DSpace at VNU: Enhancing academic skills for first-year overseas business students

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Journal of International Education in Business Enhancing academic skills for first-year overseas business students Thi Tuyet (June) Tran Article information: Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) To cite this document: Thi Tuyet (June) Tran , (2013),"Enhancing academic skills for first-year overseas business students", Journal of International Education in Business, Vol Iss pp 165 - 178 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JIEB-06-2013-0026 Downloaded on: 28 June 2016, At: 19:29 (PT) References: this document contains references to 35 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 191 times since 2013* Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: (2013),"Preparing business students for the global workplace through study abroad: A case study of the Danish Institute for Study Abroad", Journal of International Education in Business, Vol Iss pp 107-121 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JIEB-05-2013-0018 (2013),"Developing intercultural intelligence: Dubai Style", Journal of International Education in Business, Vol Iss pp 148-164 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JIEB-05-2013-0021 (2013),"Playing catch-up: Why Americans are not more culturally competent and how a business education can help", Journal of International Education in Business, Vol Iss pp 200-206 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ JIEB-08-2013-0031 Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:318550 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services Emerald is both COUNTER and TRANSFER compliant The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation *Related content and download information correct at time of download The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/2046-469X.htm INNOVATIONS IN STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES Enhancing academic skills for first-year overseas business students Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) Thi Tuyet ( June) Tran Enhancing academic skills 165 Received June 2013 Revised August 2013 Accepted 16 August 2013 La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Abstract Purpose – This study reports on the academic support programs targeting first-year business students at La Trobe Melbourne The at-risk students were offered both a general academic support class and a content-based program This study was conducted to explore students’ perception of the usefulness of these programs The paper also aims to create a better intervention to attract more at-risk students by exploring the reasons behind the low rate of at-risk students making use of these services Design/methodology/approach – The specific research uses a mixed method approach to explore a way to best address the academic needs of the first-year international business students, especially those identified as at-risk students in a college in Melbourne where both a general academic program and a discipline-based program were on offer Findings – The findings indicate that although the content-based program was highly evaluated by students and also attracted more students than the general support module, many at-risk students did not use this service The low level of English proficiency, the heavy workload, the passive and dependent learning style, the unclear information about the service and the desire to follow only teachers’ guidance all prevented at-risk students from making use of the available services These students need further help and guidance in this transitional period to recognise the assistance provided for them and to make use of these services to enhance their learning Originality/value – Recently, various support activities have been designed to assist international students in enhancing their language and academic skills necessary for pursuing their study in Australia These activities range from credit-based English for Academic Purposes courses, to optional general language and study programs, and more recently, discipline or content-based programs There is also a tendency in several universities to move from offering general language and study programs to embedding disciplinary programs Adopting disciplinary-based academic support activities seem to be the right direction in many universities as these activities are more likely to help increase the overall pass-rate and improve student learning outcomes However, problems seem to remain when many at-risk international students not seem to go for these services This study has led some light on how to improve the future language and academic skills to support activities for first-year overseas business students Keywords International students, Academic skills, Business students Paper type Research paper The author would like to thank Denise Bush and Jacqueline Tulk (La Trobe Melbourne) for their essential support and constructive comments Journal of International Education in Business Vol No 2, 2013 pp 165-178 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2046-469X DOI 10.1108/JIEB-06-2013-0026 JIEB 6,2 Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) 166 Introduction International education is one of the key businesses in Australia The industry is the third largest export earner in Australia (AEI, 2012) It is reported that since 2005, international students have constituted one in four of all Australian university enrolments (Russell et al., 2010) In December 2012, the number of international enrolments in the higher education system (HES) was 230,932, nearly 60 percent of whom were from four Asian countries: China, Malaysia, India and Vietnam (AEI, 2013) These full-fee-paying students have, on the one hand, helped universities