CATLR Tips and Resources

Strategies for Supporting International Students

How can we teach in ways that draw on what international students already bring to the classroom?

Overview

Every academic year, international students make up nearly half the total student population at Northeastern University. That presence shapes nearly every classroom on every campus and it raises a practical question for instructors: how do we teach in ways that recognize what these students already bring, rather than treating cultural and linguistic differences as something to overcome?

This Teaching Tip provides four areas of practice and additional insights about how to better support international students.

In This Guide

Practice 1: Deepen Intercultural Awareness

Lead with curiosity. When a student does something unexpected such as sends an unusually formal email, declines to make eye contact, asks a question that seems off-topic, ask before assuming. An overly detailed request may signal that the student has been taught precision is a sign of respect. Curiosity creates an opening for conversation about norms.

Use neutral language. Norms around attendance, citation, and collaboration vary across academic cultures. Where possible, frame expectations as “helpful” or “unhelpful” to learning rather than using language like “cheating.” Neutral framing keeps the focus on skill development and reduces the fear that prevents students from asking for help (Torres-Arends & Jacobsen, 2024).

Try Story Circles. Story Circles ask students to share firsthand narratives on a common theme such as overcoming a challenge, a moment of transformation, a cultural shift (Deardorff, 2020). The listening protocol requires three steps: speak in turn, listen without interrupting, then identify shared themes. The practice shifts classroom interaction from debate to understanding. Making space for stories early in the term helps you learn about your students and helps students recognize each other as people with histories.

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Practice 2: Design an Inclusive Classroom Community

Build in processing time. After posing a question, give students a few minutes to think  or write out their thoughts before asking for responses. Multilingual students and quieter students gain time to organize their thinking and the quality of subsequent discussion improves for everyone. Consider practices like Warm Calling instead of cold calling.

Think-Pair – But reconsider the share. Think-pair-share is widely used because the “pair” phase lowers the stakes for early participation. But Cooper, Schinske, and Tanner (2021) caution that the “share” phase to the whole class often defaults to native-English-speaking or otherwise dominant students, replicating the inequities the activity was meant to mitigate. Consider alternatives: a written share where each pair posts a one-sentence response to a shared document; a randomized share where you call on pairs by lottery rather than volunteers; or a shift to “think-pair” without the public share phase when surfacing diverse responses matters more than full-class reporting.

Form groups intentionally. Random or self-selected groups often replicate existing social patterns. Use what you learn from your students to compose groups that mix strengths, perspectives, and experiences. Assign clear roles (facilitator, recorder, timekeeper, criteria-checker) so contributions are distributed rather than improvised. Check out our tip on teams and learning.

Explain cultural references. When you mention a holiday, TV show, or political event your students may not share, take a sentence to explain it. “Juneteenth, on June 19th, commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the United States.” This small habit prevents the quiet exclusion that in itself might distract students to try to figure out what they are missing.

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Practice 3: Make the Implicit Explicit

Leverage the TILT framework: The Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework (learn more about this subject here) recommends that instructors clearly communicate three things for each significant assignment: the purpose (skills and knowledge gained), the task (specific steps), and the criteria for success (with annotated examples where possible) (Winkelmes et al., 2016).

Try norm-setting at the start. Begin the term with an anonymous poll: What are your expectations of me as an instructor? What do you see as my role in your learning? What is your role as a student? What are your goals for this class? Discuss patterns and share your own answers. The conversation surfaces mismatches before they become problems.

Use guided peer review. Have students apply your success criteria to one another’s drafts. Applying a rubric to peers’ work helps students internalize what the criteria mean, which then improves their own work.

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Practice 4: Build on Students’ Strengths

The Community Cultural Wealth model (Yosso, 2005), originally developed for students of color and increasingly applied to international students (Kelley, Watson, & Bindamnan, 2023), names six forms of capital that students from underrepresented backgrounds bring to the classroom. Four are particularly relevant to faculty seeking to design more inclusive courses for international students.

Aspirational capital: sustaining goals despite obstacles. Invite students to connect course material to their long-term goals. What does studying here mean to you? What do you hope this course will contribute to your career? Consider an assignment that asks students to map course skills to their professional or community aspirations.

