This study investigated three Japanese L2 learners who joined a government-funded, short-term study abroad program in the USA during their first year of college. Four years after the program, we interviewed the learners about their overseas experiences. We also asked what they had done during their university years after the program. We then analyzed their accounts to explore participants’ linguistic and personal growth during and after the program. Their stories offered important insights into what short-term study abroad programs should provide: critical experiences that participants embrace through meeting and communicating with new people in L2s for the purpose of mutual understanding. When participants perceived their experiences to be successful and valuable and felt a desire to become a more efficient L2 user, they took actions to improve their L2 skills in relation to other life goals after returning home. Furthermore, their L2 identities are likely interwoven with their current and aspiring personal identities. As such, their stories are self-development trajectories and evidence of L2-learning-mediated personal growth through social interaction. We propose that short-term study programs: (a) avoid an exclusive focus on L2 learning on-site, (b) include ample opportunities of meaningful social interaction, and (c) target first-year students.
Though work in the area of photovoice (in which students take photos to structure a dialogue that can serve to advance social action as the community responds to the participants’ perspectives and locates them in solution-generation) has been conducted in science education research to focus on learner’s experiences, little has been done to showcase community members’ perspectives resulting from the photovoice experience-though it is here that photovoice holds the most potential to effect positive change locally. The research presented here, conducted during a study abroad course taught in Costa Rica, seeks to understand the ways in which the experience of photovoice stimulated an understanding of and connection to local sustainability issues and to those for whom these issues are most pressing. The study involves a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic exchange of ideas regarding sustainable crop development between study abroad students and community members in a rural mountain town in Costa Rica. Results indicated that the experience of photovoice broadened and enriched all participants’ understanding of environmental sustainability-university students and local residents-as well as inspired critique of socio-scientific issues of personal relevance and impact. Photovoice is thus presented as a rich and engaging instructional technique that also serves as a community participation tool with potential for connecting students and communities from distinct cultures and languages.
This qualitative study investigated a ten-day international field experience in Peru and its influence on undergraduate and graduate level teacher education students’ cultural competency. Data were collected on 8 participants through observations, focus groups, individual interviews, and course assignments. Participants reported positive personal and professional change in regards to cultural learning and intercultural understanding. They identified how the experience positively influenced their teaching and how they would apply their increased knowledge and understanding about cultural diversity in their classrooms and in interactions with children and parents.
This research aims to identify and rank the problems which international students face during study in Belarus. The main method was descriptive research conceptualized within sojourner theory. Preliminary interviews followed by a survey (N=300) revealed that the sojourners’ problems were in the following order, from major to minor: (a) psychological and health-related challenges, primarily, homesickness and health disorders; (b) academic challenges, such as the new educational system and taking exams; (c) sociocultural challenges, especially communication with native speakers; (d) general living challenges. To prevent and solve these problems, the study provides experimentally based recommendations how to foster a supporting learning environment.
This article takes a step towards bridging the research gap between language-and-culture learning strategies and SLA-oriented outcomes of study abroad programmes. While studies concerning the impact of studying in foreign countries document various language-related benefits of the experience, only a handful addresses the types of language and culture learning strategies employed by study abroad participants. The present study tracks the use of these strategies by Polish students of English philology participating in a semester-long exchange programme in Portugal and Romania. It is revealed that although the use of language and culture learning strategies does not change significantly over the course of students’ stay abroad, the strategies chosen before their departure are used rather consistently.
The present study examined the apologies of 18 study abroad (SA) students during a short-term SA experience in Madrid, Spain. Apologies were assessed with a discourse completion task (DCT) consisting of five vignettes that varied across three variables: relative social status of the interlocutor, relative social distance, and seriousness of the offense. Based on performance ratings assigned to them by two native Spanish speakers, the students made significant gains in pragmatic appropriateness from pretest to posttest, on two out of the five individual vignettes, and on the five combined vignettes. Examination of the students’ apologies before and after SA further revealed that they increased several strategies during their time abroad. Despite these gains, other aspects of the SA group’s performance remained the same or, in some cases, moved in the opposite direction of the target norm. Moreover, the students also demonstrated continued overreliance on routine, formulaic expressions on the posttest DCT while underusing some important target-like mitigation strategies. Given the study’s findings, the researcher offers recommendations for teaching pragmatics before and during the SA experience.
