---

Aims: Nowadays, one of the most frequent problems that international students face is homesickness. The purpose of this study was investigation of homesickness and coping strategies among the University Technology Malaysia) UTM (international students and finding new research topics for future educational planning research. Methods: This descriptive study was done in August 2010 among the students studying in University Technology Malaysia (UTM). The respondents were international students from different courses in UTM. Fifty questionnaires were randomly distributed among the students at various faculties and residential colleges of the university. The questionnaire included 11 questions, which was developed by the researcher through literature review. Findings: Totally, 50 international students including 24 (48%) female and 26 (52%) male students took part in the study. There were different reported causes of homesickness by the respondents that were classified into four aspects: "social", "psychological", "physical" and "academic”. The findings showed the most important reason for homesickness has been cultural differences between the countries. Accordingly, 75% of the respondents (n=38) reported social customs as the first reason for international students' homesickness. Conclusion: The research results indicated that missing family was the most important factor that influenced international students to feel homesick. According to this study, the best and effective way to manage homesickness was to call family and friend(s).

---

The relationship between language and culture is a crucial concern for both language education researchers and those studying the internationalization of higher education, as it addresses the need to alleviate cultural challenges encountered by international students in their host countries. This qualitative research aims to analyze the textbook “Civilisation Progressive du Francais” for basic-level French language learners from the perspective of intercultural competence using content analysis. The book is dedicated to teaching French and Francophone culture to enhance the adaptation of international students in France. According to the findings, the book effectively increases students' cultural "knowledge" by focusing on the "specific culture" of France, covering both general French culture and the daily culture of the French. While the book facilitates the development of students' intercultural skills by providing space for the analysis and interpretation of "French culture", awareness of "native culture", and comparison with "other cultures", but a significant portion of the book is devoted to specific French culture. Therefore, to foster a multicultural atmosphere and enhance the intercultural attitude and critical cultural awareness of international students, the book needs to be revised to include more sections on other cultures. The final results indicate that enhancing the intercultural attitude and knowledge of "authors" when writing books for foreign students and the effective role of "instructors" in promoting intercultural interactions in the classroom are crucial factors for students' effective and appropriate intercultural engagement in real-life situations.
1. Introduction
In recent decades, international mobility increase, such as migration, international employment, and especially the embrace of the internationalization of higher education, with the movement of students through international student mobility programs, has doubled the importance of considering culture in the process of learning the target language. Students, just as they need to be taught and learn the language of the host country to establish verbal communication, need to be placed in situations and conditions that help increase their cultural awareness and knowledge of the host country. This, in turn, aids in developing understanding, interest, and curiosity about the culture of others, as well as the ability to communicate with people from different cultures. The formation and enhancement of this ability, aimed at reducing the challenges faced by international students and increasing their adaptability to the host country, can be achieved through educational books and classroom teaching.
One of the ways used by host countries to achieve intercultural competence among international students is the dynamic teaching of culture through language education in the form of educational books. The present study aims to analyze the textbook " Civilisation Progressive du Francais " for adult French language learners in France from the perspective of intercultural competence.
Research Question
The main research question of this study is: 
How does an educational textbook enhance the intercultural competence of international students in the host country?



2. Literature Review
1.2. Intercultural Competence
The intercultural dimension of language education helps learners not only acquire the linguistic competence necessary for communication but also enhance their intercultural competence (Byram et al., 2002). They emphasize that developing the intercultural dimension in language teaching involves recognizing that the aims are: to give learners intercultural competence as well as linguistic competence; to prepare them for interaction with people of other cultures; to enable them to understand and accept people from other cultures as individuals with other distinctive perspectives, values, and behaviors; and to help them to see that such interaction is an enriching experience.
The main components of intercultural competence (communication) according to Byram’s model (Byram et al., 2002) are described below: 

