Psychologo-pedagodical basics for ensuring international students’ successful studying results

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PSYCHOLOGO-PEDAGODICAL BASICS FOR ENSURING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS' SUCCESSFUL STUDYING RESULTS

¹ Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Universytetska Str., 1, Lviv, Ukraine, UA-79000

²Lviv National Agrarian University, Volodymyra Velykoho Str., 1, Dubliany, Lviv, Ukraine, UA-80381 irynaturchyn1@gmail. com;

³Lviv State University of Internal Affairs, Horodotska Str., 26, Lviv, Ukraine, UA-79007

The paper deals with the main problems of international students' study at higher educational institutions and the necessary university services, for example, propaedeutic training and foreign language courses that help foreigners to study successfully in an unfamiliar learning environment.

The interpretation of psychological adaptation and academic adaptation is given based on the analysis of the issue source.

The work explores specifics of adaptation and favorable conditions for international students in higher education, as well as identifies problems with the adaptation of foreigners in university education. Recommendations for psychological support of foreigners by advisors are given. The university services of the international students' advisors and other university staff are analyzed concerning assistance on academic adaptation to the different educational system of the country and university requirements to studying. It is indicated that knowledge of the basics of psychology, features of personality psychotypes, and human adaptive abilities is very important for advisors to help students adapt to the academic requirements of a particular educational system. Advisors should act as a mediator to facilitate the learning process of students, taking into account individual worldviews and intellectual development, for example, while developing a personal curriculum and teaching time management. The work also highlights three main forms of counseling by their advisors as seminars, individual assistance or group work. Various student centers and university campus organizations are listed that help foreigners study and live in an unfamiliar academic environment.

Keywords: psychological problems of adaptation, pedagogical basics, advisors, international student, university.

psychological pedagogical advisors international students academic environment

Problem statement. The main task of the world educational space is to build a global civil society on the basis of peace, friendship, dialogue, and openness to other cultures. There are some requirements to participants in the global educational process (students on the one hand and university staff - on the other) such as independent thinking, understanding of other people's opinion, impartiality, tolerance in relationships, support for each person, his/her culture, worldview in order to achieve educational goals. Teachers and advisors of international students must ensure favorable studying conditions for all diversified students, regardless of their socio-economic, cultural, physiological and psychological differences. Special attention is paid to the creation of such psychological and pedagogical studying conditions supporting students in overcoming their psychological and sociocultural challenges of adaptation to the new academic and living environment in higher education institutions in a lot of countries, especially in the United States [3], as this country ranks first in the number of international students and the quality of teaching disciplines, which is the key to become a competitive specialist who is able to work in a diversified environment, be a leader and learn throughout life. So, in universities it is necessary to create optimal conditions for facilitating the education of foreigners, taking into account the peculiarities of their worldview and individual intellectual development. We believe that the main advantages that the country and its higher education institutions can receive by attracting talented mobile youth from abroad are obtaining additional capital that provides the further development of the country and universities, the revival of international activities, etc. Therefore, scientific and technological progress, global student mobility, and the process of internationalization of higher education are the reasons for us to choose such a relevant topic.

An analysis of recent researches and publications. A number of textbooks, articles, and researches were devoted to research topic. The features of the university environment functioning have been explored by Grant (2003), Gudycunst & Foster-Fishman (2002), etc. The researches Baohua &Wright (2016), Lin & Song (2012) studied the problem of multidimensional adaptation and interpersonal communication. The necessity of communicative culture skills were proved in such scholars' works by Ellis (2007), Lantolf & Thorne (2006), and others. The forming a foreign language communicative, intercultural and strategic competences was investigated by Moule (2012), Cushner & Brennan (2007), Smolikevych (2016), etc. Banks & Banks (2010), Spencer-Rodgers (2010) paid much attention to the problem of acculturation of the individual as a progressive acceptance of the elements of another culture (ideas, concepts, values, norms, behavior, institutions) by individuals, groups or classes of another culture. Larsson (2016), Verghese (2010), Sperandio (2010) Smolikevych, Turchyn & Horokhivska (2020) devoted their studies to the problem of teaching diversity groups.

