WHEN STUDENT HIRO FAM Wee Siong first arrived in Yorkshire he couldn't understand why everyone called him Paul and kept toasting his health. 'Cheers, pal,' they would say, every time he paid for a loaf of bread. It took him a while to realise it was the Yorkshire way of saying: 'Thanks, mate.'
But it is those awkward incidents - which Mr Fam laughs away now - that can make life uncomfortable for international students. Now, Mr Fam, 25, a master's student at Sheffield Hallam University is co-ordinating an orientation programme to help international students feel more at home in Britain.
The language barrier is a big problem. Mr Fam said that when international students first arrived in Britain they often lacked confidence to converse, even though they understood the language.
'We worry people won't understand things we say when we go to the shop. People have a strong Yorkshire accent, we can't understand what they are trying to say, so sometimes it feels embarrassing to talk.'
Mr Fam, from Kuala Lumpur, describes himself as an outgoing MSC student, studying events and facilities management. He first went to Hallam on a summer programme two years ago through the university's partnership with Tunku Abdul Rahman College, Malaysia, which enabled him to upgrade his advanced diploma in construction management to a degree.
What made him feel at home was a voluntary programme that enabled him and fellow students to achieve a soft landing in Britain through Malaysian dance performances for local senior citizens and calligraphy sessions, showing people how to write their names in Chinese characters. It is one of many ways that British universities are trying to make foreign students' experiences genuinely international.
Internationalism has become a buzzword in Britain and elsewhere. But, as Peter Brady, head of the international office at Scotland's Napier University, told the British Council's Going Global2 conference in Edinburgh in December, the word tends to be loosely defined.