Table 1
Components of Intercultural Competence
Curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief about other cultures, and belief about one’s own    Intercultural attitudes (savoir être)
Of social groups and their products and practices in one’s own and in one’s interlocutor’s country, and of the general processes of societal and individual interaction    Knowledge (savoirs)
Ability to interpret a document or event from another culture, to explain it, and relate it to documents or events from one’s own    Skills of interpreting and relating (savoir comprendre)
Ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to operate knowledge, attitudes, and skills under the constraints of real-time communication and interaction.    Skills of discovery and interaction (savoir apprendre/faire)
an ability to evaluate critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices, and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries    Critical cultural awareness
(savoir s'engager)
Note. Adapted from " Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching: A Practical Introduction for Teachers," by Byram, M., Gribkova, B., & Starkey, H. (2002)


From Fantini's perspective (2009, p. 458), intercultural competence is “a set of abilities required for effective and appropriate performance when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself”. Therefore, achieving intercultural competence in language learners not only enhances their linguistic competence but also prepares them for interaction with people from different cultures, empowering them to understand and accept individuals from other cultures as people with distinct perspectives, values, and behaviors. 
The Council of Europe's document (2001) titled Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) divides learners' competence into two parts: communicative linguistic competence (linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, and pragmatic competence) and general competence (intercultural knowledge, attitudes, and skills).
Deardoff (2006) defines Intercultural Competence as the ability to develop targeted knowledge, skills, and attitudes that lead to visible behavior and communication that are both effective and appropriate in intercultural interactions. His two Intercultural Competence Models (2006), Pyramid Model of Intercultural Competence and Process Model of Intercultural Competence are based on five elements: attitude, knowledge, skills, internal outcomes, and external outcomes as following.

Table 2
Components of Intercultural Competence
Attitude
    Respect (valuing other cultures, cultural diversity) Openness (to intercultural learning and to people from other cultures, withholding judgment) Curiosity and discovery (tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty)
Knowledge & Comprehension    Cultural self-awareness; Deep understanding and knowledge of culture (including contexts, role, and impact of culture & others’ world views); Culture-specific information; Sociolinguistic awareness
Skills    To listen, observe, and interpret, to analyze, evaluate, and relate
Internal outcomes    Adaptability (to different communication styles & behaviors; adjustment to new cultural environments); Flexibility (selecting and using appropriate communication styles and behaviors; cognitive flexibility); Ethno relative view; Empathy
External outcomes    Behaving and communicating effectively and appropriately (based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes) to achieve one’s goals to some degree
Note. Adapted from " Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalization," by Deardorff, D. K. (2006)

Deardorff (2006) asserts that the enhancement of intercultural competence begins at the individual’s attitudinal level and then, through the use of knowledge and understanding and skills leads to internal outcomes, which collectively result in external outcomes that influence the individual's attitude.

2.2. Culture Learning in Language Education
Searle (1976) argues that learning a language without considering its cultural roots hinders an individual’s socialization. This is because learning the language (linguistic knowledge) alone does not provide specific insights into the political, social, religious, or economic systems of the target country. Knowledge is acquired through education and learning. According to Paige et al. (1999, p. 50), cultural learning involves "the process of acquiring the culture-specific and culture-general knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for effective communication and interaction with individuals from other cultures." Paige et al. (2003) emphasize two aspects of culture in the education and learning of culture-specific and culture-general knowledge: ‘C’ culture’ and’ c’ culture. Lee (2009) defines the big “c” domain as a set of facts and statistics relating to the arts, history, geography, business, education, festivals, and customs of a target speech society. The small “c” domain refers to the invisible and deeper sense of a target culture (that is, the mainstream socio-cultural values, norms, and beliefs, taking into consideration such socio-cultural variables as age, gender, and social status)’.

3. Methodology
The overall design of this qualitative research is text-based. The case study is the “Civilisation Progressive du Francais ” textbook (Carlo & Causa, 2005), which is designed to aid adult language learners in becoming familiar with French and Francophone cultures to facilitate students' adaptation in France. The data collection tools are based on a researcher-developed checklist. For analyzing the data, which includes 164 pages of text and 400 class activities, a qualitative content analysis method was used, focusing on the components of intercultural competence.