However, recently the problem of optimizing the cognitive development of the individual in a diversified educational space is considered more deeply, taking into account the psychological and intellectual features of development and the individual's adjustment to a new educational and cultural environment, which teachers and international students' advisors must pay attention to when organizing the democratic academic and educational process. One of the current topics is the psychological and pedagogical basis for rapid adaptation to a new educational environment of the university and successful studying of international students and the role of advisors in this process. The aim of the paper is to explore some psychological and pedagogical aspects of advisors and university staff s work of with international students as a guarantee of foreigners' successful studying in an unfamiliar academic environment in universities, highlighting the main problems and analyzing the experience of institutions in facilitating this process.

The main body of the research. Having analyzed the above-mentioned works of researchers, we can state that international students' advisors should perform mediation functions that correspond to their responsibilities, which include helping students overcome problems related to stress or anxiety, build good relationships with peers or parents, government, and so on. In the process of advising a student on studying, the advisor is to examine the student's personal problems and identify certain academic difficulties. It should be noted that some students prefer active interaction with the environment and control over it, while others like to react and respond to environmental factors, they prefer less control and more spontaneous actions [10, p. 15].

Awareness of the basics of psychology, the ability to distinguish between personality psychotypes, their behavioral characteristics and knowledge about individual differences is very important for advisors to help students develop a personal time management plan for rapid and successful adaptation to new learning conditions, paying attention to their personal priorities. As a rule, in order to organize their educational process, students with the help of consultants make individual schedules of their work to manage study time effectively. Also, two types of schedules are crucial for students: long-term semester planning and weekly planning. Each student must have a calendar for each semester, which indicates when the main work, tests and other tasks should be done. This plan should also include a large personal to-do list, as the student can plan the time required for each of the major activities. It's a great idea to periodically review and update this calendar with the advisor [10, p. 23-24]. Weekly planning is required by the education system, which allows the student to complete specific tasks in a short time. The weekly schedule covers weekly responsibilities and provides a fairly rigid structure that allows students to plan personal and research activities. It allows making daily and by priority changes, developing a time management system.

Therefore, The advisor's role in teaching time management consists of four parts: firstly, helping the student to develop an effective learning system, secondly, helping the student leam to spend time effectively, and thirdly, promoting the adaptation of the foreigner to the educational environment by providing appropriate educational, pedagogical and psychological conditions and, fourthly, consultation and assistance in overcoming existing psychological and pedagogical problems.

Moreover, distorted or illogical thinking can also cause problems in relationships between students, which can worsen their mental state and reduce their academic performance. Below are four of the most usual of them [5, p. 514; 10]:

- narrow mindedness - focusing on one or two events, not the whole picture; as a rule, events are negative;

- white and black thoughts - a person establishes dichotomous thinking and sees only good or bad, success or failure;

- conclusions on the basis of generalizations - the conclusion is made without sufficient evidence, often as part of an emotional reaction;

- false assumptions - conclusions, which are based on erroneous prerequisites.

A narrow vision or mindedness can cause a student to focus on one or two denials of friendship with others, and a misunderstanding that there have been many other successful interactions. White and black thoughts can evoke thoughts of yourself as a loser, a person who isn't able to make friends easily. This generalization, made on the basis of these two cases, may lead to the conclusion that he or she will never be able to be popular among others because they are uninteresting and unattractive. Therefore, the role of the advisor in working with irrational beliefs and thinking is seen in being both a teacher and a reliable friend. It is best to establish a good counseling relationship first, and not in an authoritarian but in a very caring way. But, the advisor may not always be able to observe the immediate result of a change in belief. The degree to which irrational beliefs and opinions can be changed is related to the student's current life experience, his or her individual characteristics, the strength of his or her beliefs, and the benefit of the beliefs to the student.

The behavioral approach to counseling is mainly about focusing on behavior change. It is assumed that increasing confidence or changing behavior will lead to better feelings and beliefs of the individual. One of the important methods of helping students to develop more positive interpersonal relationships is roleplaying games.

Basically, it is a kind of step for solving complex interpersonal situations. Most campus centers offer group counseling and seminars. This is especially useful for overcoming difficulties in communicating with others, because such activities serve as an impetus for students to explore and improve their moral and psychological condition [8, p. 22-23].

Student interpersonal conflicts, usually with parents or close friends, often roommates, are not uncommon, which negatively affect the learning process. The nature of these conflicts is quite different, although the interpersonal characteristics of a particular student can play an important role in both types of conflicts. In such situations, the advisor is in a difficult dilemma because he can only hear the story of the conflict from the student's point of view.