In the article the author deals with the German students’ communicative competence formation in the process of learning a foreign language in Germany. Germany supports foreign languages study intensification and tries to make possible the study of at least two foreign languages in every higher educational establishment. Foreign languages study in Germany is influenced by the state’s language policy, which depends on political tendencies, the character of economic relations with foreign countries, national traditions, globalization and integration processes as well. The development of the concept «communicative competence» has been observed in the article. So, it has been stated that this concept was introduced by the American sociolinguist D. Hymes in 1972 in order to prove that only grammar knowledge was not enough for communication. It is worth saying that the European style of language education differentiates two kinds of language competence – communicative and linguistic. The latter is said to be the main component of communicative competence. It has been emphasized that the communicative competence is the main aim of foreign language study in Germany. Therefore the communicative competence has been determined as the ability to perform communicative activity through the realization of communicative behavior on the basis of phonological, lexical, grammar and intercultural knowledge in accordance with different communicative situations. To achieve communicative competence German foreign language teachers use innovative teaching methods, which combine communicative and educational aims. These methods are based on the humanistic approach and are aimed at the German students’ individual development and self-improvement, they provide effective studying process in German higher educational establishments. The main tendencies of German students’ communicative competence formation have been analyzed in the article. They include the use of foreign language during the professional subjects study, study and practice abroad, the possibility to receive a double-degree program, international collaboration during scientific research conduction, the use of innovative informational technologies in the process of foreign languages study, students’ participation in European Union projects.
This paper presents qualitative research examining to what extent sojourns abroad engage their participants in intercultural interactions and whether or not such experience translates into students’ intercultural growth. The results of the study demonstrated that studying abroad did not provide students with ample opportunities to immerse into the local community and fully discover a new cultural environment. However, students surrounded by local and their fellow international students met foreign cultures, which motivated them to explore and interpret the encountered diversity, and thus equipped them with knowledge about foreign cultures, sensitizing them to cultural diversity. Sometimes such contacts challenged students’ preconceived judgments and stereotypes of specific cultural groups, their ways of thinking, valuing and acting, and resulted, to a lesser or greater extent, in rethinking these, leading to changing attitudes and values. International experiences also stimulated students to self-analyze their own cultural identity, and thereby contributed to their growth in self-awareness in this respect. By offering opportunities for experiencing cultural differences and prompting students to develop coping strategies and to make references to the home culture, the sojourn is thus of significant importance for tertiary students, allowing for fostering their intercultural development to a certain degree.
Language educators in many parts of the world are torn between preparing language learners to pass language proficiency tests and trying to let their classrooms reflect the messiness of out-of-class communication. Because testing is “an activity which perhaps more than any other dictates what is taught” (Hall, 2014, p. 379), helping students to pass language proficiency tests seems to be a current top priority. Since globalisation “has destabilised the codes, norms, and conventions that FL [foreign language] educators relied upon to help learners be successful users of the language once they had left their classrooms” (Kramsch, 2014, p.296), the gap between what is taught in classrooms or measured in examination halls and what is used in real life situations has become much bigger. Testimonies from Study abroad students feed into this discussion. This article addresses the gap between being a language learner and a language user and the implications of this on learners’ perceptions of their language abilities, as illustrated by the story of Mahmoud, a study abroad student in the UK. It also features learner’s voice, exploring Mahmoud’s views of his previous formal language education and concludes with pedagogical implications for language educators.