to compensate for declining government support On the other hand, they also create challenges for the HES to change in order to address the new needs of the large number of second language learners The differences in terms of culture, learning styles and language proficiency levels of these students need to be taken into consideration in designing the curriculum and increasing appropriate academic support activities to help them successfully pursue their studies This is especially important for first-year international students, because the transition these students have to make is not only from school to university (Bridges, 2009), but also a cultural transition where they have to learn new academic norms in another language Thus, the first-year experience has been recognised as an important foundation for international student success at university (Reason et al., 2007; Tinto, 2001) Many universities in Australia have been conducting research on the needs of international students and designing different activities to support these students and help them better engage in their study A range of language and academic support programs such as English as a second language classes, different workshops, and short courses on various academic skills have been offered However, this type of general support module has gained much criticism as its impact on student learning outcome is limited (Baik and Greig, 2009; Durkin and Main, 2002; Wingate, 2006) Many universities have, instead, developed content-based intervention programs or discipline-based academic programs to address the particular needs of students studying in different disciplines (Baik and Greig, 2009; Evans et al., 2009; Kennelly et al., 2010; Skillen et al., 2003) Although it has been reported that the outcomes of these programs are quite positive with more international students attending the programs and the overall pass-rate increasing, the perennial problem remains – the attendance of at-risk international students in these support programs is often low (Kennelly et al., 2010) Many of these students fail repeatedly and some drop out This study reports on the academic support programs targeting first-year business students at La Trobe Melbourne (LTM) The at-risk students were offered both a general academic support class and a content-based program This study was conducted to explore students’ perceptions of the usefulness of these programs We also aim to create a better intervention to attract more at-risk students by exploring the reasons behind the low rate of at-risk students making use of these services Institutional context LTM operates in association with La Trobe University It has an enrolment of 1,318 students[1], the majority of whom are international students from Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, Saudi, and India Chinese and Vietnamese students outnumber the students from other nationalities and often make up 65-70 percent of the LTM international student cohort LTM offers several pathway programs to bachelor Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) degrees at La Trobe University The diploma courses offered at LTM are equivalent to La Trobe University’s first-year bachelor degree After completing the courses (which usually takes one year), students are allowed access to second year at the university At the point of enrolment, LTM students not meet the necessary university entrance requirements in terms of English skills and/or study achievements at high school Therefore, these students need more help both to improve their English and to develop relevant academic skills required to study in the Australian tertiary education context Literature review The literature has indicated many challenges non-English-speaking background students face when pursuing higher education in English-speaking countries Two of the most challenging requirements for these students are to develop an understanding of a new discipline in a second or foreign language, and to develop adequate academic skills required to study in Western countries (Kennelly et al., 2010; Rajaram and Bordia, 2011; Soosay, 2009) The claim of weak English skills of international students is popular in the literature Different authors have raised concerns about the lowering of the minimum English language requirements for international students to enrol in university study as a result of the competition to attract more fee-paying students in the HES (Baik and Greig, 2009; Birrell, 2006; Watty, 2007) Birrell (2006) and Kennelly et al (2010) pose a warning that despite achieving the minimum entry language requirements for university, many international students still struggle to understand their subject content, to follow the course instruction and to meet the demand of their courses At the point of graduation, as Birrell (2006, p 53) indicates, at least one-third of these students have their English “score below the level normally required for employment as professionals in Australia” Nevertheless, there are other explanations for the weak capabilities of these students in enhancing their English and academic skills and succeeding in their overseas study Johnson (2008) for example, draws attention to the difficulties in mastering technical and discipline-related aspects of academic language, especially in writing He suggests that although many international students feel quite relaxed about their everyday English, they find it hard to understand extended discourse, which links to the norm of academic writing style with which they are unfamiliar Lum (2006), instead, makes explicit the role of culture in learning He suggests that culture, communication and learning are intertwined and mutually dependent In the case of LTM, when the majority of international students come from Asian Confucian heritage cultures (such