Sheffield University has a lot of international students. I have already met Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Swiss, and Saudi Arabian students. We study the same subject in the same classroom.

There are many kinds of people. Most students in our class are students in their home university. In addition, there are also people who are not university students. One Chinese student works for her university as an academic staff member for international education. There are also Turkish students who work for their government. There are differences not only of country but also of age or job.

During break time, we often talk with them. The topics are such as what they did last weekend, where they recommend in Sheffield, what is popular in their counties, what they study in their country and so on.

Finding ways to communicate

Communication isn't always easy. We sometimes can't understand what they say because we don't know the meaning of the words. That happens when I talk about some subjects as well. When we don't understand each other, we try to describe what we want to say with other explanations or gestures.

The most interesting thing is that the way of speaking English varies by country. Their pronunciation is like their mother tongue. Of course, their English pronunciation might be wrong, but it is interesting because it shows us the features of their mother tongue.

I think it is a good experience to interact with international students because we can find out how to communicate with people from a variety of countries.