Last week, NYIT faculty and staff members gathered—from Long Island, New York City, and Nanjing—to talk about effective strategies for teaching when you have a large number of students in your class who are not native English speakers. The conversation took place on the evening of Wednesday, February 11 (or the morning of the next day, for our Nanjing participant), and used Zoom videoconferencing to connect everyone. Participants exchanged ideas, strategies, and practical tips. Here are some of the highlights from the conversation.

How do you know your students understand what you're saying in class?

• Asking them is a good place to start, but bear in mind that sometimes students will tell you they do understand when in fact they do not. Furthermore, some cultures are more likely to ask questions, and others less so. You may want to use some quick check-in techniques to help both you and the students monitor their learning.
• Some students are more likely to tell you what they do understand. One faculty member encourages his students to nod or shake their heads when he stops to check for understanding, rather than responding verbally. It feels less conspicuous to respond nonverbally.
• Another faculty member noted that when she asks a question she will count silently to 10 before asking for responses, to give the students time to gather their thoughts.
• A participant who was herself an international student previously talked about the complexity of disciplinary vocabulary, emphasized the importance of speaking slowly and clearly, and suggested providing students with written lists of specialized vocabulary so they can prepare in advance of class.

Do you modify written assignments or required reading, and if so, how?

• Many students will think in their own language and then translate in order to write, or to ask or answer a question in class. All this mental processing is time consuming!
• When you hear a word but do not see it, it can be hard to know what that word is. If you make video screencasts for your students, consider providing either a transcript or a list of key terms, bookmarked to the places in the video where they are used.
• Writing longer pieces can be challenging, whether it is a research paper, a proposal, a lab report, or a technical document. Some of our participants give their students templates, and others devote some class time each week to a different section of the document, encouraging students to read each others' work and providing feedback to teams or individuals.
• The more practice students get at writing, the better they will become. Consider putting a question on the board before students come in, and having them write about that topic for the first 5–10 minutes of class. Letting your students gather their thoughts and articulate their ideas will enrich the discussion that follows.

Sometimes the students who would benefit most from office hours don't come to them. How can you encourage them to do so?

• In some cultures the relationship between students and professors is quite different than it is in the U.S. Providing opportunities to talk informally can be a good way to break the ice. For example, one engineering faculty member said she brought her students to the cybersecurity conference in September, and they were able to talk during the breaks between sessions about the material presented.
• Mix up students in project teams. Assign them to teams with people from different countries and cultures. Students need to get to know one another to form productive teams.
• Use downtime in labs and studios to hold mini-conferences with individual students.

What strategies do you use to connect with your students, to help them engage with the topic and feel more comfortable asking for help?

• In some departments, all the faculty members are advisors to some of the students in the program. Have an initial face-to-face meeting with each student to establish a connection, and encourage the students to come to you with questions and concerns.
• Comment on their work and engage them in conversation about it. Frequent feedback on assignments will let your students know that you are invested in their progress.

Join the conversation!

If you are interested in delving deeper, please join your colleagues next week for an extended conversation on this topic. The Center for Teaching and Learning will be offering an online workshop on these and related topics. We will use VoiceThread, an asynchronous discussion tool that is also available to all faculty for use in their courses. To register, please complete the form at http://goo.gl/Mqj8ri.

We hope to see you there!
Fran