A classroom is a meeting of minds in which each party needs to have a sensitive understanding of the other's culture, identity and beliefs.
International students face special difficulties which an alert teacher can help to resolve.
Teachers interpreting this silence from their own cultural perspective may believe it indicates a lack of interest or understanding. For some students, the pressure to succeed can be very high due to complex cultural and family obligations. This may result in behaviour such as persistent challenge, a refusal to accept a negative answer, or taking a query on to higher levels to seek a more favourable outcome. Language is often a problem even if students have met levels of competence set for entry requirements. Of course all the problems which foreign students face are laughable to local student .