Foreign language learning innvolves cognitive, affective and social functioning of the persons involved in this experience. As a social practice, it is also related to the learners’ perceptions of their identity, specifically to their language identity which refers to the relationship between one’s sense of self and the language used to communicate. This implies that using a system of communication, the speaker develops a new sense of self that remains in a dynamic relation with other senses of self, based on (an)other language(s) the person knows. Language learners’ identity is no longer defined as fixed and stable but as “complex, contradictory and multifaceted” (Norton 1997, p. 419). It is dynamic because learners enter into various discourses and negotiate their position within different communities of practice. Language both shapes and is shaped by identity of its users. This article discusses how students of English as a foreign language perceive the role of this language in their construction of selves/identity. First, postmodern conceptualisations of identity and identity categories are presented along with their relevance to the field of Second Language Acquisition. Second, selected empirical studies pertaining to adult immigrant contexts, foreign language contexts and study abroad contexts are briefly reported. Then the results of an empirical study on the students’ of English (n=83) perceptions of their identity in the context of foreign language study are introduced. The study revealed that most of the participants realise complex relations between language learning and their identity and are aware of the effects that studying English (as well as other foreign languages) has on them. English gave them new possibilities in life, allowed them to communicate with people worldwide and make friends with them. They have new and interesting prospects for the future. It affected their personality by making them more open-minded and tolerant of otherness. The knowledge of English gives the students power, prestige, and opportunities to live and work in a changing world of complex social relations.
Foreign language teacher training programmes often require student teachers to spend some time in a country where the target language is spoken. While research on the role of study abroad experiences in general teacher education is well documented, investigations dealing with the impact of mobility initiatives on FL teacher education are rather scarce. The present study, based on oral interviews, examines long-term effects of a two-week international workshop, an Erasmus Intensive Programme (IP), on student teachers’ perception of their role as FL teachers. The IP aimed at finding ways to incorporate elements of the arts into English classes in four European countries: Germany, Poland, Turkey and Lithuania. The IP participants were invited to take part in lectures, practical workshops and visits to local schools. The results of the study reveal that within approximately a year after the completion of the IP the participants from Poland express a general positive attitude towards the infusion of the arts into the EFL curriculum. The IP experience evoked the future teachers’ reflection upon a number of key issues in the profession of FL teaching: the degree of individualization and learner autonomy in class, rejecting the idea of teacher as solely an authority figure, the use of various forms of social interaction in class, and self-improvement or life-long learning being inherent aspects of the teaching profession.
This paper presents the findings of a pilot study carried out among American students coming to the Czech Republic for one semester within their study abroad programme at Charles University, Prague, taking Elementary Czech Course as a part of their compulsory syllabus. The aim of the study was two-fold: 1) to assess the options such research may bring and 2) to gather some data for the upcoming research to create hypotheses regarding the attitudes and motivation towards learning Czech as a second language. During three consecutive semesters, 174 students participated in filling out questionnaires. The findings have confirmed that the students’ attitudes change throughout the semester and they have also shown some factors influencing the initial and final attitudes. The majority of students display rather negative emotions (anxiety) relating to learning Czech at the beginning but at the end most of them express a positive attitude. The findings imply some pedagogic suggestions regarding the syllabus and course design.
Crossing borders features prominently as a theme in study abroad, not only in terms of students’ physical border crossings but also in their intercultural interactions with second language (L2) speakers whose background (linguistic and otherwise) they may perceive as markedly different from their own. Researchers have had a long-standing interest in study abroad participants’ interactions with other L2 speakers abroad for their perceived potential to enhance L2 development, L2 motivation and intercultural learning processes. The focus of existing studies in this area has been on the interactions of study abroad participants with host national students, while their interactions with other international students who are also L2 users abroad have received far less attention, despite the ever-growing international student populations at European universities. This study examined students’ views regarding the role that lingua franca (LF) interactions with other international students played in their L2 acquisition, their L2 motivational development and their intercultural learning during study abroad. The data were derived from an empirical study that involved 81 German ERASMUS students who were studying in the UK for up to one academic year. The students’ views were elicited at the end of their stay with open-ended questionnaire items, and their verbal responses were analyzed using thematic content analysis. The analysis of the students’ reflections revealed a number of functions in each of the three areas, highlighting the potential of international student interactions as a viable source of L2 acquisition, L2 self-motivation, and intercultural learning during study abroad.
