The Effects Of Stress In International Students

“Mr. D, how do you say this (holding a pen) in English?” It was my first day back to school in Dubai. As I looked at my seventh grade student whom I knew I was going to be teaching history and geography to, exclusively in English, I realized I was in for a long semester. But, I empathized. “It’s a pen,” I said patiently. She nodded with understanding. Eight months later, my socially acclimatized student was conversing fluently in English with her peers. And, she had become one of my top students. Dubai is an international metropolis for K–12 education. Its education system (Knight, 2014) represents 186 nationalities, 255,208 students and 16 international curriculums (KHDA, 2015). As a former K–12 teacher who taught in Dubai, I wondered how …show more content…
and Australia has not been a seamless experience for all international students. Researchers have acknowledged this for decades: Burns (1991) determined that stress was found at a higher level among international students than domestic students, the demands of these new environments for international students can create stressors that may strain interpersonal relationships, undermine self-esteem (Murff, 2005) and jeopardize academic performance (Clinard & Golden, 1973). Kilmann, Saxton, and Serpa (1986) suggested, that culture might be an important factor in determining how well an individual fits an organizational context. Gilbert (2000) argued that academic culture shock is a subset of culture shock and “is a case of incongruent schemata about higher education in the student’s home country and in the host country” (p. 14). Such demands are often more complex for the international students, who have to adapt to a new culture, language, academic, and social environment (Mori, 2000). Previous findings from extant literature detailed below expound on the increased difficulties that international students experience and how they affect their overall …show more content…
Through understanding the background stories of international higher education students from Dubai, western higher education institutions may be able to better understand the need to account for their international students’ unique and complex identities. Doing so may enable western higher education institutions to develop better systems of support that meet their international students’ needs prior to their arrival in western higher education. This may enable international students to transition with greater ease resulting in their increased satisfaction, graduation and retention