as China and Vietnam), there is a significant difference in terms of students’ inherited learning style and their prior learning experience in their home countries and the style students are expected to adopt in order to pursue tertiary education in Australia It has been argued that different cultures develop different learning styles and the differences in learning styles lead to the differences in pedagogical preferences (Kemp, 2010) Thus, an instruction technique which works with local students may not be suitable and effective with international students from other cultures (Warner and Child, 1992) Confucian heritage culture with its key features such as face saving, hierarchical order in decision making, collectivist, conformity and harmony (Liu, 2006; Subramaniam, 2008; Thompson, 2009; Tran, 2013) does not encourage its students to Enhancing academic skills 167 JIEB 6,2 Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) 168 be independent, proactive and to take the initiative – characteristics required for students to be successful in Australian tertiary study The general role of the teacher in Asia is to teach – or to transfer key knowledge and to set rules (Rajaram and Bordia, 2011) Most of the time, students only need to follow the instruction of the teacher In Australia, the teacher does not provide the rules, the knowledge is not “transmitted”, and the language of instruction and teaching is not always easy to understand for these non-English-speaking background students They need help for this multiple transition: transition from school to university, transition to understand instruction in another language, transition to adopt a new learning style and transition to understand the academic norms of a specific discipline in a totally different culture Australian universities have trialled different ways to assist international students Most universities offer international students some form of language and academic skills support activities These activities range from credit-based English for Academic Purposes courses, to optional general language and study programs, and more recently, discipline or content-based programs There is a tendency in several universities to move from offering general language and study programs to embedding discipline-based programs Numerous research results indicate that discipline-based programs attract more international students as these programs often provide students with task-specific assistance (Baik and Greig, 2009; Evans et al., 2009; Hutchings, 2006; Kennelly et al., 2010; North, 2005) These studies all point to the importance of learning within a disciplinary context and that skills may also be context-specific Hutchings (2006) suggests that discussion and feedback should be incorporated into disciplinary content because this will help students to more easily clarify their understanding Dressen-Hammouda (2008) also recommends disciplinary-based support activities and emphasises the need for situated learning, especially in relation to the different written genres in different disciplines Adopting disciplinary-based academic support activities seems to be the right direction in many universities as these activities are more likely to help increase the overall pass-rate and improve student learning outcomes (Baik and Greig, 2009; Kennelly et al., 2010) The benefit of attending these programs is quite significant However, problems seem to remain when many at-risk international students not use these services In a study by Kennelly et al (2010), the number of at-risk students who did not (often) attend the discipline-based support programs always outnumbered those who regularly attended There seems to be a need for further investigation into meeting the needs of these at-risk students The research This research was designed to explore a way to better address the academic needs of first-year overseas business students, especially those identified as at-risk, at LTM After enrolment, all international students were required to take part in an English diagnostic test If they scored below 60 percent, they were identified as at-risk students At-risk students also included those who failed in the early unit assessment The study drew on the data from three consecutive 13 week-trimesters in 2012 During the first trimester, three major activities were designed to support students’ learning: general academic workshops such as “independent study and time management skills”, “referencing style” and “exam preparation”; an academic skills development (ASD) subject; and individual consultations with the academic skills Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) advisor (ASA) After the results of the English diagnostic test were released, all students who were identified as at-risk students were advised to attend the ASD class which was also timetabled and ran for hours a week To encourage students to attend this class, a percent bonus mark was given to students who had overall 80 percent attendance In the first trimester, the general workshops were organised during week (i.e the “independent study and time management skills” workshop), week (i.e referencing style workshop) and week 11 (i.e exam preparation workshop) However, the attendance in both the ASD subject and the general workshops was low In the second trimester, discipline-based writing workshops were embedded in the foundations of management subject (FOM) This subject contains heavy content related to language and academic skills These workshops replaced the general workshops that were conducted in the first trimester and aimed to better address the specific needs of FOM students These content-based workshops started in week 5, when students were given the writing task which was an essay of 1,500 words, and ran every week until week 10 They were open to all