Teaching international students can be seen as an inconvenient challenge given the language barriers and the limited preparation that their academic backgrounds have given them to adapt to life in the UK. However with the internationalisation of UK HE the onus is on universities and colleges to take responsibility for adapting to the students.
This paper identifies and examines the barriers that international students face when adapting to a new academic culture. It also looks at methods that teaching staff can adopt to ease transition. Popular stereotypes of students from different countries are also explored and the paper provides explanations of culture-specific behaviour and suggests ways in which we can work towards providing students with a more rewarding academic experience.
