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English: UCFs International Language

An Ethnographic Study of UCFs International Students Discourse Community

The University of Central Florida has a really diverse student body, with different

ethnicities, races, and nationalities. In the fall semester of 2017, UCF had more them 66,000

students enrolled from 157 different countries. This variety of cultures and people contributes to

a diverse atmosphere on campus. It not only helps with community diversity, but also with

research, and world while partnership, which is the key for becoming a globalized individual in

the world we are living in.

Due to the importance that the university gives to conservation and expansion of the

campus diversity, John C. Hitt, president of the institution, created a program that would help

international students with the process of transitioning to higher education in the United States,

specifically at the University of Central Florida. Aiming to attract more students from all over

the world, UCF Global offers a variety of mechanisms that incentives the teens and young adults

to come pursuit their college education at this university. Its staff understands that these students

come from different countries that have different education systems, that can be divergent to

American system in many ways. Therefore, they have a different acceptance process from the

one that the American students go through, and also help everyone that need filling out their

application. UCF Global creates an environment in which international students feel comfortable

with the college atmosphere and receive help from the faculty and other colleagues in order to

become ready to persue it degree by themselves.

This program is designed in a way that every single student can receive help with their

individual needs. This assistance begins in the moment these students arrive at the university.

They have a separate orientation week, that is very different from the one domestic student go
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through. It is designed with special characteristics, such as immigration lectures and documents

translation workshops, that American dont need, but internationals really do. Therefore, in the

first week English non-speakers do not have contact with other American undergraduate and

graduate students, but only other internationals. Owing to this fact, these new students have to

develop friendships with each other, and this is something that can have a positive or negative

impact on them to practice their English. Inside the program offered by UCF Global, it is easy to

find someone that speaks the same native language as you, making the approach to a first

conversation and the development of a friendship easier for both sides.

For this paper, I want to analyze the characteristics of this discourse community that is

getting bigger every year. Furthermore, I want to understand which elements influence them as

non-native English speakers living and studying in one of the biggest universities in the United

States. Understanding the major components that guide these students in their discourse can help

us to have a clearer view and comprehension of this group that is present on the UCF campus but

does not receive much attention.

Methods

I developed a research project where, for two consecutive semesters, summer C and Fall, I

observed the international student body of UCF Global and collect elements about their

discourse community. I also have been in contact with a number of international students

enrolled in Global UCF from different countries and different continents, specifically from Asia,

Europe, Africa and Latin America. On campus, I completed already college level class, including

English for Academic Purposes (EAP2851), and workshops with a number of fellow

international students, and, outside campus, I had contact with many of these same people at
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social events. These helped me to have an academic and social perspective of the discourse

community being analyzed. Furthermore, I interviewed two UCF Global faculty members, Erica

Reynoso, Career Coach who works with international students helping them with their career

plans and goals, and Benjamin Kibler, Student Advisor who has been supporting international

students with their academics, in order to understand another point of view, other them the

students, in these discourse community. Both of these interviews were conducted inside of each

of the members respective offices during the Fall semester, with a space of 2 days from one to

the other.

I used these methods because they gave me the opportunity to understand the discourse

by taking part on it. This way I was able to have an inside view and be part of this communitys

discourse instead of having only an outsides participant view. Both these methods gave me the

opportunity to interact with the members of the specific community that the research focuses on

and some of its sponsors.

After analyzing all the data collected, I focused on specific characteristics of this discourse

community. The elements I focused on were the flexibility with the use of English, the

interaction between international and domestic students, and international students attentiveness

on a conversation.

Results

Owing to the fact that the purpose of this study was to have a deeper understanding of the

discourse of UCFs international students' community, it would be intelligible to divide and

focus during the elements that influence it. The clearest characteristics that should derive

peoples attention are flexibility, interaction, and attentiveness.

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Flexibility: International students are more flexible with the use of English then domestic

students. This happens because these people are new to the United States, coming from countries

where English is not the native idiom. Therefore, they are all still practicing their language skills

and mistakes are very common in this part of the process. They are more open to accepting

mistakes without judgments because they understand that, the same way their English is not

perfect, their colleagues is not either. Because of that, the same way that they want to be

comfortable to speak English and err sometimes, they want to support the others for them to have

the same comfortability. They want to make everyone around them understand that it is good to

practice and okay to make mistakes too.

American students, on the other hand, have a perfect English, which they had been practicing

throughout all their lives. Therefore, they are not used to dealing with English mistakes, and for

that reason sometimes they have reactions that are uncomfortable for the international students

and make them lose confidence in their skills. During my research, I was able to see some

reactions that discourage international students to practice their English, such as Americans

laughing and making fun of some English mistakes. These discourage the students to approach

an American to a conversation on the future, something that also contributes to them having

more international friends. As Benjamin Kibler, student advisor of UCF Global, said,

international students tend to have empathy for somebody because they are all in the same boat

when it comes to speaking English and making mistakes.

Because of that, international students give preference to building a dialog and even a friendship

with others in the same situation. Global UCF creates an environment to nurture this type of

communication. They understand each other and give them support in a way that a comfortable

and helpful environment is created.

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Interaction: UCF Global hosts events every week so that they can facilitate the development of

friendships between their students. They encourage students to bring friends for some of these

get-togethers, as it is called, so they can feel more comfortable. One of the events, Coffee

Connections, is designed for the internationals to meet domestic students. However, all the

friends that the students bring are also not Americans, and most of the time they are people from

the same country as them or that speak the same language. However, it is not the students' fault,

because they werent given the opportunity to build a friendship with domestic students.

Therefore, these students dont practice English outside as much as the program expects to, and

this result in a delay to the improvement of their fluency.

Due to the way that UCF Global designs its transition process, orientation week and obligatory

events, it is easier for the international students to make friends with other internationals than

with American students. Inside the programs offered by UCF Global, it is not difficult to find

someone that speaks the same native language as you, making the approach to a first

conversation and the development of a friendship easier for both sides. However, the program

praise for their students to practice their English skills not only inside their classrooms but

outside of it too, and this situation only makes it more difficult for them to meet this objective.

The program an inclusive system and does not give their members the opportunity to interact

with other group son campus, especially native speakers of English.

Attentiveness: International students that interact with each other are more attentive when having

a conversation. Sometimes it is hard to understand international students accents and

expressions due to the fact that most of these students are still practicing their English use and

developing their skills. For this reason, when interacting with other internationals frequently,
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people learn to understand a lot of things by the context and not by focusing on the words

themselves.

When communicating with these students, people tend to not always understand

everything in a conversation, so they will have to focus on understanding the context of what

they are talking about more them just on the word by word of it. Understanding the context in a

conversation that you are not able to understand every single word or phrase used is essential to

keep the conversation flowing. For that reason, UCF Global students, that are often

communicating with each other, tend to develop a skill that helps them with paying attention to

their colleagues while having a conversation. Thus, these students focus on the words and the

context within which they are uttered.

Conclusion

The discourse community that the UCF global students participate in is very interesting and even

more complicated than what the outside participants may think. The characteristics of this

discourse do not receive a lot of attention from the other communities, however, are key to

understanding how it works and why it works in this particular way. After spending two

semesters with members of this community and talking to some of its faculty members, I

understand that the attention that is given to them is not enough owing to the fact that they are a

big part of the UCF students and staff body. After gaining a more in-depth understanding of the

surreptitious elements that influence the UCFs international students discourse, I hope that

people develop more empathy towards this particular group and its attributes.