Living and Studying Abroad: Research and Practice

293 Pages·2006·1.83 MB·English

by  Byram M.

Living and Studying Abroad
LANGUAGES FOR INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION
Editors:Michael Byram,University of Durham, UKand Alison Phipps,University of
Glasgow, UK
The overall aim of this series is to publish books which will ultimately inform
learning and teaching, but whose primary focus is on the analysis of intercultural
relationships, whether in textual form or in people’s experience. There will also be
books which deal directly with pedagogy, with the relationships between language
learning and cultural learning, between processes inside the classroom and beyond.
They will all have in common a concern with the relationship between language and
culture, and the development of intercultural communicative competence.
Other Books in the Series
Developing Intercultural Competence in Practice
Michael Byram, Adam Nichols and David Stevens (eds)
Intercultural Experience and Education
Geof Alred, Michael Byram and Mike Fleming (eds)
Critical Citizens for an Intercultural World: Foreign Language Education as Cultural
Politics
Manuela Guilherme
How Different Are We? Spoken Discourse in Intercultural Communication
Helen Fitzgerald
Audible Difference: ESL and Social Identity in Schools
Jennifer Miller
Context and Culture in Language Teaching and Learning
Michael Byram and Peter Grundy (eds)
An Intercultural Approach to English language Teaching
John Corbett
Critical Pedagogy: Political Approaches to Language and Intercultural
Communication
Alison Phipps and Manuela Guilherme (eds)
Vernacular Palaver: Imaginations of the Local and Non-native Languages in West
Africa
Moradewun Adejunmobi
Foreign Language Teachers and Intercultural Competence: An International
Investigation
Lies Sercu with Ewa Bandura, Paloma Castro, Leah Davcheva, Chryssa Laskaridou, Ulla
Lundgren, María del Carmen Méndez García and Phyllis Ryan
Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity
Karen Risager
Education for Intercultural Citizenship: Concepts and Comparisons
Geof Alred, Michael Byram and Mike Fleming (eds)
Other Books of Interest
Age, Accent and Experience in Second Language Acquisition
Alene Moyer
Language Teachers, Politics and Cultures
Michael Byram and Karen Risager
For more details of these or any other of our publications, please contact:
Multilingual Matters, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall,
Victoria Road, Clevedon, BS21 7HH, England
http://www.multilingual-matters.com
LANGUAGES FOR INTERCULTURAL
COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION 12
Series Editors: Michael Byram and Alison Phipps
Living and Studying Abroad
Research and Practice
Edited by
Michael Byram and Anwei Feng
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD
Clevedon • Buffalo (cid:127) Toronto
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Living and Studying Abroad: Research and Practice/Edited by Michael Byram and
Anwei Feng.
Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education: 12
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Foreignstudy.2.Foreignstudy–Research.3.Foreignstudy–Research–Methodology.
I. Byram, Michael. II. Feng, Anwei. III. Series.
LB2375.L58 2006
370.116–dc22 2006010931
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1-85359-911-5 / EAN 978-1-85359-911-8 (hbk)
ISBN 1-85359-910-7 / EAN 978-1-85359-910-1 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters Ltd
UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH.
USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA.
Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada.
Copyright © 2006 Michael Byram, Anwei Weng and the authors of individual
chapters.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Typeset by Techset Ltd.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd.
Contents
Foreword
Robert Crawshaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
About theAuthors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
1 Introduction
Michael Byram and Anwei Feng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part 1: SojournsFar
2 Japanese Students in Britain
Mari Ayano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3 Recording theJourney: Diaries of Irish Students
inJapan
AileenPearson-Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4 The One Less TravelledBy...:The Experience of Chinese
Students ina UK University
Christine Burnett and John Gardner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Part 2: SojournsNear
5 ReciprocalAdjustment by Hostand Sojourning Groups:
Mainland ChineseStudents in Hong Kong
CarolMing-Hung Lam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6 Study AbroadandExperiences of Cultural Distance
andProximity: FrenchErasmus Students
Vassiliki Papatsiba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
v
vi Contents
Part 3: Short-Term Sojourns
7 Ethnographic PedagogyandEvaluation in Short-Term
Study Abroad
Jane Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
8 Student Perspectives inShort-Term Study Programmes
Abroad:AGrounded TheoryStudy
GertrudTarp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Part 4: Lasting Effectson Sojourners
9 The Assistant Experiencein Retrospect and its Educational and
Professional Significance in Teachers’ Biographies
Susanne Ehrenreich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
