For an international student, integrating into the learning environment is very important. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, people have more complex needs when more basic needs need to be met. In this case, in order to achieve good learning results as well as contribute their own difference while working in a team, the need for belonging needs to be met. However, integration often encounters many difficulties. This paragraph will clarify the causes as well as the solutions to this problem.
One of the biggest reasons why international students have difficulty integrating into their new learning environment is communication barriers, first of all, communication. Having different mother tongues makes international students, outside of the academic environment, where everyone speaks English, but in other everyday situations, the language difference will make them feel lost when they do not understand what others say. Even when communicating in the same language, people’s fluency levels are different, so many times they cannot fully convey what they want to say through this second language, making communication much less effective.
The second biggest reason is cultural and cognitive differences. Growing up in different countries causes people to have different beliefs and perspectives on the same situation. For example, while in the U.S., communication can be loose and informal, in the Middle East, relationships are “intense and binding.” This makes international students somewhat different in their new learning environment.
Solving this problem thoroughly is really difficult and requires a lot of effort. Some solutions to solve this problem can be mentioned as students from the country where international students study have proactive activities to connect with these students, such as bonding activities (actively talking, having lunch, studying in groups, etc.), proactively using more common languages. It is possible to assign a volunteer to accompany as a “mentor” for international students to promptly explain situations that occur so that they do not suffer from culture shock and get used to the new environment more easily.
In short, the integration of international students is one of the important issues that needs to be solved to improve performance according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Although it is difficult to solve completely, however, with the solutions mentioned, we can minimise the barriers so that international students can integrate better into the new environment.