Identifying Support Opportunities for Foreign Students: Disentangling Language and Non-language Problems Among a Unique Population

This study investigates how foreign students address language-related and other problems as a means of identifying opportunities to support them with language and social technologies. We identify support opportunities by distinguishing between different types of problems – e.g. whether they are language-related and whether they involve essential activities in their lives or at school – and the extent to which support already exists. Our unique sample of 15 foreign graduate students who live in Japan but study in English helped us disentangle problems relating to language skills versus those relating to other challenges. We examine these issues using a multi-method approach where students used a mobile app to record experiences and interactions over five weeks, and then discussed this data during an in-depth interview. We use our results to identify specific support opportunities that can be addressed through the development of social and language technologies.

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