Uni and foreign students would you say anything?

[thebraispink]

My DD is at uni doing a creative subject and basically she is having to help and support all of the foreign students with their work.

The uni have taken on so so many students who don't speak English over 60% of her course and put no translators in place, so my DD is having to help explain everything to those poor students who have broken English at best.

The uni has literally just taken all the money, it's making my DD course really dumbed down and keeping her back, it's not great for the foreign students as they are pretty out of their depth and miserable.

From my stance we are paying a shit ton for this course, and its teaching is poor and the overall experience is a bit shit.

All of these students will leave after 3 years, and take this education to their countries which is great but it leaves the UK students with a sub standard experience and shitty degree.

Should there be a limits on how many students can be from overseas? Should the uni have to provide interpreters? Is anyone else's kids in the same situation?

We are considering moving her from the uni on these grounds as she spends more time helping her peers than she does being taught.

Universities would go bankrupt without international students. Take it up with the government on funding, or lack of it, if you are looking for the people who don’t care.

Your post really conveyed it more as that it will be looked into as public negative narrative rather than "is there a problem?" Which is frankly not doing uni your friend works in any favours. Glad I am not the only one who picked up on the tone

Jesus.

I sent her the thread. She said it’s sounds negative and unfair and she doesn’t feel it’s representative of the students she helps. She said she’d pass it on.

She very much cares about the students.

That’s all.

Me too. International students have a reasonably high bar to prove competency in English. They don't take students who don't speak or understand English.

OP, there's a few people calling you/your daughter a racist here and I actually think that's beside the point. The fact is she chose a course and a uni without doing her research or due diligence. If having a high proportion of foreign students was going to be an issue for her she should have chosen a different course. It won't have changed dramatically from year to year.
Others have pointed out just how difficult it is for foreign students to come to this country. Might they be talking in their own language because it feels familiar and they are young and far from home, and they are feeling like outsiders (potentially because your daughter and her friends are frustrated at them?)
Your daughter needs to articulate what she wants to the uni. Is that a group where she and her English friends are all buddied up? The reason she won't ask for that is because doing that is racist at worst and not inclusive at best.

But they do, no matter what your link says.

Why is it always the English speakers who are called racist? On my Masters, the international students sat huddled in their groups and made NO effort to integrate. The other students were so welcoming and tried so hard, but got nothing back. So fed up of this narrative. International students or immigrants can be rude too

High proportions of foreign students should not affect quality of teaching and as a student I would certainly not expect to be having to help too much.

Ielts 6 are like b2 level. Just. No matter what people here think that level makes learning hard and the students need support. From uni they pay to.
My English level is above that and it was hard with topical academic papers.
It's not OP daughter's fault uni is failing their oversees students. Nor is it her responsibility to plug that gap with her own time and energy

Look, I haven’t read all the posts, but to those saying ‘you have to pass an IELTS test’ - you know there’s a HUGE industry in people who fake these tests don’t you? People pretend to be other people when they take them and pass them. It’s a rort.
Happens in driving tests all the time too.

OP I’m really sorry for your daughter. Something needs to be done and she should get some other students together and put something in writing to the Dean. Or get the student union involved.

I think it's true, I know lots of students from India who have just scraped the IELTS exam and can only understand the rp sort of English, when an accent is thrown in..they get confused. The daughter shouldn't help, it's tedious for her and probably doesn't help. She needs to bring it up with the tutors or student union rep maybe

OP, I believe you. I haven’t caught up with the entire thread but I have met many students with very poor English. Really poor. Some doing a Masters degree and you have to ask yourself just bloody how when they can barely say good morning in English. Yes, from China. It’s outrageous.

Those of you who are so confident about TOEFL and IELTS requirements should Google IELTS or TOEFL proxies. It's a cottage industry.

Again, even if the students all
legitimately passed the english requirements, an exam environment is very different from day to day, where native speakers use idiom, speak quickly, have non RP accents, sentences trail off, conversations overlap etc.

Fluency comes from immersion.

I believe you OP, I did a masters degree a few years ago and there were Chinese students on the course could not contribute to a discussion or answer any questions. I didn't see their written work so it may have been better than their spoken language I suppose.

I agree with @EnidSpyton's observations.

The minimum requirement for many universities is 5.5 in an IELTS test. You clearly have no idea what that actually means in terms of language ability.

This is B2 level which is the equivalent of a GCSE.

GCSE level skills in any foreign language give nowhere near a sufficient level of fluency to enable someone to take a degree in that foreign language.

I am fluent in French and have passed my C2 exams which is equivalent to degree level. But I would still struggle to take a university degree in France. I’d want to go and live there for a couple of years first to be really immersed in the language, and even then I’m sure it would still be a challenge to cope with writing academically in French and be able to express myself with the same fluency and sophistication as I can in English.

Allowing students to come here with rudimentary English - which is what B2 level is - and saying that’s enough for them to cope in undergraduate and postgraduate seminars, as well to cope with reading academic articles and books, not to mention writing academic essays and giving presentations, is an absolute joke.

It’s a racket and it’s all done for the money.

It’s a racket. Universities are underfunded by the Government, international students bring in money. China can buy into this as much as in every other aspect of UK life.