Often it is necessary for advisors while counseling international students: 1) to play the role of the listener and the one who understands and confirms the student's feelings and complaints, 2) to help the student cope with strong emotional problems related to the conflict and come up with a strategy to solve the conflict with parents or other students. They help foreigners understand their responsibilities and duties. The ability to see the true situation and perceive another person can help the student become less defensive and more open to others. This, of course, can only happen if the level of trust between him and the advisor has been built.

Therefore, it is necessary to outline the main aspects of the work of university advisors to provide favorable psychological, pedagogical and educational conditions for international students to enrich his personality (such kind of work is appropriate to the US higher education), they are given below [5, p. 515]:

- define and explain the purpose of visiting the university;

- help become individuals who have the potential to be successful;

- adopt a model of behavior with the awareness that not everything can be achieved;

- strengthen each student's own faith, determination and persistence.

The study of human adaptive abilities is relevant information for university advisors in connection with the dynamic increase of factors that oblige a person to interact with the environment. After entering a higher education institution, a person faces problems related to insufficient psychological readiness for studying requirements or with the destruction of formed attitudes, skills, habits, values. The consequence of disadaptation is a state of tension and frustration, decreased learning activity, deteriorating behavior, failure in the first session, loss of faith in their abilities [4]. And, psychological adaptation is a process of establishing the optimal compliance of the individual and the environment, which helps meet human needs, achieve current goals while maintaining psychophysiological health, ensure compliance of its behavior with the requirements of the social environment [2, p. 55-59]. The investigation of the psychological adaptation challenges of international students has shown that their overcoming depends on many factors. Among them we can list the following: personal traits, strategies for overcoming stress, social and psychological support of the university advisors, the duration of a new culture, knowledge of different cultures, language skills, and so on [9].

Academic adaptation is also important for students. In this paper, we consider it as an adaptation, first of all, to the educational system of a host country, the organization of an educational process, courses, and an academic foreign language. Academic adaptation is determined by such main criteria as: academic success, focus on future profession, ability to work independently and in a group, etc. [7, p. 50 - 51].

We support the idea that offices of foreign students, international programs, counseling services, academic support; language, cultural, leisure and religious centers, student university organizations, hostel association, and advisors/mentors that are represented at university campuses provide foreign students with academic, financial, domestic, legislative counseling in the forms of seminars, individual assistance or group work. They organize social, cultural, and sports events, team work, student self-government activity, volunteering for the purpose of their socialization as well as help in studying process, job search, and solving of household problems. So, the organizational and pedagogical support for international students in universities includes such kinds of activity as organization and providing preparation courses and foreign language (academic language) courses; providing opportunities to master academic English at the required level together with the improvement of communication skills; offering a wide range of counseling services oriented into psychological, sociocultural and pedagogical support before and after arrival at university; teachers' training to work in a multicultural environment; the improvement of educational programs adding multicultural content, etc. [9].

In colleges and universities, the mission of the International Student Office is also to help students adjust to unfamiliar cultural and academic environments by providing a wide range of services related not only to the studying process but also to social, cultural, sports and other leisure activities, as well as organizing academic, cultural and sports events, group work, volunteering, etc. [6].

We agree with the author Ravchyna who singles out the following main tasks and skills of teachers for the organization of the educational process: to organize interpersonal interaction with students on the basis of respect, trust, tolerance for everyone; create a business, non-threatening learning atmosphere; to reveal the significance of educational material for further career; to accustom to self-regulation of behavior; to develop cooperative skills, a sense of belonging to the team; to observe and regulate the activities and behavior of students; to discuss the rules of conduct in the educational institution; to apply various student-centered teaching methods (e.g. interactive); plan different activities that focus students on tasks [4, p. 124-148).

That is why the main task of propaedeutic training and foreign language course in general is to form a communicative competence in a foreign student, which will allow communicating freely in situations relevant to the field of activity: social and and every-day activity - in the period of adaptation to a foreign language environment; and educational-professional - while acquiring professional speaking skills [3, p. 99].

Conclusions. We prove that consulting of a teacher or advisor during admission hours at the faculty contributes to greater academic success among international students. Therefore, the appointment of one counselor will help them adapt to living and academic environment, as wee as the educational process.

