LANDER HAWES

The Challenges of UK Universities for International Pupils

Unlike international students, international pupils have the advantage of having been educated in the UK, often to a high standard at a private school. However, the challenges of both entering and performing consistently during an undergraduate degree are still significant for each cohort. The educational culture of universities is very different from the learning culture at school, and apprehending this difference and adapting to it is a key factor in student success.

English language entry tests

These tests are an obstacle for many aspirational pupils. The market leader, the IELTS test, is very effective at filtering test takers who haven’t been specifically prepared for it In essence, having reasonable levels of high school English doesn’t guarantee the scores required for university entry For example, the speaking test has a very wide range of topics for the examiners to choose from, and responses which only use simple sentence structures and basic vocabulary won’t score at the required level Equally, the reading test has fifteen or so question types, some of which are counter-intuitive and slow test-takers down if they haven’t encountered them before So, diligent preparation is very important

The analysis to evaluation jump

A common experience for year one undergraduate students is to find that their written assignment grades drop by a band or so from sixth form The most common reason for this is the university requirement to evaluate, which has a different emphasis to their sixth form education Students are accustomed to describing and analyzing their course content in A-level assessments, where they present detailed knowledge, and use strategies like compare and contrast to organize it However, at university, the requirement to evaluate requires an approach which is fundamentally selective The equation ‘Select + Justify = Evaluate’ is my favoured starting point for teaching this. Evaluation is rooted in presenting lists (arguments, models, theories, sources) and choosing one as more relevant or useful, and justifying this choice.

Organisation and workload

For most students, university is the first time they’re required to both manage an unlimited workload and manage their own work time For these reasons, it’s important to create a working schedule as soon as possible after arriving at the university This should run from early morning to late evening for five days a week and contain five hours or so of self-study time for each module Also, a focus on daily consistency is important, as opposed to competitive quantity of work, as the latter can quickly lead to burn out University study relies on the weekly reading compounding over the duration of the course, so steady work through the academic year yields the best results

Approaches to study

University students struggle with both the quantity of required reading and the difficulty level This means that academic reading strategies become much more useful and necessary than in sixth form study For example, with academic journal articles reading the first and last page first, then deciding what to read in the rest of the article, prevents students becoming overwhelmed by the text Also, the use of research questions, where the student makes a series of comprehension questions prior to reading, and then sets out to answer those questions, is another valuable strategy Both strategies are grounded in the principle that academic reading is a selective process, where relevant information is sought out within a text This contrasts with ‘normal’ reading, where the strategy is to read an entire text to achieve a summary understanding of it

In terms of academic writing, the journey at university involves adopting the approach of a professional writer. This means that assignments are produced in a series of successive drafts in the weeks prior to the deadline, where the first sketches out basic structure and argument, and the following drafts fill in and expand on this. It’s an approach which is necessary when students are writing multiple 1500+ word assignments with the same submission date which is a common feature of undergraduate and postgraduate study

About Lander:

Lander Hawes has taught international students in UK higher education for the last 13 years He is the cofounder of Kinjugo, an ed-tech company which makes educational mobile games for English language learning and teaching Kinjugo's first game 'Preposition Safecracker' is available from www kinjugo com He's at landerhawes@kinjugo com