students in the program; however, at-risk students identified by early unit assessments and the diagnostic test were especially encouraged to attend These 1-hour workshops ran twice a week, and were flexibly arranged to match with students’ timetables In these workshops, students had a chance to work on their essays and gained prompt support in the following areas: writing task analysis: task requirements; overall structure of an essay (argumentative essay/balancing essay); searching academic journal articles using Google Scholar, Proquest Business, Emerald and Expanded Academic Search; scanning, skimming for relevant ideas, note-taking skills; how to write an introduction (broad statement, thesis statement, structure of the essay); paragraph writing (topic sentence, supporting ideas, coherence); and referencing (in-text citation and reference list, following Harvard reference style) At the beginning of each trimester, the ASA, who has a background in both applied linguistics and business, worked closely with the FOM coordinator to discuss the writing task and to design the activities in the workshops which would best address students’ needs Students were also encouraged to make appointments to see the ASA for further guidance or comments on their writing The FOM teachers were encouraged to suggest at-risk students come to seek the assistance of the ASA At the end of trimester 3, research was conducted based on our observation during these three trimesters The research was aimed at finding the most appropriate way to attract students, especially the identified at-risk students into the academic support services, and to better enhance their learning The data presented below are the results of both a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews with FOM students enrolled in trimester 3, 2013 A questionnaire was sent to all FOM students during week 11 of the trimester, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with five at-risk students, and a focus group interview was conducted with eight students Participation in the interviews was on a volunteer basis They were selected by their FOM teachers on the basis that they could provide insight into the subject being explored Research questions: Enhancing academic skills 169 JIEB 6,2 RQ1 Do students know about the academic support services? RQ2 What students perceive about general academic support classes and discipline-based academic programs? RQ3 What are the reasons for the low proportion of at-risk students attending these programs? 170 Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) Results Attendances From our observation during these three trimesters, the students’ attendance in the ASD subject was often low and the number of students who attended this class decreased during the trimesters By contrast, the attendance in the discipline-based writing workshops increased, from about 15 or 16 students in weeks 5-20 and sometimes 30 students in each workshop from weeks to 10 There were 37 students (trimester 1), 57 students (trimester 2) and 63 students (trimester 3) who sought the individual assistance of the ASA Some students only sought the help of the ASA once, whereas others made frequent appointments and came for a consultation every week With regard to attendance, there is obvious evidence for the claim made by Kennelly et al (2010) that a discipline-based approach to academic and language development works better to meet the specific needs of the international students in FOM Nonetheless, our database revealed that about 50 percent of the at-risk students did not turn up in any of the academic support activities Thus, the survey and the interviews were created to explore students’ perceptions of these activities and the reasons for the low proportion of at-risk students making use of these services Students’ perceptions of academic support programs Do students know and use the academic support services? In total, 100 out of 125 students returned the survey They were asked whether they knew about these services, where they received information about these services, and if they used these services They were also required to evaluate these services and provide the reasons (if any) for not using the language and academic skills support activities The information about these services was introduced to students through several channels such as on the student portal, during orientation, or by the subject teachers Under LTM policy, it is made explicit that subject teachers have to adopt the responsibility to ease students’ transition to Australian higher education Thus, the teachers of subjects with heavy language content often remind students about these academic support services As a result, in most cases, more than 70 percent of the students were made aware of these activities However, not all students who knew about these free services had tried to use them (Table I) Table I Academic skills workshops Academic skills advisor Academic skill development subject I used this service (%) I know but have not used this service (%) I not know this service (%) 51 35.80 28.60 35.80 20.40 28.40 9.80 32.60 57.60 Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) A high proportion of students did not know about the ASD subject – (57.6 percent) This seems reasonable because this class was designed only for students with low English proficiency However, more than 40 percent of students were informed about the service and many were likely to be the target of this class, but only 9.8 percent of them (9 students) used the services This is a disappointing number 50 percent of the students (35.8 percent) who were aware of the availability of the ASA made efforts to make use of this service The academic writing workshops had the highest proportion of students attending (51 percent out of 79.6 percent of the ones