Why do many students have difficulty transitioning from ESL programs to the mainstream curriculum? One reason is that many of them don’t understand what is expected in U.S. colleges and universities. To address this problem, I decided to create a video series that gives students the opportunity to practice with authentic examples of the courses they will soon enroll in. Also crucial would be devising accompanying materials that would help students learn from the examples provided. It’s one thing to watch a YouTube lecture from Yale or MIT, but quite another to understand a class within the context of academic norms in the United States.

While planning my project, I noted discrepancies between what my students at San Jose City College thought would help them succeed versus what I knew to be the reality. They erroneously assumed many strategies learned in their native cultures would work well in the United States, too. For example, students spoke confidently about helping each other, sharing their work. They were perplexed by U.S. professors’ notions of plagiarism. Also, to show respect, they made a point of sitting quietly in the back of the classroom. Many wouldn’t dream of asking questions because doing so would imply professors were not clear, causing them to lose face. During classroom discussions, many valued only the professors’ words and ignored other students’ comments. For some teachers, eliciting a student’s “aha” reveals the moment of learning, an epiphany that can help all the students—but only if they are paying attention.

Students coming from a rote-learning educational background often struggle to write down everything the professor says, which is of course impossible. They need to listen for concepts and prioritize them in their note-taking. Perhaps most challenging for many is developing their critical thinking so they can synthesize ideas and formulate original opinions, a skill not encouraged in school systems that stress memorization and regurgitation.

To provide students with sample lectures and the means to learn from them what professors expect, I created two DVD/book series. One contains 15 short classes across the curriculum, and the follow-up series contains 16 more. These are unscripted, authentic classroom scenes that show varied teaching styles in subjects from history to biology to economics. The accompanying study skills books guide students in how to take notes and to anticipate quiz and test questions. If the professor gave a quiz after the taped lecture, it’s included in the book. Most important, the book’s discussion and writing topics coach students to respond to the material in their own way, practicing intellectual rigor that is new for many of them.

The books discuss norms of the classroom, such as appropriate professor/student roles, many of which are unfamiliar or even shocking to students from very different educational backgrounds. For example, it explains that students who sit in the front of the class show the professor that they are interested and engaged. Students have told me they were shocked when a professor admitted lack of knowledge. How could a supposedly omniscient teacher not only fail to know it all, but acknowledge it in front of students as well? Calling an authority figure by name feels disrespectful for many newcomers, yet most professors expect that students will know and use their last names. To be called “teacher” connotes a K–12 mentality. I heard students express disapproval of instructors “who joke and try to be friends” with them. These students consider the university a serious place, and the professor’s office a shrine to be passed with reverence; stopping in would be an insulting intrusion. The book deals with cultural contrasts like these so students can recognize and prevent having well-intended behavior yield negative consequences.

After hours of practice with authentic examples of what they’ll be experiencing, students feel more confident and better prepared for their transition into the mainstream curriculum because its environment is not brand-new; they have seen it, heard it, and learned from hours of guided practice with it.

My programs are called The Real Thing and More of the Real Thing. The demo is available at www.highlandpublishing.com.

Martha Kendall has a BA from the University of Michigan, and MA from Stanford University, and an MA from San Jose State University. She has written 20 books ranging from college texts and video series to biographies for young readers. See www.marthakendall.com.