Opportunities and Obstacles: Technology, Language, and International Students in Higher Education

Abstract

Increases in both international student enrollment and technology use require exploration of how these students use the Internet. A survey was administered to students enrolled at three institutions to determine the frequency of their engagement in different online tasks in addition to the language(s) that they used. This work uses Transformative Learning Theory (Mezirow, 1991) as a lens to examine how these students use language to navigate their transition into their new roles as college students and members of new communities. Several differences were noted among the study sites, reflecting the culture of the region and the varied student populations. In considering how to best support these students in navigating their new roles, there are concrete implications for practice: encouraging technology use as a platform for students to try out new roles, acknowledging and reinforcing the social and academic influence of the surrounding community on students’ school practices, and fostering personal relationships through culturally-responsive andragogy that values the funds of knowledge (Moll, 1992) that these students bring to the classroom.