We Need More International Students

I've been thinking about this for a while and observing a group activity in my writing class today really provided some clarity for me.

There are 19 students in my undergraduate writing class, 17 Koreans and two Saudis.  After giving them some time to brainstorm essay topics by themselves, I put them into group of three of four students to share their ideas and get feedback.  There were five groups.  Without any prompting from me, three of the groups started speaking in Korean and the other two groups spoke English.  I'm sure you can guess which two groups used English.  Even the Korean students in the groups with the Saudi students spoke English to each other.

Here's the elephant in the room (or on the campus).  KAIST bills itself as an international university.  It's a school where many of the classes are taught in English and there are exchange and degree-seeking students from around the world.  The challenge that we face here, however, is the authenticity of using English on campus.  Simply put, if there aren't any foreigners in the class, the faculty meeting, the office, or the group of people walking through campus, English isn't being used.  And of course it's not!

The best classes I have taught here have had international students in them.  International students not only bring their unique cultures and backgrounds to campus, they bring a real need for the school to become international and multicultural.  I have watched a senior from the UAE make friends with two Korean freshmen by working on a group project together.  One of the the freshmen was so motivated by this new friendship that he visited the UAE over the semester break and was shown around by the senior.  We need more of this.

There are many ways KAIST can become more international.  We need more foreign professors in every department.  We need office staff with adequate English skills and experience living abroad.  We need a stronger foundation program for English language skills like other international universities have.  But most of all, we need international students in more of our classes.  The Korean students at KAIST are able to speak English and use it to collaborate on projects and in class discussions; they just need a reason to.  A classroom with only Korean students isn't an international classroom and doesn't provide sufficient motivation for the students to use English as the medium of communication, only international students can do this.  Let's invite more of them to join us here at KAIST.