Teachers should support international students
Ahmed Almohammdi
Mesa Legend
International students are struggling so much, and they have a hard time studying abroad. The Mesa Community College community of administrators, teachers and students all need to better support international students because there are so many difficult things about being a foreign student: such as being far from home, cultural differences, and understanding their classes. One of the hardest parts for International students is getting home sick. For example, it’s very hard to keep studying abroad, because every time I go back home for summer I see huge difference in the people I know. The kids I grew up with look very different and my parents are getting older, so this makes me want to finish my studies faster because I don’t want to miss the celebrations, vacations and accomplishments they go through without me.
We need somebody to help us to deal with what we go through. Just being more aware and understanding of what students are going through will help support us. People should try to understand other people’s culture and customs. I think the solution to this problem is that I need to try and understand the culture here and become acclimated to it in order to be able to live here and fit in. On the other hand, it is important for others to try and understand my culture, too. The important thing is education, which is why I am here in the US. My friend and I, as international students, try so hard to understand our teachers. Sometimes we don’t understand what the teacher wants from us and then we end up doing our work wrong. Some teachers do not allow us to redo the work, even if they find that we are having trouble understanding work that is not in our language.
A lot of teachers don’t understand our culture and they don’t understand that English it is not our first language. For example, when they talk we can’t understand everything they say because they talk too fast for us to understand. At some point we don’t know how to improve ourselves in the next class because we never understood the concept taught to us. This makes teachers think we are lazy and we don’t want to study. Of course this is not true about all teachers, many of my teachers were very helpful. Some teachers might even have ideas about us before we even turn in our first paper. Some teachers might have racist thoughts about international students especially Arabic or Muslim students because they might believe we are bad people and think that we are terrorists. We came to the United States because we love this culture and we like to develop our selves. Some teacher forget about us and they don’t think about we live alone, or how we left our country and that we don’t have family here.
Also some teachers don’t like to spend more time to help us because they think it is not their problem or not their business to spend time to understand and help us to do better. The solution to these teachers should read about the international students and the college or university should give them a course for example, a special training course that explains about the international student and how they can teach the international students to achieve their goals and dreams. At ASU teachers who teacher international classes like ENG 107 must be certified to teach these classes and take workshops on how to help international students. The College should explain to the teacher about the international student’s problems, like being homesick, English being their second language, the students missing family, living alone and new culture. For example, they should take care of international students and explain things better them and give them him a chance to re-write their homework.
If teachers tried more to understand and support their students, it would be better for everyone because this would enhance the student’s desire to learn more. In conclusion, Mesa Community College needs to make many changes. The International Student Office is understaffed and unhelpful. In addition to improving the International Student Office, MCC should explain to the teachers about international students and explain about how the to work together with students and because they left their country to get the education and improve their lives.
The teachers should have more consideration about international students.
