Working Closely (Video 14)

Presenter:

How can staff help international students settle into the workplace? Here are some ideas from a few staff we asked.

Clinical Facilitator (School of Nursing and Midwifery, QUT):

Preparing international students for Prac I’ve found over time has a lot to do with clear expectation, because we’ve actually got an expectation mismatch happening for new international students that come into our university and that go on our prac. Our expectations are guided by our history, what we know, what we’ve seen and so I’ve found international students expectations are different from ours.

Clinical Facilitator (School of Nursing and Midwifery, QUT):

Encourage them to ask questions about what they’re seeing what they don’t understand. Try and get them to just feel comfortable in the area and once I think they’re comfortable and feeling confident then they can start learning.

Language and Learning Skills Advisor (International Student Services, QUT):

One of the strategies that we say is just smile. A lot of international students when I’ve talked to them on their first day so ‘Oh, thank goodness everybody was smiling’ and that sense of welcoming when they walk in the door, or their first time gives them a sense that they belong there, and that’s a very simple one. But another simple strategy can be to learn student’s names, learn how to pronounce their names correctly. Students who say ‘Oh people can say my name’ actually feel that they belong, that their unique identity is being recognised.

Lecturer (School of Nursing and Midwifery, QUT):

Staff can make a student feel welcome by introducing them to the other people that they will be working with, making them feel comfortable in the area that they are in by giving them orientation folders or by orientating them around to the area so the student feels comfortable working there within the unit itself.

Language and Learning Skills Advisor (International Student Services, QUT):

Beyond valuing people’s ideas of how do they belong, it’s to encourage community. This means explaining the hidden cultural rules of our community. So a strategy for welcoming new people into the community is: be explicit, explain the expectations very carefully.