This paper investigates professional field-based or practicum experiences which are a central element of many higher education programmes. In the context of teacher education, professional practice experiences offer student teachers opportunities to connect theory and practice and to enact pedagogical strategies learned in their university preparation programmes. The aim of teaching experiences is to “create a social learning structure whereby student teachers, cooperating teachers, and university personnel collectively share in the creation of common goals ...” and “in which there is a true partnership of equity and responsibility” (Campbell & Brummett, 2007, p. 54).

International teaching experiences are increasingly being offered as an option in higher education programmes as a way of addressing goals related to internationalisation such as developing intercultural competence. Research suggests that international teaching practicum opportunities can enhance deeper understandings of other cultures and cultural practices (Kissock & Richardson, 2010), develop intercultural competence (Deardorff, 2006) and culturally responsive teaching practices (Dantas, 2007).  

However, there has also been some concern expressed that international experiences may simply reinforce stereotypes and contribute to deficit thinking about different teaching practices and education systems (Santoro & Major, 2012). This paper considers how internationalisation goals in higher education can be met in ways that build positive, culturally sensitive, and mutually beneficial partnerships in developing countries. It reports on one programme where student teachers from an Australian university work alongside Khmer teachers in Cambodia for one month to teach English.

International practicum experiences are frequently taken up by pre-service teachers from ‘developed’ nations and occur in ‘developing’ countries. The theoretical frame that informs this paper draws on postcolonialism to understand and interrogate aid and development discourses that are common in the relationships between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries. The term ‘developing country’ is commonly used to refer to contexts that, in contrast to 'developed' countries and nations, are yet to achieve the political, social and economic status associated with development. The concept of ‘development’ is often defined and understood from a 'Western' perspective drawing on concepts such as ‘progress’ to validate ongoing interference by the West in the political, economic, social and educational systems of postcolonial societies, which are commonly represented as the backward ‘other’ (Andreotti, 2011; Hickling-Hudson et al., 2004). Development and aid discourses normalise the notion that postcolonial nations need assistance to join the developed, globalised world, and thus reproduce “various forms of Western hegemonic power” where the West becomes the model for the developing world (Kapoor, 2004, p. 628).

Designing international experiences in vulnerable developing country contexts that do not perpetuate aid discourses, requires careful thought, collaborative planning with host institutions, and a robust programme to prepare students. This paper describes the development of an international experience where the programme leader worked closely with the school director to construct an approach where the student teachers undertook team teaching alongside local Khmer teachers, rather than taking over the host teachers’ classes. Preparation of the student teachers requires them to engage with concepts related to white privilege, cultural diversity and intercultural competence, as well as developing practices in critical reflection and teaching English as an additional language.

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