Abstract

A nation as richly diversified as Malaysia has long achieved an intercultural balance among the local races. The influx of foreign students in recent years has seen an increase in the number of poor results among the foreign students in local academic institutions. In order to strive as a hub for academic excellence for both local and foreign students, there is a need to tackle this issue from a Malaysian context. This paper addresses the intercultural communication challenges faced by the international students while studying in Malaysia in the attempt to identify the source of the problem. We have determined that there is a correlation between poor intercultural communication among the international students and local community with the degradation of the academic results. Through phenomenological research methodology, this paper examines how culture and language influence the interaction between students of different cultural groups, the difficulties faced by international students in and outside the classroom and the solutions to the intercultural communication problem.