Linguistic capital: fluency across languages. Where possible, allow primary-language sources in research projects, with translated excerpts. Invite students to bring relevant terms or concepts from their first language into discussion. Students often produce sharper analysis when they can think in the language closest to the material.

Social capital: networks of peer and community support. Encourage help-seeking that involves peers. “Collaborative office hours,” where students come in groups, can lower the stakes of asking for help. Naming this option in your syllabus and re-mentioning it during the term signals that bringing a friend is expected, not unusual.

Navigational capital: moving through institutions not designed for you. Most international students have already done significant navigation work to be in your classroom. Assignments that ask students to reflect on systems they have learned to navigate (visa processes, healthcare, academic culture) turn that experience into intellectual material rather than treating it as background struggle.

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Considerations in the Age of Generative AI

Distinguish AI uses that support thinking from uses that replace it

For multilingual students, the line between “help with my English” and “do my work for me” is harder to locate than it is for native speakers. The cost of guessing wrong is higher. Instructors can reduce this ambiguity by explicitly naming the distinction rather than leaving students to infer it.

A multilingual student who drafts in their first language, translates with AI, then revises is doing intellectual work.  At what point does AI revision become AI authorship? Faculty judgment is required, and ideally, it happens in conversation with students rather than alone.

What this looks like in practice:

  • State your AI policy on the syllabus in specific terms. Rather than “AI use is prohibited,” try: “You may use AI tools to brainstorm topics, get feedback on drafts you have written, and clarify concepts. You may not submit AI-generated analysis or prose as your own work. When in doubt, ask.”  You may even indicate that translation is an acceptable use, depending on the course objectives.
    • Ask yourself: does my AI policy treat all students the same, or does it treat all students equitably? 
    • If you allow AI for editing and grammatical support, say so explicitly. Multilingual students may assume a stricter rule than the one you intend.
  • Where AI use is restricted, explain why in terms of the learning outcome rather than the moral framing. “This assignment is designed to develop your skill at X, so we’ll do it without AI tools” reads very differently from “Using AI is cheating.”
  • Engage in a short conversation about AI into the first week. Ask students how they currently use AI tools and what they’re uncertain about. The conversation surfaces assumptions on both sides and signals that you treat this as a teaching question, not a policing question.
  • For major assignments, ask students to submit a brief note describing what AI tools they used and how. Framed as documentation rather than confession, this practice normalizes transparent use and gives you information you would not otherwise have.

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Practice in Action

STEM lab course. A chemistry instructor opens the term with stories about students’ first encounters with laboratory work. Everyone learns about the variations in equipment and safety norms across different countries. The instructor uses what she learns to calibrate her safety briefings and to form lab pairs that combine students with complementary prior exposure.

Humanities seminar. A literature instructor introduces a comparative literature unit by inviting students to bring a short text from any tradition that connects to the week’s theme. Students read briefly in the original language when relevant, then translate or paraphrase for the group.

Online asynchronous course. A nursing instructor adapts the storytelling activity into a Canvas discussion: students post a two-minute audio or video reflection on a course-related experience, then respond to two peers using a listening protocol. The asynchronous format gives multilingual students processing time that benefits their participation.

Studio or design course. An architecture instructor builds project briefs that explicitly invite students to draw on the built environments and design traditions they grew up with. Final reviews include time for students to contextualize their references for peers unfamiliar with them.

References and Additional Reading

Cooper, K. M., Schinske, J. N., & Tanner, K. D. (2021). Reconsidering the share of a think–pair–share: Emerging limitations, alternatives, and opportunities for research. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(1), fe1. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-08-0200

Deardorff, D. K. (2020). Manual for developing intercultural competencies: Story Circles. Routledge & UNESCO. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429244612

Kelley, J., Watson, A. N., & Bindamnan, A. (2023). More than meets the eye: Community cultural wealth as a theory for mentoring international students. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2023(175), 83–92. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20561 

Winkelmes, M.-A., Bernacki, M., Butler, J., Zochowski, M., Golanics, J., & Weavil, K. H. (2016). A teaching intervention that increases underserved college students’ success. Peer Review, 18(1/2). https://research.ebsco.com/plink/587b6141-6eaa-3a64-a85e-91a6e7f62541 

Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 

 

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