Are International Students’ Preferred Pedagogy Influenced by Their Educational Culture?

Abstract

The increasing number of international students is studying at British universities. This study investigates multicultural students' preferences on teaching and learning which was conducted at a university in the South of England during 2009/2010 academic year. In the literature review, the framework used in this study is explained. The study sample was 34 students who were studying Japanese as a non-credit module. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected using questionnaires. The results showed that some students' preferred pedagogy appeared to be altered and influenced by British educational culture regardless of students' previous educational culture. In addition, the sample participants' preferred pedagogy are identified into given categories based on the framework of the study. Those who are in the teaching profession are encouraged to take into consideration of the educational cultures and teaching and learning practices from non-Anglophone countries.

Does Communicative Language Teaching Help Develop Students’ Competence in Thinking Critically?

“…Bailin et al (1999) claim that "critical thinking is cultural artefact" (Bailin et al, 1999, p. 292) and Peter (2008) also argues that thinking and reasoning are not homogenous phenomena and different cultural forms of reasoning and argumentation exist. In previous studies, Winch (2013) investigated CLT using the underlying culture. Therefore, investigating the underlying pedagogies of critical thinking is also anticipated to go through a similar procedure.…”

“…Winch (2013) investigated the underlying pedagogies and educational CLT by comparing traditional teaching and CLT. This section is based on Winch's (2013) findings. CLT adopts the following dimensions of educational culture: small power distance, weak uncertainty avoidance, and individualism.…”

“…Small PD: student-centred orientation. The underlying pedagogy of power distances is either a teachercentred or a student-centred class (Winch, 2015). The underlying pedagogy of a large PD is a teacher-centred class, which considers that "teachers are gurus who transfer personal wisdom", "students treat teachers with respect" and "teachers are expected to take all initiatives in class" (Hofstede et al, 2010, p. 72).…”

Methodological Issues in Studying Cultural Dimensions with Special Reference to Educational Context

“…The work of Winch (2015) provides good methodological details. Learning Japanese in a UK University provides an example of foreign language learning in a single country context.…”