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Thriving in Academe
Tales from Real Life

Stranger in a Strange Land

In the mid-1960s, as a “foreign student,” I landed in a small liberal arts college in Texas and was immediately confronted with some peculiar challenges. I arrived with a relatively solid knowledge of English. What I didn’t know, Texas twang aside, was the idiomatic nature of American English. It took me a long time to realize that “How do you do?” really meant “hello” and did not require me to stop and go into some details about my well-being.

Another revelation was the multiple-choice test with which I was not familiar. My first attempt at taking one in an American history class resulted in an F, even though I knew the material well. The next test, in essay format, yielded an A.

As a graduate student at UMass-Amherst, I was assigned to teach some of the first English as a Foreign Language courses offered to foreign students. Conversations I had with my colleagues (and with my own instructors) made it obvious that the expectation was for the foreign students to make all the necessary adjustments for their academic success. It seemed then, and it still does today, over 30 years later, that faculty feel ill-prepared to deal with the issues that arise when enrollment by international students is no longer the exception in their courses.

It need not be this way. An inclusive approach to international students is good not only for them, but is enriching for all students, and has the potential of providing meaningful enhancements to any course.

—Leora Baron
University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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