So, university staff must consciously develop the competencies needed to be good teachers and advisors to students, especially foreigners and involve diverse students in the learning process. The mission of teachers and advisors in educational centers is to lead learners to the highest level of human functioning that they can achieve. To better understand students' problems, advisors should take into account gender differences, ethnicity, age, social orientation, the environment they come from, culture background, and other factors that can influence their development.

It is also worth to promote among foreigners community, leisure and volunteer activities in order to establish friendly relations with other students and inform them about the infrastructure of the campus, its services, transport system, etc.

Асиркіна Г. П. Організаційно-педагогічна структура соціальної адаптації студентів першокурсників до умов навчання у вищих закладах освіти // Проблеми освіти. № 44. 2006. С. 55-59.

2 Вус М. Опрацювання біологічної лексики в іншомовній аудиторії. // Теорія і практика викладання української мови як іноземної, 10, 2014. C. 99105.

3 Кошманова Т., Брайс Л. та ін. Педагогіка для громадянського суспільства: навч. пос. для студентів педагогічних спеціальностей / за ред. д- ра пед. наук Т.С. Кошманової. Львів : Видавничий Центр ЛНУ ім. І. Франка, 2005.382 с.

4 Основні проблеми адаптації першокурсника у вузі. Режим доступу : http://ua.textreferat.com/referat- 10589-1.html

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9. Smolikevych Nadiya, Turchyn Iryna & Horokhivska Tetiana. Foreign students' adaptation challenges in the US Universities // Human studies. S eries of Pedagogy. 2020. No 10 (42). P. 76-86.

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ПСИХОЛОГО-ПЕДАГОГІЧНІ ОСНОВИ ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ УСПІШНОГО НАВЧАННЯ СТУДЕНТІВ-ІНОЗЕМЦІВ

Надія Смолікевич¹, Ірина Турчин², Олеся Бойко³

¹ Львівський національний університет імені Івана Франка,

вул. Університетська, 1, Львів, Україна, UA-79000

sm. nadia. ua@gmail. com;

²Львівський національний аграрний університет,

вул. Володимира Великого, 1, Дубляни, Україна, UA-80381

irynaturchyn 1 @gmail.com;

³Львівський державний університет внутрішніх справ,

вул. Городоцька, 26, Львів, Україна, UA-79007

Розглянуто головні проблеми навчання іноземних студентів та необхідні університетські послуги, що допомагають іноземцям успішно навчатися у незнайомому навколишньому та навчальному середовищі. Наприклад, пропедевтична підготовка та курси іноземної мови.

На основі аналізу джерельної бази дослідження подано тлумачення термінів “психологічна адаптація” та “академічна адаптація”.

Висвітлено результати аналізу специфіки забезпечення адаптації та сприятливих умов навчання іноземних студентів у вищих навчальних закладах, а також визначено проблеми щодо адаптації іноземних студентів в умовах університетської освіти. Подано рекомендації психологічної підтримки іноземців у ЗВО. Проаналізовано університетські послуги радника іноземних студентів та іншого університетського складу зі сприяння академічної адаптації до відмінної освітньої системи країни, університетських вимог до навчання. З'ясовано, що на початковому етапі консультування студентів радник повинен вивчити їхні особисті проблеми та головні труднощі у навчанні. Визначено, що знання основ психології, особливостей психотипів особистості, дослідження адаптаційних здібностей людини є важливими для консультантів, щоб допомогти студентові в адаптації до академічних вимог певної освітньої системи. Серед головних аспектів роботи університетських радників у контексті забезпечення сприятливих психологічних на навчальних умов подано такі: з'ясування та пояснення мети навчання в університеті; утвердження студентів як особистостей, які мають потенціал стати успішними, полікультурними особистостями, утвердження моделі поведінки з усвідомленням того, що не все можна досягти, зміцнення власної віри. Рішучості та наполегливості. Радники повинні виконувати роль медіатора для фасилітації процесу навчання студентів з урахуванням їхнього індивідуального світогляду та інтелектуального розвитку, наприклад, розробити особистий план навчання та навчити тайм-менеджменту. Визначено три головні форми консультування їх радниками: семінари, індивідуальна допомога, робота у групі.

Виокремлено головні завдання та компетенції викладачів для створення сприятливого, ефективного навчального середовища для диверситивних студентів.

Перечислено студентські центри та організації університетських кампусів, які допомагають іноземцям у проживанні та навчанні.

Ключові слова: психологічні проблеми адаптації, педагогічні основи, радники, іноземний студент, університет.

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