Yet a number of posters who actually work in universities say that this isn't the case.

Are you saying that they are lying? Maybe this isn't the case at your university.

@RampantIvy People on the internet can say anything they like about themselves and where they work, though, can’t they? There are a lot of people on this thread claiming they work in universities and have no idea this is going on, which is impossible as it affects every university and has been widely discussed in the press and in educational circles and publications for many years. The statistics of university entrance by nationality are publicly available as are the requirements for English language entry. Both of these put together demonstrate clearly the huge numbers of foreign students coming into the UK (not a problem) and the very low standards of English required for them to do so (a very big problem).

People saying ‘Professor here’ or ‘I work in a university’ followed by no evidence to support their claim that the problem of university students with limited English isn’t the case at their university, are not those posters I would choose to believe in the face of all of the evidence otherwise from people on this thread who do know the reality of the situation in higher education - and even secondary education now, because the numbers of Chinese children entering UK private schools with limited English is growing year on year.

Why people on this site are always so keen to attack, minimise and try and disprove posters who are raising genuine issues, I don’t know. It’s a bizarre way to want to live your life.

I don’t know who you’re replying to @RampantIvy In case it’s me, as your comment is just after mine, I can tell you I do know what I’m talking about. International students who can barely say ‘hello’ in English and who understand even less.

I don’t know how they passed their English test but if they could self-certify with home online test or if the Party helped them, say no more.

I’m glad the OP started the thread. It’s time some people woke up to the state our higher education is in.

I had clicked on the quote button and it disappeared. My post was in reply to a couple of posters who thinks the OP is making it up and are giving her a hard time.

I know that lack of English fluency is a problem in many universities, and posters saying that it isn't must work at universities that just don't have this issue.

Why people on this site are always so keen to attack, minimise and try and disprove posters who are raising genuine issues, I don’t know. It’s a bizarre way to want to live your life.

I think in this case it's because people can't distinguish racism and facts.
Racism would be "ESL students are ruining HE"
Fact is "some ESL students come in with little English, affect overall speed of lessons and experience and have hard time themselves. HE institutions need to stop looking only at money and up requirements and support".
This thread is about the latter.

It's also why many students who end up supporting others/doing group work are often afraid to speak up so they are not branded non inclusive racists. I am ESL and I was the one speaking with tutors at uni when it was needed. Eg. one of the barely speaking students sat in our group, we put her name on the paper (obviously) and she then said nothing the whole seminar. Nothing. Just shook her shoulders when we asked her opinion or if she did the reading for the seminar. So yes, I took her name off and spoke to the tutor. I would complain if anyone native or ESL did this. The rest of the group was way more apprehensive about speaking up in this case, yet when native did no work they would absolutely say something.

My post was from the POV of a student and post grad, occasional guest lecturer at two universities. I’m not claiming a broad base of experience in the topic, I must’ve been lucky with non native English speaking students, who likely met the minimum requirements and exceeded them.

Lots of posters referring to universities 'profiting' from overseas students, milking them, and being money grabbing.

In most cases it's about staying afloat. It's well documented that the fees UK students pay don't cover the costs of their degrees. So universities are reliant on overseas fees to be able to continue operating.

Also, universities are not disregarding immigration law willy nilly and turning a blind eye to fraudulent English language tests. If they did, and they had a spot inspection by UKVI, they could lose their licence to sponsor international students, which would be financially catastrophic.

Finally, I'm surprised the OP's daughter had access to the register and shared it with her mum - that's a breach of GDPR. She needs do be careful.

I'm a lecturer (no really I am!) but if you don't believe me, look at the article I posted which shows that non-EU students do considerably worse in their degree marks than home or EU students. That's stats, not me saying I'm a lecturer (which I am!)

My frustration is for the students, many of whom I work with closely on things like their dissertations. I have had many many Chinese/HK students, those that do best are those that have been educated in the Uk for a portion of their pre-uni education such as secondary, as they are used to the teaching style, have good language skills and many of these students have gone on to be very successful, I am in touch with a couple as I write references for them years later. Some UG students make great strides in their language over the three years and by the end of their course start doing very well, this isn't great for their grades, but they get there in the end.

The students that really struggle are often those on Masters courses because their English ability is not matched to what's needed for Master's level education even if they have the smarts (which is usually a good 2:1 for EU and domestic students).

I would like to see things like a) students with lower English grades doing the Foundation level course first, then their degree, and the Foundation level including academic English, this would make it four years and really equip them to get the same grades as everyone else by their first 'official' year b) a first term in the Masters of intensive English, compulsory, not drop in c) always compulsory English classes and skills support (we have this but the students have to opt in and they are not used to asking for help so don't) d) proper screening for learning difficulties in non-domestic students, so they have the same chance of adjustments for extra time, extensions and so on. I have noticed that many non-UK students do not know about the accessibility system in the Uk and I don't think I have ever had one diagnosed with dyslexia or other difficulties, this is because they are not used to asking for adjustments and often don't know the law in this area (UK students have been in the UK teaching system and are used to obtaining these, as their teachers will have done so in the past).

These are bright students, failed by the system.

The register thing does not add up at all, @ludocris.