During the Fall 2017 semester, the Teaching and Learning Center distributed an anonymous survey to all international students registered at The Graduate Center. Responses were collected from November 15th through November 27th, 2017. Sixty-eight students completed the survey.
Of those 68 respondents, only one 1st year student was teaching (in the computer science program). Almost all of the students in their 2nd year or higher were teaching, except for two 3rd year students, one 4th year student, three 5th year students, and one 6th+ year student.
Except for one student teaching at Queensborough Community College, all respondents teach at 4-year CUNY schools. Many of them have been teaching for 1-2 years (N=34), while 13 have been teaching for 3-4 years, 3 have been teaching 5-6 years, and one for 7 years or more. Eighteen students had previous teaching experience in their home country, 12 of whom had 1-2 years, 4 of whom had 3-4 years, and 2 of whom had 7 or more years. The remaining 33 had no teaching experience in their home country.
When asked about their English proficiency, 73 percent (N=37) of respondents expressed feeling comfortable speaking English in the classroom. Similarly, 78 percent (N=40) feel that students understand them well when they speak in class. A majority of respondents (86%, N=44) understand their students well when they speak in class. Additionally, several students commented that English is their native language, while some cited cultural differences proving more challenging than language barriers in the classroom.
When asked about the main differences between classroom culture and dynamics in their home country and CUNY, many respondents (73%, N=36) expressed that the relationships between teachers and students at CUNY differ from their home country. Slightly fewer (63%, N=31) feel similarly about instructional methods. However, 66 percent (N=31) of respondents feel comfortable teaching in these different instructional methods. When asked about teachers’ roles in the classroom, 31 respondents (63%) feel a teacher’s authority at CUNY differs from their home country, and 59 percent (N=27) feel comfortable in this different role as teacher.
Several respondent commented that classrooms in their home country are less interactional, more lecture-based with fewer in-class activities, and more “authoritarian” and less democratic than in the U.S.
When asked about the American educational system and CUNY curriculum, 28 (58%) respondents feel they understand the American educational structure and CUNY’s structure and curriculum sufficiently. Half of respondents (N=24) feel they understand their students’ educational/ cultural/ linguistic backgrounds sufficiently. The main challenge for most respondents is lack of institutional or departmental support: only 35 percent (N=17) of respondents believe their department/college provides enough resources to navigate teaching. Forty-four percent (N=21) feels their department’s expectations of them are clear. Here, several respondents commented that they receive little guidance overall: “I have to figure everything out for myself,” “…there are definitely policies/instructional practices that I only find out about tangentially, as I go along,” “there isn’t much involvement with how we develop our courses.”
On the topic of diversity in the classroom, 74 percent (N=34) of respondents feel their cultural and linguistic background enriches the teaching and learning experience. Additionally, 79 percent (N=37) feel comfortable managing diverse classrooms. Also, all respondents either agreed or had no clear opinion about their classroom being a positive learning space for their students; that is, no respondents disagreed.
And overall, many respondents (65%, N=31) feel their teaching enriches their research activities and 75% (N=36) of respondents enjoy teaching and feel fulfilled most of the time.
Finally, respondents ranked the types of support they would like to see in the future in the following way:
- instructional methods and pedagogy
- authority and classroom management
- educational system and CUNY curriculum
- language support
- identity and positionality