who knew about this service) The tendency to follow only teachers’ guidance The survey results reveal that students preferred to receive information from their teachers The student portal is the second most important source of information when students want to seek available academic services Table II shows the proportion of the students who knew about the language and academic support services via these three sources Student participants in the focus group also supported this finding They all suggested that they only wanted to follow their teachers’ guidance and “orders” Most students confessed that they did not get much information out of the orientation Nina suggested: Enhancing academic skills 171 Don’t expect us to learn anything during orientation That’s the time we just finished our holiday, we was also new here, just wanted to talk, to know each other We were busy with our own stuff and could not learn anything Some students did not pay attention to information on the student portal either For example, Thanh suggested: We don’t often read the student portal; because we think the information there is general information If we need to anything, the teacher should tell us in class Clearly, there is evidence of the dependent learning style adopted by many Asian students in the traditional learning by “receiving” knowledge and information from the teacher (Kennedy, 2002; McKay and Kember, 1997) They seemed to be familiar with listening to their teachers, and thus did not pay much attention to these optional activities In the Australian context, it is expected that students need to take initiative and find the resources to enhance their learning (Dahalin and Watkins, 2000; Tran, 2013) It is not the primary responsibility of Australian teachers to direct students to these activities However, these new students may not recognise the difference and thus may not be able to adjust to the new learning style The limitation of the general academic skill development subject As discussed earlier in this paper, the survey has revealed a disappointing number of students attending ADS classes When the interviews were conducted, students were asked for Where did you get the information about the services? Academic skills workshops Academic skills advisor Academic skill development subject Subject teachers (%) Student portal (%) Orientation (%) Others (%) 72 62.3 22 24.7 9.8 14.3 6.1 7.8 46.9 16.3 14.3 26.5 Table II JIEB 6,2 the reasons for the low proportion of students using this service In an individual interview, Singh confessed: I should go to that class, but I didn’t I only go to the classes that I have to go Cheng Yu, another at-risk student, found another excuse: 172 I came once at the beginning of the term, but I don’t think it helps me with my subjects I think it’s a waste of time, so I stopped John, a non-at-risk student in the group interview also explained: Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) You know, the compulsory subjects are already very demanding Not only the weak students but we all have to focus on the subjects Our time is all occupied, that’s why I think not many students want to come to this optional class and to have more work to Hong Anh in the individual interview suggested that she may be the only one who often turned up in the ASD class Sometimes she was the only one in the class She also asked the teacher about her writing assignments in other subjects, but she noticed that: Most of the time, the teacher only commented on my grammar, but I need more advice on the content and arguments Probably the teacher does not have a business background, so it is not easy for her to give me advice in that field In short, the low attendance in the ASD class was explained by the students with several reasons such as the heavy work load in the compulsory subjects, and the laziness of some at-risk students who only wanted to satisfy the minimum requirements of the course Some students attended the ASD class at the beginning of the trimester but they could not see the connection between this service and the assistance for their main course study, thus they did not turn up again Even one of the most hard-working students who often turned up in this class also confirmed that the assistance of this service for her learning was modest This finding supports Wingate’s (2006) claim that because the generic academic skills programs lie outside the students’ main course of study, these programs are often not seen by the majority students as being useful and relevant to their study Although the discipline-based programs were considered useful, many at-risk students did not attend When students were asked to rate language and academic skills support services, 65.5 percent of students considered discipline-based workshops extremely or very useful, and 59.6 percent had a similar comment for the ASA consultation service However, when evaluating the ASD subject, the highest proportion of students (35.6 percent) chose “moderately useful” (Table III) In the group interview, when participants were asked why many students did not generally turn up in the ASD class, but they did in academic writing workshops and in seeing the ASA – other optional activities, Dharani explained immediately: Table III Academic skills workshops Academic skills advisor Academic skill development subject Extremely useful Very useful Moderately useful Slightly useful Not at all useful 16.2 6.7 47.3 50.7 33.3 31.1 31.3 35.6 2.7 11.1 2.7 13.3 There are two differences here One, when we received the essay task, the teacher encouraged us to come to writing workshops and to see the ASA to know how to write that essay And two, these workshops basically just helped us what we had to do, thus my teacher told me that I don’t have to attend that class [he is a quite good student], I still wanted to Enhancing