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I am working at a university in Europe. We have a great number of exchange students (one semester, year, of multiple years). I have great difficulties to teach (or work with) students from Asia (mainly China and India, but not only). Some of them are similar to other exchange students (Europe and US). But it seems that most of them do not work in the way we expect. Few examples:

• they are doing their best to avoid classes and labs with various excuses, sometimes it seems that presence at classes and labs cause them some tremendous pain (even though they are free to play with their mobile phones).

• they have complains about the too high difficulty of the courses. But they complain only by email. They never ask or complain during the lab.

• they never admit they do not understand the topic - even though other students do so, and/or I directly ask them if they understand

Note: I could find much more problems, but I focused only on problems exclusive for Asian exchange students.

I can simplify and summarize it:

• they are avoiding attending school

• they avoid work/learning

• they never ask anything

• they never talk directly to me in person

I commonly witness things like this:

• 90 minutes of lecture, followed by 90 minutes of time to consult and discuss the lecture or tasks they got. They leave the class immediately after lecture, and send me email in 5 minutes that they do not understand it (with no particular question/note). If I ask them to be more specific, then I have got no response. Later, when they submit solutions for their tasks, it is obvious they do not learn much.

My sample size ~100 of those students in two years. It is not a big sample at all (including my cognitive biases as well). However, it seems that the bad patterns in their behavior are not just my bad luck. Also my colleagues report similar/same experience with similar/same groups of students here.

• do you experience the same problems, or do I have bad sample only?

• what should I do to improve my teaching impact on them?

• why their behavior is so weird and "unstudent like" (from a European point of view), is their previous education too different?

• how looks education at their universities?

As I state before, there are common problems related to all exchange students. It seems that they are coming for different reasons than study (finding new friends, experimenting with new drugs, investigate different culture ...). However, most of them tend to minimize the energy required to pass the subject - they are asking questions, finding ways how to actually abuse rules for their profit. This is non-consistent with behaviour of Asian students I have seen - I do not really understand their behavior. My questions are mainly about to understand this behaviour.

I am working at a university in Europe. We have a great number of exchange students (one semester, year, of multiple years). I am having difficulties reaching some of these exchange students, especially, it seems, but not limited to those from non-Western cultures (e.g. China and India). Treating them in the same way that I would treat native Western students is proving ineffective. I am looking for ways to improve my teaching strategies to better serve these exchange students, and especially those from Asian cultures.

Here are some of the things that I would like help with:

• I am having trouble getting them to attend class. Sometimes it seems that presence at classes and labs causes them some tremendous pain.

• They have complaints about the too high difficulty of the courses.

• They often prefer to communicate via email. It is very difficult to elicit interaction from them during class or lab.

• Communication is sometimes difficult, and when I ask them how I might best help them, some invisible barrier prevents me from discovering a solution.

Note: Although some of these problems are endemic to exchange students (such as a focus on things besides class), the alignment of this, cultural barriers and language barriers are causing me an especially difficult time reaching out to students from Asian cultures.

Thus, I am especially interested in strategies for improving the following metrics for my Asian exchange students:

• class attendance

• class engagement

• engagement with me outside of class

• engagement in person, rather than via email.

• class performance (grades)

My sample size ~100 of those students in two years. It is not a big sample at all (including my cognitive biases as well). However, it seems that my poor results at improving the outcomes for my exchange students are not unique to me, as my colleagues report a similar experience.

• What are some strategies to improve my teaching impact for Indian and Chinese exchange students? This includes improving class attendance, engagement with class and with me, and class performance.

• In what ways are their educational systems and culture at home significantly different from those in Europe?

As I state before, there are common problems in the population of exchange students in general. It seems that they are coming for different reasons than study (finding new friends, experimenting with new drugs, investigate different culture ...). However, I am capable of recognizing and dealing with the popular strategies of Western exchange students: finding ways to abuse rules for their profit, etc.

Unfortunately, my strategies for improving outcomes with Western exchange students are proving ineffective for my Indian and Chinese students. I do not really understand their behavior. My questions are mainly about how to gain a greater understanding of their behavior so that I can make all-around improvements to our teacher-student relationship.

Update As I state before, there are common problems related to all exchange students. It seems that they are coming for different reasons than study (finding new friends, experimenting with new drugs, investigate different culture ...). However, most of them tend to minimize the energy required to pass the subject - they are asking questions, finding ways how to actually abuse rules for their profit. This is non-consistent with behaviour of Asian students I have seen - I do not really understand their behavior. My questions are mainly about to understand this behaviour.

