An Outsider View: the Perceptions of Visiting International Students on Teaching, Language and Culture

This study investigates how international visitor students studying temporarily at a public university in Turkey perceive teaching, language and culture. Qualitative explanatory single case study method was employed in the study. The data were obtained through face to face interview with 10 participants, and a focus group interview with 3 participants. The study results indicate that Turkish Higher Education seemed to these visiting students to have problems including the style of teaching, the language of instruction. Findings disclosed that, there are some challenges for participants in teaching such as the language of instruction and number of the courses provided. In addition to that, learning environment such as crowded classrooms and few varieties of class types for the instructions might be called as limitations. In the context of the language, participants criticized that English was not used as a medium of instruction because of the students' language deficiency. However, visiting students praised practice opportunity of the university, language development during their study, development of their intercultural understanding, international perspective, widening their horizon and social relations.