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programmes which had grown rapidly in size over the previous four to five years, largely due to an increase in the number of international student enrolments. In 2016/17 there were 332 students enrolled on its 8 TPG programmes; 46 of these were from the United Kingdom; 15 from the European Union and 271 International, with 180 from mainland China, Taiwan (3) or Hong Kong (2). Thus, it is clear that the vast majority of students studying in this School at TPG were not only ‘international’ but more specifically were Chinese.

      Prior to the study, this School had worked to develop close links with the EAP teaching unit. It had identified language ‘proficiency’ as an issue amongst their cohort of international students and had created clear routes for language development support through the EAP unit. In fact, one of the new summer pre-sessional programmes was designed specifically for students entering this School.

      Analysis of the School’s external-facing website suggests high levels of focus on student education. Text describes the various programmes on offer and celebrates the successes of past students, highlighting employability as a key focus of the School’s curriculum. When research is mentioned, it is in tandem with, and fore fronted by teaching: ‘with teaching and research strengths …’. The website also highlights both University and School world rankings – something that is key to many international students’ decision-making processes when choosing their place of study.

      In summary then, this School was clearly focused on student education, and invested both time and resources in supporting this.

      The School also had an international outlook; it worked to recruit and relied heavily on international students to populate its TPG programmes yet had also raised concerns about the language needs of these students prior to the study taking place.

      The site of Case Study 3

      Site three was also an academic School, this time based in a STEM Faculty. Again, the academics working within this School are on a range of contracts, with greater and lesser emphasis on teaching or research.

      At the time of the study, there were 5 TPG programmes within this School/Faculty. Although each had its own clear identity, there appeared to be a large amount of cross over in module choice between the different programmes, so students worked together across the programmes as well as within. In the academic year 2016/17, 42 students studied at TPG level in the School. Of these, 24 were from the United Kingdom (with 3 from Northern or the Republic of Ireland; 4 from the European Union (excluding the Republic of Ireland), 14 were international from 11 different countries. In comparison to Site 2, then, in this School, at TPG level, the cohort was far more mixed, with around 1/3 of the students being international, and no language group other than English being dominant amongst the cohort. Its international student recruitment was not as extensive or as homogenous as that of Case Study Site 2, all of which may explain why no concerns had been raised about the language needs of its cohort in general.

      Unlike Case Study 2, this School did not have strong links with the EAP teaching unit. Although a small number of its prospective students did take a pre-sessional programme, there was no clear focus within the EAP programming on the disciplinary needs of students entering this School and no formal collaboration between the two units.

      The external-facing website for this School was, in contrast to Site 2, heavily focused on research. A form of the word ‘research’ was used 17 times on the home page, and the only mention of education was closely linked to research: ‘our research drives the educational programmes we deliver …’. This suggests a School with a more traditional Russell Group University focus, where research is key and viewed as the main driver for excellence. The suggestion is that students would be attracted to study in the school because of its research record rather than a focus on teaching and learning.

Participants

      I have chosen to de-personalise the participants and use a code rather than pseudonym for all but two. This removes identifiable features such as gender or ethnicity that name choices can suggest, and that can in themselves lead readers to make assumptions around individual reasons for the comments being reported. When I feel it is important for understanding, I do identify a student as ‘home’ (to indicate they were from the United Kingdom and had English as their dominant, if not only, language) or ‘international’/EAL. Whilst these sites of learning are clearly made up of the individuals who work and study within them, this manuscript aims to understand where language and content knowledge intersect within different sites of learning, and not to highlight the individuals themselves. The individual experiences and attitudes reported combine within one site to create the culture of learning that exists there.

      However, at the same time, I also believe that something can be learned from the narrative of an individual, and that the experience of one student can provide important lessons. I have therefore chosen to highlight two particular students – Mai and Lin – one from each of the two disciplinary sites. I reconstruct a narrative around their individual experiences and use these narratives as a thread throughout the rest of the text to highlight key themes. In this way, I hope to demonstrate how an institution and the individuals who make up the institution can interact and have impact one on the other.

      Who are the students?

      In Chapter 1, I problematised and defined the term ‘international’ student for the purposes of this text. The understandings I am aiming to reach here around language and content knowledge relate most obviously and directly to these students, who are all studying through English as an additional language. These are also the students with whom I am directly concerned in my normal teaching practices. However, as part of the investigation, I also wanted to question this assumption. The Academic Literacies field of research is primarily concerned with students from non-traditional backgrounds who enter Higher Education through widening participation routes. Researchers in this field argue that the language of academic study is equally as occluded for these students as it is for EAL students (Ivanic, 1998; Lea & Street, 1998). I therefore wondered if and when language was perceived as a barrier by students in general as well as international students in particular.

      I recruited student participants via a number of channels. The first channel was by visiting the classrooms of the cohort of students on the summer pre-sessional directly connected to Case Study site two. I did this early on in the teaching period and, through a verbal and written explanation of the project to each group of students, I received written consent from 155 out of a total cohort of 160 students to observe their classes and use their assessment pieces as part of my data collection.

      Table 1 Coding for students

      Towards the end of the teaching session, I then sent out an email to the whole cohort via their VLE asking for volunteers to meet me, either as a focus group or as an individual, explaining that I hoped to meet with them throughout the year that they were on their TPG programme. In response to this request, three groups of students and one individual (Lin) volunteered to take part in the project.

      I recruited two further individual student participants from this site via a verbal and minuted request at a Student–Staff forum I attended and after a conversation at the end of an on-site seminar observation I undertook.

      The student participants from site 3 were not as accessible. In this site, my attention was focused far more specifically on the experience of one student (Mai). Access was gained after a request for help with language was sent to the EAP teaching unit via her personal tutor. Other students volunteered to be interviewed individually in response to an email request for participants which was sent out by the Schools Student Education Support Officer.

      Overall, therefore, the student participants from sites one and two were coded as in Table 1.

      Here, I have detailed the individual participants who directly consented and provided interview and written data for the project. However, I would also like to acknowledge here the many other students who have indirectly contributed to my work, particularly those who have consented for me to observe and use their writing. Although I do not directly refer to their work here, I did consider it and it added depth to my

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