Update

As I state before, there are common problems related to all exchange students. It seems that they are coming for different reasons than study (finding new friends, experimenting with new drugs, investigate different culture ...). However, most of them tend to minimize the energy required to pass the subject - they are asking questions, finding ways how to actually abuse rules for their profit. This is non-consistent with behaviour of Asian students I have seen - I do not really understand their behavior. My questions are mainly about to understand this behaviour.

Day after edit

According to the excessive number of comments (all of them interesting I have to say), I need to make this clear. I am not saying they are not good students at their universities or in general. I am just unable to work with them in the same effective way as with the local students. So I would like to know the origins of this ineffectively and I would like to utilize different approaches of education to reach their potential (for their benefits).

Stating that they are "awesome students" (at their home) and I am "an ignorant teacher" does not help. I already know this.

I am working at university in Europe. We have a great number of exchange students (one semester, year, of multiple years). I have great difficulties to teach (or work with) students from Asia (mainly China and India, but not only). Some of them are similar to other exchange students (Europe and US). But it seems that most of them does not work in the way we expect. Few examples:

• they are doing their best to avoid classes and labs with various excuses, sometimes it seems that presence at classes and labs cause them some tremendous pain (even though they are free to play with their mobile phones).

• they have complains about too high difficulty of the courses. But they complain only by email. They never ask or complain during the lab.

• they never admit they do not understand the topic - even though other students do so, and/or I directly ask them if they understand

Note: I could find much more problems, but I focused only on problems exclusive for Asian exchange students.

I can simplify and summarize it:

• they are avoiding attending school

• they avoid work/learning

• they never ask anything

• they never talk directly to me in person

I commonly witness things like this:

• 90 minutes of lecture, followed by 90 minutes of time to consult and discuss the lecture or tasks they got. They leave the class immediately after lecture, and send me email in 5 minutes that they do not understand it (with no particular question/note). If I ask them to be more specific, then I have got no response. Later, when they submit solutions for their tasks, it is obvious they do not learn much.

My sample size ~100 of those students in two years. It is not a big sample at all (including my cognitive biases as well). However, it seems that the bad patterns in their behavior are not just my bad luck. Also my colleagues report similar/same experience with similar/same groups of students here.

My questions:

• do you experience the same problems, or do I have bad sample only?

• what should I do to improve my teaching impact on them?

• why their behaviour is so weird and "unstudent like" (from European point of view), is their previous education too different?

• how looks the education at their universities?

Note: I know that "Asia" is extremely large place with lot of strongly different countries, so feel free to limit your answer on India and/or China.

I am working at a university in Europe. We have a great number of exchange students (one semester, year, of multiple years). I have great difficulties to teach (or work with) students from Asia (mainly China and India, but not only). Some of them are similar to other exchange students (Europe and US). But it seems that most of them do not work in the way we expect. Few examples:

• they are doing their best to avoid classes and labs with various excuses, sometimes it seems that presence at classes and labs cause them some tremendous pain (even though they are free to play with their mobile phones).

• they have complains about the too high difficulty of the courses. But they complain only by email. They never ask or complain during the lab.

• they never admit they do not understand the topic - even though other students do so, and/or I directly ask them if they understand

Note: I could find much more problems, but I focused only on problems exclusive for Asian exchange students.

I can simplify and summarize it:

• they are avoiding attending school

• they avoid work/learning

• they never ask anything

• they never talk directly to me in person

I commonly witness things like this:

• 90 minutes of lecture, followed by 90 minutes of time to consult and discuss the lecture or tasks they got. They leave the class immediately after lecture, and send me email in 5 minutes that they do not understand it (with no particular question/note). If I ask them to be more specific, then I have got no response. Later, when they submit solutions for their tasks, it is obvious they do not learn much.

My sample size ~100 of those students in two years. It is not a big sample at all (including my cognitive biases as well). However, it seems that the bad patterns in their behavior are not just my bad luck. Also my colleagues report similar/same experience with similar/same groups of students here.

My questions:

• do you experience the same problems, or do I have bad sample only?

• what should I do to improve my teaching impact on them?

• why their behavior is so weird and "unstudent like" (from a European point of view), is their previous education too different?

• how looks education at their universities?

Note: I know that "Asia" is an extremely large place with a lot of strongly different countries, so feel free to limit your answer on India and/or China.

Update As I state before, there are common problems related to all exchange students. It seems that they are coming for different reasons than study (finding new friends, experimenting with new drugs, investigate different culture ...). However, most of them tend to minimize the energy required to pass the subject - they are asking questions, finding ways how to actually abuse rules for their profit. This is non-consistent with behaviour of Asian students I have seen - I do not really understand their behavior. My questions are mainly about to understand this behaviour.