Academic literacy of foreign students: multiple challenges, multiple strategies

Abstract

In this article we analyze strategies developed by foreign students to deal with the demands of the academic context in a Brazilian public university. The data analyzed derive from the work of Dissertation of Santos (2019) and were collected in the second semester of 2017 at the Federal University of São João del Rei. The theoretical-methodological basis is based on New Literacy Studies and contributions from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with students from nine different countries, enrolled in courses in all areas except the human sciences. The students were asked about their arrival in Brazil, the activities developed at the university and their difficulties in the subjects of the courses to which they were enrolled. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in order to understand the resources mobilized by the students to overcome these possible difficulties. The results show the great variety of study strategies, among them the request for help from Brazilian colleagues in meeting the demands of the courses, the preference for printed support in reading academic texts, the use of internet research to expand vocabulary, the request for help from teachers and the use of monitoring, offered by the university. The study concludes that some difficulties are not only related to the issue of fluency in the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil, but also to the unfamiliarity with reading and writing practices in the academic field. We also indicate the asymmetry between the northern countries in relation to Brazil when it comes to the internationalization of the university.