I have noticed how quiet international students are, especially when there are native speakers of English in the same class! When I ask students outside class why they don’t speak more they tell me two things: that they are not confident in their English, and that they don’t think anyone wants to hear what they have to say! It is important that international students understand that if they don’t try to fully participate in classes and tutorials the teacher is likely to think either that they don’t understand, or they are not interested! This means that international students need to prepare for classes/tutorials by thinking about the topic beforehand and getting ready to take part in the session. There are some excellent ideas on how you should go about doing this here at Monash University.
Many regular readers and responders are teachers. Would it be a good idea to have a forum to share teaching ideas on EAP?