Where do international students encounter language-related problems?

When we speak about the essential needs of a person, it is certainly necessary to think about the communication with the other persons in the society: be them colleagues, supermarket cashiers, persons in administrative offices, bus drivers or neighbours.

Based on the survey delivered to the international students at the University of Padua and through analysing their responses, this reality has indeed proved to be difficult for many of them.  More than half of students has encountered language related problems, on behalf of the lack of a sufficient command of the Italian language, in getting in contact with the personnel of Post Offices and Police Station. To these institutions, it adds up the Bank, where around 40% of the students encountered difficulties in understanding and communicating with the bank employees.

Considering these circumstances, the UNIPD Mentorship Team believes that besides focusing on helping the international students to improve their language skills, it might be necessary to develop a project that would favour the communication and the joint work between the University and these entities, in order to make the procedures less complex and easier to be understood by the students of international origin.