Exploring the Impact of the Academic Interactions and Social Relations of Graduate Black African Students on their Learning Experiences in Beijing

Current data on international student has not particularly examined the experiences of the international African students in China. Furthermore, faced with a situation where the researcher encountered challenges as a student in China; I self-located in exploring the experiences of the African student in adapting to a new social and academic environment. A phenomenological research framework using semi-structured interviews was used to explore the social and academic experiences of 12 African Graduate students from three Universities in Beijing, China. Participants identified Chinese language as a major challenge, reported limited interaction with Chinese lecturers and discriminatory treatments during classroom dynamics. Added to these, there is much preference given to students from western countries. The study concludes by discussing the implication for practice and emphasizes the importance of universities acknowledging the cultural background of each other and incorporating perspectives of all students in a particular class to enhance student life experiences.

Using Kahoot! to Gamify Learning in the Language Classroom

Technology is increasingly being used to foster engagement, enhance classroom dynamics, promote autonomy and improve the student learning experience in language learning environments. Many teachers have begun to employ digital apps and tools (e.g. Mentimeter and GoSoapBox) as a more interactive alternative to traditional activities. One product that has been particularly popular due to its user-friendly interface and focus on motivation, enjoyment and competition is Kahoot! ( https://kahoot.com ) – a game-based student response system in which the teacher takes on the role of a game show host with the students as contenders. Kahoot! can enhance the language classroom by making the introduction of new content (e.g. definitions, tenses or collocations) and the consolidation of knowledge more interactive and visible, helping learners reach mastery of the language content. Although Kahoot! has been a popular platform since its launch in 2013, its utility in the language classroom has yet to be fully explored. Furthermore, to be used effectively, teachers need a clear understanding of its subject-specific affordance and limitations. Therefore, this review explores how language teachers can use Kahoot! to improve student engagement – and potentially academic performance – by gamifying learning. Notably, only the free version of Kahoot! is examined.

Fostering autonomy in learners with special needs: a specialized e-learning course

International engagement has become a priority and is regarded as a means to improve the quality of students’ education and their future social and professional success. It may, however, pose a major challenge for some higher education students. One of the vulnerable groups is that of learners with special needs, and particularly Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing students. These learners are limited in their chances to interact in spoken/written foreign languages and in the learning opportunities they can join. This, by extension, has an unfavourable impact on their possibilities of engaging in study abroad. Based on the experience with a newly launched e-learning course “Online English for International Mobilities”, the present paper discusses the need for building effective FL learning strategies in Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing students in connection with the process of academic internationalisation. The main argument is for the need to foster students’ ability to self-regulate, reduce their teacher dependency and reliance on directed learning, and to encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning. Secondly, the paper provides a comparison of two pilot runs of the course from the perspective of (online) classroom dynamics and cooperation. While the course is built to be as autonomous as possible and benefits from the advantages of the e-learning format, great importance is given to group dynamics and cooperation via discussion forums and online chats. It also takes advantage of the considerable benefits of individualized, personalized feedback being provided by teachers on selected assignments.

Wrestling the Elephant

White supremacist ideology is the elephant in the social work classroom, negatively impacting educators’ abilities to facilitate discussion and learning. One of the most effective ways to dismantle and organize against white supremacy is to politicize the seemingly benign moments that occur in the classroom that can create discomfort for students and instructors. Politicization includes identifying and addressing both the racial (micro-) aggressions that occur in the classroom and the processes and institutional policies that create complacency and lull us to sleep. In this conceptual piece, we use a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework to understand how white supremacy perpetuates itself in the classroom, with a particular focus on whiteness as property. As well, we explore what it means to decolonize the classroom. Using a vignette based on our teaching experiences, we use these two frameworks to analyze classroom dynamics and interactions, and discuss how implications for social work education include waking from the metaphorical sleep to recognize the pernicious effects of whiteness and white supremacy. Included are practical individual teaching, relational, and systemic suggestions to enact change.

The Politics of Resistance From Within

Everyday racism embedded in all facets of society, coupled with ongoing injustices against racialized people globally, have reignited an urgent action to turn the gaze within social work education. There is a need to challenge and resist white supremacy that continues to institutionalize systemic racism and justify state control of social and political processes. These current realities are in direct contradiction to the neoliberal push for state withdrawal from social programming and essential services. Yet the interconnectedness between neoliberalism, white supremacy and fascist ideologies has gone undetected in social work circles resulting in a political and ideological vacuum in the profession. Within the social work curricula, there is a lack of attention and involvement to effectively dismantle white supremacy and racism that are perpetuated within and through the profession. The social work classroom has been a natural place to incubate a new wave of resistance that has the potential of changing the face of the profession. Considering the deleterious effects white supremacy has for racialized bodies within academic spaces, we assert the embodiments of resistance with a call to action for social work scholars, students, administrators and practitioners. These key actors must reject the legacy of white supremacy in our profession that acts as social control agents serving the state's interests and perpetuating its hegemony. We explore some of the ways in which we confront and disrupt white supremacy, which includes interrogating and dismantling dominant discourses, systemic and institutional academic racism (teaching, research and service), social work curriculum and priorities, and racist classroom dynamics that have been shaped by whiteness that continues to impact the interactions between racialized and white students and professors. We conclude with a call to infuse social work with practices and approaches that equip students with knowledge and tangible tools to enact change beyond academic spaces.