academic skills Cassandra added: The same like the ASA, we become familiar with her in the writing workshops She understands the task and can provide prompt advice She also offers flexible meeting, I can drop into see her at my convenient time When our time doesn’t match, I can send her my essay and she gives me online comments Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) Nina, on the other hand, provided a quite critical point: You know, the writing workshops and ASA service are open to everyone, that’s the difference We come because we find the workshops useful, but I know lots of weak students did not attend those workshops and did not see the ASA Nina’s claim was quite consistent with our attendance record, where many students who were not at-risk students came to every workshop, and tried to seek all available assistance, but many at-risk students did not often participate in these activities This finding is similar to Kennelly et al.’s (2010) findings about the high proportion of at-risk students not attending academic support programs The survey data suggested two major reasons for students not using the available support even when they know that the services are free, available and useful: time constraint (71 percent) and lack of teachers’ guidance (19 percent) Nonetheless, the focus group participants suggested that insufficient information about these workshops and not a strong enough “push” from the subject teachers were also major reasons for the absence of many at-risk students in these workshops For example, Bo Jun suggested: Advertisements about these services are placed somewhere, somehow, but it is not clear what these services are really about, who they are for and what benefits we would get when spending time using the services Tung added: Yes, this is especially right for the ones with poor English skills Sometimes the teachers also encourage us to use these services, but they don’t explain clearly about the services The students with poor English skills cannot understand They are the ones who need help most but they often did not know the availability of these services and how to get access to these services Nonetheless, Singh, an at-risk student, when asked, suggested that he was not interested in these activities: I don’t care much about these services I just what my teachers ask me to do, for example, open the Moodle and some quizzes, there’s mark for them Thanh Mai, another at-risk student, described her struggle: I find it hard I don’t understand the lecture I try to read book and homework I don’t have time and don’t know what these activities are for 173 JIEB 6,2 174 Together with insufficient information about the services, the lack of interest of some students and the heavy work load for the weak students, students’ laziness was also mentioned as one of the reasons for many students not turning up to these optional classes Nina shared her observation: I think lots of students don’t care They skip class, or they come just to play games or surf Facebook, my teachers sometimes get angry with them Whereas Singh, an at-risk student gave his own explanation: I am not lazy; I just don’t like study and don’t want to use any service Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) Cheng Yu confessed: Most of the time I just come to class to tick the attendant form then I feel asleep I have a part time job and I work hard When I come to class, I am often tired and don’t want to learn Thanh Mai showed her disappointment in the individual interview: I don’t know, I think I’ll give up It’s too hard for me to learn here Sometimes I understand the teacher, but when I need to the task, I got stuck Clearly, the poor preparation for overseas study of these students seemed to create great challenges for them to follow their study and make use of the available assistance to make their study easier and more enjoyable Evidence of poor English (Andrade, 2006; Lebcir et al., 2008), of a dependent learning style (Tran, 2013), of the Confucian heritage culture and the desire to only follow teachers’ orders of Asian students in the transition to adopt a Western learning style (Kennedy, 2002; Thompson, 2009) can be found in this study It may take a long time for these students to undertake the transition, especially when they have commitments outside their study (e.g part-time jobs) or when they not really like studying and only want to enjoy a new life without the control of their parents Discussion and conclusion This study reveals the limitations of generic academic support module It resulted in low attendance in the ASD class Although bonus points were given to the target students participating in this module, it still did not attract the students for whom it was designed Students could not see the connection between attending this class and the direct help they needed for their study in the main course Most of the time, they saw this subject as irrelevant to the subject matter they were studying Thus, attending this class added more work for them to The ASD subject at LTM is a good example of the “deficit approach” which was designed for weaker students (Biggs and Tang, 2011) The findings of this study also support and are consistent with the findings of other authors about the problems of generic language and academic skills programs, or the “deficit” approach in enhancing student learning (Baik and Greig, 2009; Durkin and Main, 2002; Kennelly et al., 2010; Rajaram and Bordia, 2011; Skillen, 2006; Swales et al., 2001; Wingate, 2006) The findings of this study confirm some positive results of the discipline-based academic support programs This “contextual”, or flexible approach (Biggs and Tang, 2011) addresses the specific needs of students in the FOM subject in dealing with their writing tasks, and was appreciated by the majority of students It