4. Results
Enhancing intercultural competence in students as a fundamental element in international education (Deardorff & Arasaratnam-Smith, 2017) helps reduce common challenges faced by international students in the host country, such as culture shock, cultural incompatibility, and difficulties in communication and social interaction (Asghari, 2021). Educational textbooks play a significant role in improving the intercultural competence of international students.
The results of this study show that while the content of the French civilization/culture textbook (designed for adult international students in France) effectively creates knowledge about the specific culture of France (including both “C” culture and “c” culture), it has shortcomings in fostering a multicultural environment (even when addressing Francophone countries). As Risager (2021, p. 177) notes in practice, as seen in textbooks and other educational materials for beginner and intermediate learners, the prevailing nationalist perspective implies that awareness of the world is confined within the borders of each nation. This complicates participation in global citizenship and also somewhat hinders the creation of a third space (Kramsch, 1993). Creating a multicultural environment not only enhances general knowledge about global cultures but also requires providing more opportunities to introduce one's own culture and become familiar with other cultures (beyond the host country's culture), acquiring skills to understand and interpret different cultures, the ability to make unbiased comparisons, and ultimately being prepared to respond appropriately when encountering various cultures in real life.
The results of the current study indicate that while the content of the French civilization /culture textbook somewhat contributes to strengthening intercultural knowledge and skills through creating a space for analyzing and interpreting French culture, awareness of one's own culture, and comparison with other cultures, it still requires revision. Due to a significant portion of the book being devoted to the specific culture of France, there is a need for the inclusion of other cultures to create a multicultural environment, which will effectively enhance the intercultural attitude and critical cultural awareness of international students. In fact, the goal of such education, as Byram et al. (2002) described is not the purpose of teaching to try to change learners’ values, but to make them explicit and conscious in any evaluative response to others.
In today’s multicultural world, especially in a country like France, which is a destination for international students from around the globe, it is expected that textbooks for international students should play a more prominent role in creating a multicultural environment to train intercultural speakers (through language education). Strengthening the intercultural attitudes and knowledge of authors when developing textbooks for international students, along with the effective role of instructors in enhancing intercultural interactions in the classroom, are key factors in improving the effective learning and appropriate intercultural engagement of international students in real-life situations
 

---

Thought, which has a close relationship with language, is only expressed and communicated with language. For this reason, the expansion of the Persian language will make the Iranian culture and thoughts be noticeably broadened. It explicitly shows that teaching the Persian language to non-Persian speakers is of special importance and should continue to be continuously reviewed. One of the newest approaches to teaching is flipped teaching, which consists of different stages and makes learners active. Flipped learning as an interactive model has grabbed teachers’ attention because it forces learners with the help of at-home activities to study their lessons more carefully. The current research done through a questionnaire is applied, quantitative and qualitative. The main aim of the study carried out on advanced Persian Language learners is to investigate the rate of learner’s class participation, to determine their satisfaction and academic progress and to figure out the relationship between these two factors in the flipped classroom among international language learners of the University of Kurdistan. The participants were 50 Kurdish-speaking students from Iraq who completed the course during 60 sessions (120 hours). In this research, the four skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening were taken into account. Each skill includes subsections that strengthen Persian language learning skills; watching long and short videos as well as writing their summaries, writing essays, reading Persian texts, reading pictures and listening to audio files were some of the tasks that were practiced in the classroom. The results of the research showed that the flipped classroom has given rise to learner satisfaction and academic progress. It also made out that there is a strong direct correlation, which means that high “learner satisfaction” variable scores go with high “academic progress” variable scores.