Exploring the Implication of Graduate African Students’ Academic and Social interactions on their Learning Experiences in Beijing

Current research on international students has not particularly examined the African students’ experiences in Chinese universities. Furthermore, faced with a situation where I encountered challenges as a student in China; I self-located and explored the social and academic interactions of African students in Beijing. I employed semi-structured interviews to explore 12 Black African Graduate students’ learning experiences of studying in three different Universities in Beijing, China. Participants identified Chinese language as a major challenge, reported limited interaction with Chinese lecturers and discriminatory treatments during classroom dynamics. Further, the students indicated that preference was given to students from Western countries. Although some were ambivalent about their experiences, in general, these experiences did not produce negative impact on their learning, rather the students reported their overall academic experiences as being positive. The study concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for practice and recommends specific interventions to enhance student learning experiences

Theater as a safe environment to start productive skills development in an EFL classroom

This article describes a pedagogical proposal based on theater as a safe space to develop productive skills in an EFL classroom. Thirty-six eleventh graders from a public school in Tunja participated in the theater sessions. In each session, we collected data through recordings, interviews, and field notes to understand the impact of the pedagogical intervention. The findings suggested that theater could help créate a safe environment that decreased students’ anxiety levels while exploring the language. As a result, the students’ productive skills started to emerge. We argue the need to change classroom dynamics, organization, and time management in order to create transformative places that foster safe environments in the EFL classroom.

Reconsidering Monolingual Strategies of Bilingual Education through Translanguaging and Plurilingual Educational Approaches. Are We Moving Back or Forward?

This study explores monolingual and multilingual strategies in bilingual education by investigating translanguaging practices in the Georgian monolingual Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). Two research questions guided this research: (1) What Translanguaging practices do teachers use in the CLIL Natural Science program with a monolingual approach? (2) What is the rationale for teachers’ translanguaging pedagogical approaches in monolingual Natural Science lessons in the CLIL? The study utilized a classroom observation qualitative research method to answer the designed research questions. The findings reveal that the planned and implemented curricula differ considerably. The translanguaging approach is more emergent instruction rather than a well-planned and organized process. Second, teachers use translanguaging in scaffolding to support students and explain new teaching materials to be comprehensible. Third, translanguaging makes the instruction more student-centred. when switching to translanguaging, students become more active and more actively engaged in the learning process Fourth, translanguaging in the Georgian separated CLIL model is a more spontaneous strategy derived from classroom dynamics than planned to support learners’ linguistic repertoire. Accordingly, it can be characterized as one of the pedagogical practice of translanguaging, codeswitching, rather than translanguaging itself. Finally, translanguaging is an instrument for teachers’ empowerment

The Teacher as a Social Transformer

Educational institutions play an essential role in the expansion of culture and students’ professionalization. Educational institutions are terrains where students and teachers read the world together, and the knowledge on which they concentrate their efforts can convey dreams, utopias, and social fights. A contrast is made between examples taken from education in Germany, Mexico, and reflections from a student movement in Hungary. A teacher can be a social agent who, through his or her pedagogical practice and help of the classroom dynamics, moves students to transform their realities by making an ethical-political commitment to the societies to which they belong. This practice should or can be ascribed to teachers in conditions of poverty, repression, and violence such as the rural teachers. It can also be practiced by those who, by their craft, seek to give meaning to life collectively as a form of emancipation, resistance, and love to face the adversities of our times.

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way: Synthesizing Creativity, Contagious Motivation, and Unique Projects Into the Course Experience

Creativity is not just a catch phrase for the new decade—it is a way of life. While technology-driven innovation can promote efforts to produce optimal solutions, individually driven creativity is necessary to launch and drive cutting-edge, trailblazing ideas. The goal of this study is to examine relationships between creative divergent thinking (CDT) and motivation situated within course projects as antecedents to the overall course experience. The synthesis of transformational leadership, context-dependent fixation hypothesis, strength of weak ties perspective, contagious motivation, and constructivist learning frameworks form the interdisciplinary foundation for the proposed contagious motivation and creative experience model (CMCEM). The proposed marketing classroom model is tested using a structural equation model of N = 540 marketing undergraduate students. Findings indicate that CDT is an important individual characteristic that affects classroom dynamics. Importantly, when students exhibit higher levels of CDT, they perceive higher project uniqueness, higher levels of motivation, higher other student motivation, and more positive course experiences. In addition to other findings, the CMCEM emphasizes the powerful combination of CDT, individual student motivation, the contagious nature of that motivation on other students through well-structured group projects, and the importance of instructors as transformational teachers.