also attracted many Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) non-at-risk students, and it seemed to meet the demand of all students who want to succeed in their learning in the Australian tertiary education system The data reveal that the students who scored the highest marks in FOM each trimester were always the ones who came to most academic writing workshops and to see the ASA frequently The programs appeared to be useful not only for at-risk students, but also for all first-year international students Since “every specific discipline has its own conventions, values and practices” (Durkin and Main, 2002, p 26), such content-embedded academic programs would better help students learn the language of a specific discipline, and they would be more likely to be successful in their study It seems to provide prompt support for international students who were still in transition to adopt a new learning style and new academic norms in their specific disciplines in the Australian HES The data also indicate the evidence of passive and dependent learning styles among FOM international students, especially the weaker ones This learning style is claimed to be common in the Asian Confucian heritage culture (Kennedy, 2002; Subramaniam, 2008) A number of at-risk students did not use any service because these services were not compulsory Many tend to follow only their teachers’ guidance and only tried to cope with class minimum requirements Thus, they often overlooked the assistance of these optional support activities If the teacher did not name them or lead a clear way to these services, they may not make use of the services which were designed especially for them This seems to be the main reason for the absence of many at-risk students in these activities They need further help and guidance in this transitional period to recognise the help provided for them and to make use of these services to enhance their learning Nonetheless, there were also other reasons leading to poor attendance of the at-risk students in all academic support activities Students’ laziness, the lack of clear and easy accessible information about these services, the heavy workload they need to deal with in their study and the need to balance between study and a new life in a new culture with other concerns and commitments apart from study are also some of the reasons preventing students from making use of the available services These factors all need to be taken into consideration when designing language and academic skills support programs This study has shed some light on how to improve the future language and academic skills support activities for first-year overseas business students The following improvements are being considered to provide language and academic support services for international students in LTM: Consideration is being given to replacing the ASD subject with more individual support for at-risk students A diagnostic test is still useful in identifying at-risk students at the beginning of each trimester The identified at-risk students will be required to attend writing workshops and to see the ASA Their essay drafts need to be read by the ASA before being submitted to their subject teachers Students should be better informed about the services Apart from the information posted on the student portal, and delivered during orientation, activities for each workshop will be sent to students’ emails Another way to attract potential students could be by inviting more senior and successful students who used the services to speak to new students and explain the benefits of the programs Collaboration between FOM teachers and the ASA needs to be expanded They need to develop a type of team-teaching process to discuss the content delivered Enhancing academic skills 175 JIEB 6,2 176 in class and during support workshops They also need to work toward the best way to encourage potential at-risk students using the academic support services Clear and personal guidance from teachers is necessary to create a stronger “push” to at-risk students, to notify their weaknesses and encourage them to seek further support from the ASA or from attending academic writing workshops Subject teachers also need to be more sensitive to different needs of these international students and find an appropriate way to help them gradually develop an independent and autonomous learning style Downloaded by HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY At 19:29 28 June 2016 (PT) Note LTM public data in April 2013 References AEI (2012), International Education Snapshot, Australian Education International, available at: https://aei.gov.au/IEAC2/Consultation(IEAC)/Documents/DataSnapshot.pdf (accessed 24 May 2013) AEI (2013), AEI International Student Enrolment Data 2012, Australian Education International, available at: https://aei.gov.au/research/International-Student-Data/ Documents/INTERNATIONAL%20STUDENT%20DATA/2012/2012Dec_0712.pdf (accessed 24 May 2013) Andrade, M.S (2006), “International students in English-speaking universities adjustment factors”, Journal of Research in International Education, Vol No 2, pp 131-154 Baik, C and Greig, J (2009), “Improving the academic outcomes of undergraduate ESL students: the case for discipline based academic skills programs”, Higher Education Research & Development, Vol 28 No 4, pp 401-416 Biggs, J and Tang, C (2011), Teaching for 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Most students confessed that they did not get much information out of the orientation Nina suggested: Enhancing academic skills 171 Don’t expect us to learn anything during orientation That’s... number of students attending ADS classes When the interviews were conducted, students were asked for Where did you get the information about the services? Academic skills workshops Academic skills