1. Introduction
Flipped teaching has been proposed as a new approach to solve the problem of engagement in education by focusing on content. "Flipped classroom" is a new idea that has attracted the attention of those involved in education, especially teachers and university professors since 2004. Flipped instruction is a method by which not only the burden of learning is on learners’shoulder and allows the teachers to act as facilitators, but also the learners learn according to their individual needs. In flipped learning, traditional methods have been abandoned and teaching has been completely reversed. In this way, the tutorials are provided to the learners online or with the help of videos recorded outside the classroom, and they do some of the class activities and exercises or items mentioned in the film by watching videos as many times as they need. Obviously, if some class activities are done at home, the continuation of exercises and assignments in the classroom will be discussed very deeply and profoundly and the pace of progress will be doubled. Flipped learning as a unique approach can modify and improve the usefullness of assignments and classroom activities done at home and at school. To sum up, it can be pointed out that in traditional teaching methods, students in the classroom learn new knowledge through lectures and practice them at home while in flipped education, giving lectures will be obsolete and students learn the material at home by waching videos and practice the activities much more deeply and profoundly in the classroom.
The research questions are as follows: What is the level of participation of EFL learners in the flipped classroom, and how much is this type of learning associated with the satisfaction of EFL learners in the classroom, and finally, what is the relationship between the two mentioned factors and the level of EFL learners.

2. Literature Review
As far as the authors of the present study know, there is no published research in investigating the class participation of international EFL learners in the flipped classrooms. In addition, no reliable research was found on determining the level of learners' satisfaction and class participation. Moreover, no research has ever focused on the relationship between learners’satisfaction and class participation. There is also no noticeable report or research on studying the use of four skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening as well as other factors in strengthening Persian language learning skills. Therefore, the present study is unique in its kind and tries to be the beginning of further analysis of flipped classes in educational system.

3.  Methodology
This study investigates the participation and satisfaction of non-Persian EFL learners in the flipped classroom and its effect on Persian language learning. The subjects of this study are 50 Kurdish-speaking students from Iraq in the academic year 2021. They were randomly selected from among the international language learners of the University of Kurdistan in advanced levels. The data collection tool is a questionnaire. In order to determine the validity of the questionnaire, other EFL learners who had flipped classroom experience were invited to cooperate. The results showed that the measured concepts were frequently seen in the responses. Therefore, the structure of the questionnaire had the characteristic of measuring the desired concepts and was approved. The data collection tool of this study also has a reliability feature. Using the test-retest method, the questionnaires were given to a single group in two times under the same conditions and after comparing the results, it became clear that the results had a lot of overlap. The main source for this course is the book Parfa 3.  

4. Results
The results of the research show that the satisfaction and participation of EFL learners in the flipped classroom method is high and significant, and of course, it affects and improves learning Persian language among international students. The majority of students in flipped classes admitted that their academic progress was significant and that they were unconsciously involved in classroom activities. Statistical data and numerical results have answered the research questions explicitly. The statistics showed that there is a complete correlation between the variables. The two variables of "learners' participation and satisfaction" are directly related to their level of "academic achievement" and it became evident that the claim that the flipped classroom can lead to effective interaction between teachers and international students. Satisfaction and participation made learners learn more effectively from each other, become more interested in practical and group work, better follow the discussion about digital materials and the content of course resources, and ultimately lead to mobility, vitality, and dynamism. As mentioned in the data analysis, the effect of the correlation coefficient of “r” was complete and the results were significant. This shows that with an increased willingness to participate in classroom activities, all four skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening have been taken into consideration and have contributed significantly to academic achievement. 
 

---

In comparison with similar age groups in the general population, students who are studying in universities are more at risk of having mental health problems. Surprisingly, several studies reveal that international students are highly affected by mental health issues than their local counterparts. Seemingly, it is more related to their decision to study overseas that might present them several challenges, including mental health issues. Malaysian universities host a substantial number of international students but the issue of international students’ mental health lack substantial attention there. The current research applying a mixed method, aims to address the mental health issues of newly registered international students at Universiti Sains Malaysia. In-depth discussion on the study findings’ implications for practice, policy, and research for social work profession will be addressed in this research paper.