In the empirical study of intercultural exchange presented in this paper, we assessed Erasmus students for knowledge of English as a foreign language (EFL) and their level of reflective judgement, to test for correlation between the two variables. The basic theoretical framing was derived from King and Kitchener’s (1994) reflective judgment model (RJM), based on 3 different levels of reflectivity, connected to progressive cognitive development of adults: pre-reflective, quasireflective and reflective. The results of the study show that the students displayed high levels of reflective judgment and importantly, we found a correlation between their standard of English and their level of reflectivity. The ability to communicate in English is a prerequisite to participation in the Erasmus programme, therefore it was expected that the students would score well for English knowledge. However, the results of the study suggest that being competent in the use of English as a foreign language may be a predictor of higher reflectivity amongst students in higher education. This creates a controversial pedagogical implication suggesting that learning English as a foreign language to a high standard fuels reflectivity.
Polacy licznie emigrują począwszy od XIX w. Zjawisko to wyhamowało po II wojnie światowej na skutek polityki władz państwowych. Sytuacja ta uległa zmianie w 1989 r. Zintensyfikowanie ruchów emigracyjnych nastąpiło w 2004 r., po wejściu Polski do Unii Europejskiej. Oceniając zjawiska migracyjne zwraca się uwagę na pozytywy i negatywy. Z jednej strony doświadczenie pobytu na obczyźnie sprzyja „cywilizacyjnemu ubogaceniu” poprzez umocnienie takich cech, jak przedsiębiorczość, decyzyjność, tolerancja, krytycyzm, z drugiej zaś ujawniają się zjawiska negatywne, nierzadko o charakterze patologicznym. Polska jest miejscem, w którym osiedlają się przybysze z innych krajów, przede wszystkim z byłego ZSRR oraz Dalekiego Wschodu.
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The phenomenon of migration in the Polish society has been observed since the beginning of the 19th century. In that century many Poles left their country, looking for „happiness” abroad. In the second half of the 20th century emigration brought to a stop – it was not the phenomenon accepted by the state authorities. The situation changed after 1989. The intensification of emigration movements followed the access of Poland into the European Community on May 1st, 2004. Evaluating migration phenomena, attention is paid to advantages and disadvantages. On one hand the experience of stay abroad is favourable for „civilization enrichment” by strengthening such features as enterprise, decision making, tolerance, criticism, on the other hand though, negative phenomena come to light, not infrequently of pathological character. Poles who go abroad contemporarily, undertake the jobs as factory or farm workers, they are also valued as qualified work force. Many find jobs in the health care system among others as doctors, nurses or pharmacists. Poland is not only the country from which people emigrate only. It is also a place in which newcomers from other countries settle. Those, who come from the former Soviet Union integrate quickly with the Polish society. Mixed marriages contribute to it and also participating in religious services within the Roman Catholic Church. Immigrants from far eastern territories establish enclaves in Poland, within which they nourish the tradition of their countries of origin. The language barrier is a problem for foreigners with which they are confronted in Poland – in relation to „common” citizens and in offices.
In this article I present the Roman Law scholars of the Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów and their travel abroad for the purposes of scholarship. Lwów’s scholars developed their knowledge and skills by working with prominent German, Austrian, French and Italian personalities in legal studies. The scholarships awarded by the Emperor Franz Joseph I Foundation (Fundacja im. Cesarza Franciszka Józefa I), the National Culture Fund (Fundusz Kultury Narodowej), and the Emil Parnas Foundation (Fundacja im. Emila Parnasa) helped them to further their education abroad. Leon Piniński and Marceli Chlamtacz, professors of the Jan Kazimierz University, studied abroad in the late 19th century. Leon Piniński went to universities in Leipzig, Berlin and Vienna, where he worked with Heinrich Dernburg and Bernhard Windscheid. Marceli Chlamtacz travelled to Vienna and Berlin, where he collaborated with Professors Franz Hofmann, Adolf Exler, and Alfred Pernice. Professor Wacław Osuchowski studied abroad in the early 1930s, first in Rome, and subsequently in Munich and Paris. The fourth of the scholars presented in the article, Dr. Edward Gintowt-Dziewałtowski, a research assistant in the Chair of Roman Law, spent four years in Vienna, Innsbruck, Rome, and Palermo in the 1930s.
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