Universities represent the welcoming of international students by European countries (West, J.,n.d). In this research the intention is to contribute to the field of higher education for international students in a central European country, which is Hungary. A country which since 2013 through a government program called Stipendium Hungaricum has set as its purpose to increase the number of international students in its institutions. It would be necessary to start contributing to the field of mobility. In this case the study is more specifically set in the university of Debrecen, one of the oldest universities of
Hungary which receives the highest number of international students in Hungary.
According to the university webpage students from 99 countries choose the
university, the reasons are already known. Research has found that the country’s
location, economy and quality of education are the main reasons for choosing to
study there (Kasza, G. & Hangyál, Z. 2018). Still no information is evident
regarding the students’ experiences while their studies are being performed.
Knowing about students learning experiences is valuable since they are learning in
a  foreign language Carrion, C.,(n.d). They have an interesting factor which is  they
previously studied in a different country and knowing their academic background
contributes to understand their needs regarding education, and to realize if the  previous learning experiences could be connected or different from their current practices.

Several research focus on the international students’ learning problems, among
them the most frequent is the difficulties with understanding colloquial language,
cost of tuition and living, feelings of isolation and distress  (Robertson et al. 2000,
Carrol-Ryan 2005, Mesidor 2016, Jones 2017).
International student learning was investigated by Biggs, J. (1997), arguing that
identifying problems is not enough. In his view, not moving beyond the gaps or
problems will do little to overcome the difficulties and result in a deficit model and
Research has found that one solution to the problem of learning for international
students is that the faculty need to encourage mutual learning between local and
international students and encourage shared leadership in discussion of curriculum
content. Many faculty members in higher education are appointed due to their
expertise in an academic discipline and they may not receive formal training in
pedagogical practices for supporting international students (Arthur, N.,2017). In the
same trend of thought, faculty members often play a critical role in first-generation
students’ success, and one of the key elements of success is interaction with
faculty members out of class (Glass et all. 2017;Kuh 2003; Wirt and Jaeger 2014).
Different ways to engage with faculty members outside of class is by getting
feedback on assignments, discussing grades, and discussing ideas outside the
classroom about career plans, and work with faculty on research projects. Despite
the findings of previous research, it is yet an open question to know about the
collaborative work that is generated outside the formal classroom, the
collaborative environment that was  perceived  before the pandemy in the halls of the university.
Even though, research have been done upon international students, they differ
from this study by not been set in an English-speaking country, and the difficulties
of the international students in Hungary may differ on some of the learning
problems identified. According to Tinto (2000) learning communities seek to
restructure the very classrooms in which students find themselves and alter the
way students experience both the curriculum and learning within those classrooms.
We try to test Tinto hypothesis Differently this study tends to hypothesized how
learning communities overcome international students learning difficulties.

In the frame of research on international students’ mobility, the target group of this study are foreign students who are studying different master programs currently in their first or second year. Seven students participated in a focus group in which general questions were asked. Participants expressed and shared their thoughts about the learning situations both in the classroom and at home. Among their comments there were several that seemed interesting and unexplored. It was getting together in order to comprehend and understand the unclear dimensions of the processes in the classroom. After the analysis of focus group interviews, an extra in-depth interview was necessary. Two of the participants were identified as valuable informants and through snowball sampling 3 students were able to be interviewed. The analysis reveals relevant contributions to depict collaborative learning practices to understand the reasons these groups are generated (Dillenbourg P.,1999). In the course of the analysis, we developed the research dimensions for the following questionnaire survey, and identified the main learning types among the foreign students.

It seems that satisfaction of international students in Hungary is well perceived, however in every project there are gaps and of importance it is to find solutions to them, the scholarship program Stipendium Hungaricum has a good perception that low rates of percentage could make it be seen as to have weaknesses, but yet this are the projects that need to be observed to ensure it is working as thought. The international students are the target for the program and therefore in order to continue perpetuating education of quality, it is relevant to listen to students while they are still studying and understand that they overcome the misunderstandings of the unclear knowledge, by creating study groups building communities of learning (Tinto, V.,2000).  The study expects to reveal the origin of this groups, how are they formed, the roles of its participants, the power relationships of gender, nationalities, age, majors in which the groups are more often created, the initiation of the groups based on semester time and the continuity of such study groups.

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