How International Students Need To Modify Their Cultural Identities To Negotiate The Language Barrier

Due to the increasing number of international students coming to the United States to seek higher education, there is growing division in understanding the language barrier between international students' primary language and the English language. International students have experienced frustration in effectively socializing and communicating with native English speakers. Based on the cultural identity differences that international students carry, it is difficult for students to acquire a new language skill while thinking differently from native English speakers. To better understand native speakers, including the communities, the peers and the teachers in colleges and universities, international students should fully adapt themselves into the English language environment. To be effective, I have made the case for international students to modify their own cultural identities to accept American cultural perspectives. With this modification of their cultural identity, they can effectively negotiate language barriers in which one would typically face within the English language learning environment. My workshop presents the benefits and requirements needed to break the language barrier, the modification of primary cultural identity and approach to the efficient English language acquisition skills required for international students to interact with native speakers while seeking higher education.

The Journal of International Students (JIS), an academic, interdisciplinary, and peer-reviewed publication (Print ISSN 2162-3104 & Online ISSN 2166-3750), publishes scholarly peer reviewed articles on international students in tertiary education, secondary education, and other educational settings that make significant contributions to research, policy, and practice in the internationalization of higher education. www.ojed.org/jis

The United States is a leading country for hosting international students. Students around the world frequently seek higher levels of education outside their home country, and the once relatively homogenous international student population of the past has diversified. Growing evidence suggests that international students face a number of hurdles when studying abroad. A large amount of published research reveals how anxiety, ambiguity, and uncertainty challenge communication and identity (Ekachai, Hinchcliff-Pelias, & Greer, 1998; Gudykunst, 1995, 2005; Gudykunst & Kim, 1992) when people from different cultures interact. However, when considering the international student population, most studies have focused on either U.S. students studying abroad, or on shifting enrollment, delays in arrival, or financial and political concerns for international students coming to U.S. universities. Fewer studies focus on the transformation process that international students experience on a U.S. campus; even fewer examine the intersections between culture, communication, identities, and university orientation programs. Acculturation is one theoretical lens to view sojourners' experiences when participating in new cultural forums. Early acculturation theory used to view culture as being at the center of experiences leaving sojourners' positionalities as powerless victims to a system. Recent studies co-define individuals and environments (Kim, 2001) affecting acculturation and bringing communication to the center of experience, endowing sojourners with agency and recognizing the importance of voice. This study explores sojourners in the U.S. from a communication perspective. Notions of home, new places, new practices, and new meanings inform ways in which sojourners negotiate cultural identities in changing discursive spaces. Sojourners offer insight into cultural identities as a "state of becoming" (S. Hall, 1996) by articulating their emerging identities through cross-cultural and intercultural interaction.

Bringing together current research, theories and methods from leading scholars in the field, this volume is a state-of-the-art study of intercultural communication competence and effectiveness. In the first part, contributors analyze the conceptual decisions made in intercultural communication competence research by examining decisions regarding conceptualization, operationalization, research design and sampling. The second part presents four different theoretical orientations while illustrating how each person's theoretical bias directs the focus of research. Lastly, both quantitative and qualitative research approaches used in studying intercultural communication competence are examined.

This study explores cultural-identity conflicts among bilingual students at San Francisco State University. The aim of this study was to understand how students perceive and negotiate the differences between their home discourse and the Academic discourse used in college writing courses. Seventy-three bilingual students completed a language questionnaire, and seven of these students were later interviewed. In the end, students felt more "American" after speaking English and thought that English facilitated new friendships but, at the same time, hindered family relationships. Students also struggled to participate and write in their composition courses, and most students felt they had a unified or duel identity. However, others expressed the need to create a hybrid identity. Students negotiated these language tensions/difficulties by using both languages frequently, by code switching, or by using their first language in their composition classroom. On the whole, this study seeks to promote bilingual awareness and calls for an expansion in cultural-identity repertoire.

This edited book examines modern foreign language teachers who research their own and others’ experiences of identity construction in the context of living and teaching in UK institutions, primarily in the Higher Education sector. The book offers an insight into a key element of the educational and socio-political debate surrounding MFL in the UK: the teachers’ voices and their sense of agency in constructing their professional identities. The contributors use a combination of empirical research and personal reflection to generate knowledge about MFL teachers’ identity that can enhance how they are perceived in the social and educational establishments and raise awareness of key issues affecting the profession. This book will be of particular interest to language teachers, teacher trainers, applied linguists and students and scholars of modern foreign languages.

In recent years language learning has been increasingly viewed by some SLA researchers as an essentially social-psychological process in which the role of a wider sociocultural context should not be marginalized. This volume offers a valuable contribution to this growing body of research by providing theoretical considerations and empirical research data on themes such as the development of intercultural communicative competence, the role of English as a lingua franca in intercultural communication, and the place of cultural factors in SLA theorizing, research, second/foreign language teaching and teacher training. The volume also contains contributions which share the linguistic interest in the culture-related concepts and constructs such as time, modesty, politeness, and respect, discussing the culture-dependent differences in conceptualization and their reflection in particular language forms and linguistic devices.

An interdisciplinary, peer reviewed publication, Journal of International Students (Print ISSN 2162-3104 & Online ISSN 2166-3750) is a professional journal that publishes narrative, theoretical and empirically-based research articles, student reflections, and book reviews relevant to international students and their cross cultural experiences and understanding. Published quarterly, the Journal encourages the submission of manuscripts from around the world, and from a wide range of academic fields, including comparative education, international education, student affairs, linguistics, psychology, religion, sociology, business, social work, philosophy, and culture studies.For further information http:/ /jistudents.org/

The personal and organizational struggles and accomplishments revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic highlight that innovation is the defining trait of individuals and organizations that thrive in the 21st century. The global health crisis not only accelerated the global geopolitical tensions and disrupted organizations in all sectors, but confirmed the importance of preparing globally competent citizens, professionals, and learners who can effectively respond to the economic, environmental, and digital transformations in the 21st century through lifelong learning and professional development. Leaders today need to not only understand the financial, operational, sociocultural, and historical contexts of regional, national, and global systems, but also to build effective partnerships and trusting relationships with all stakeholders in effective policymaking, fostering an organizational culture that supports innovation and managing risks. Preparing Globally Competent Professionals and Leaders for Innovation and Sustainability is centered on international higher education’s role for the global common good. It critically examines the need for globally competent citizens, professionals, and leaders in the 21st century and higher education’s role in the global common good for a sustainable world. The book presents an evidence-based interdisciplinary framework and promising strategies to allow all learners to develop global citizenship and global leadership while addressing the need to prepare human capital for the global knowledge economy and digital transformation of the 21st century. Covering topics such as accessible education, international higher education, and organizational innovation, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for organizational leaders, executives, faculty and administration of higher education, government officials, human resource managers, industry professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.

Popular opinion has long assumed that learning a foreign language requires not only traditional classroom instruction but also immersion among native speakers of the language. This opinion is so strongly held that students who study through immersion are believed to become more proficient than those who do not. Study Abroad Contexts for Enhanced Foreign Language Learning is a critical scholarly publication that explores the importance and efficacy of international travel in the learning of a second or additional language. Including various topics such as auditory-orthographic training, grammatical ability, and learner autonomy, this book is geared toward academicians, students, and professionals seeking current and relevant research on language acquisition through immersion and its value.