Technology Sydney, said foreign­ students needed more support to enable them to keep up.

Assessments in groups were problematic, she said, with domestic students often taking on the lion’s share of work to ensure they received a quality mark.

“You feel bad, ’cause you asked them for the work and then you have to edit it. But (they) don’t know what they’re doing and they don’t get much help,” she said.

“I’ve seen international stud­ents who have the English textbook here, and then the translation here, and they’ll be copying, pasting and translating as a tutor is speaking.

They’ve just been dropped in the deep end and told: okay, this is what you have to do if you want to, succeed.”