10 BritishStudentsin France:10 Years On
GeofAlredand Mike Byram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Part 5: Evaluating the Impact
11 AssessingIntercultural Competencein Study
AbroadStudents
Darla K. Deardorff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Foreword
ROBERT CRAWSHAW
Thepublicationofthisresearchanthologyonresidenceabroadcoincides
with the convergence of a number of historic initiatives in the field of
transnational educational mobility. 2005 was the centenary of the foun-
dation of the Language Teaching Assistants programme, the visionary
accord of 1905 between Great Britain, France and Prussia. According to
the text of the original agreement, the programme’s objectives were as
much educational as they were political. The initiative was designed as
an ambassadorial catalyst, whose elements were intended to offer at
least equal benefit to the sojourners as to the pupils whose learning
theyweredestinedtosupport.Itsaimwastoreachbeyondthelimitations
of wealth and privilege and, for the first time, to place intercultural
encounter within an agreed international educational framework.
The programme’s longevity remains the enduring mark of its efficacy
and life-changing properties. Fortuitously, 2006 marks in its turn the
20th anniversary of the European Union’s Erasmus project, which has
made it possible for a generation of young people, the children of
the post-war baby-boom, to experience at first hand, from a specifically
educational perspective, the wonder of Europe’s cultural diversity. It is
also 10 years since the EU’s Socrates programme extended the funded
support for EU educational cooperation under Comenius to secondary
and further education. These structures, together with the pioneering
work of The Council of Europe, have enabled mobility within
Europe to become a multinational reality, an institutional given which
is no longer dependent exclusively on material privilege and bilateral
agreementsbetweenindividual states.
Ithastakentimefor theexperienceofstructuredperiodsofresidence
abroad in the post-war, post-colonial environment of modern Europe to
be properly assessed. Even now, its longer term impact on the wider
cultures from which the sojourners emanate can only be guessed at.
RecordswereofcoursekeptbytheformerCentralBureauforEducational
vii
vvviiiiiiiii FFFooorrreeewwwooorrrddd
VisitsandExchangesinLondonandbyequivalentagenciesinthediffer-
entEuropeancountriesinvolvedinexchangeprogrammes.Reportswere
written by schools where the students taught and, to a greater or lesser
extent, universities noted the outcomes of overseas sojourn and fed
them into their final degree assessments. But, for the most part, the
developmental benefits were taken for granted; residence abroad was
not a compulsory component even of modern languages degrees in the
UK, and after the enforced colonial travel imposed by national service
on the majority of young British men during the decade following
the trauma of the second world war, philanthropic education abroadfor
the few, like Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), was seen as an adjunct
to mainstream study, a trapping which would enhance the cultural
outlook of the prospective language teacher, diplomat, international
businessman orcivil servant.
I think it is fair to say that, as far as Europe is concerned, serious
attemptstoevaluateresidenceabroadfromatheorised,academic,devel-
opmental perspective took root partly as a consequence of the need to
account for student mobility in terms of cost-benefit and partly as an
outcome of the wider movement in the 1970s to promote languages
foralltoaminimalthresholdofcommunication(niveau-seuil),regardless
of ability, within the secondary system. Lines of investigation were
pursued more or less in parallel at two different levels of education.
First, it became clear that survival language tools for children travelling
abroad, mostly for leisure purposes, was deemed not in itself to be a
sufficienteducationalgoal.Fordeeplearningtotakeplace,itwasimport-
antforthe‘lifeworlds’ofthelearnerstochange.Whiletheymightnever
attain native speaker proficiency in the foreign languages to which they
were exposed, they could at least come to appreciate and respect differ-
ence and thus use foreign language learning as a means of developing
qualities of tolerance and humanity. However, these abstract, idealistic
aims needed to be translated into practical pedagogical goals. For this
to happen, much closer definition of terms was required, together with
a more acute understanding of how progression towards some new
order of being could realistically be assessed. The Council of Europe,
throughthepioneeringworkofafewcommittedindividuals,wasinstru-
mental in enabling these investigations to take place. Through the late
1980s and into the 1990s, a framework for defining cultural awareness
as an educational objective was established. This framework has now
achieved global prominence and, as the papers in the present volume
make clear, has become one of the key benchmarks against which the
attainment of intercultural competence ismeasured.
FFoorreewwoorrdd iixx
At the same time, the successful integration of the residence abroad
experience into Higher Education became a growing preoccupation
within Europe, not simply from the infrastructural perspective inherent
in the European Union’s Bologna agreement and the subsequent work
of organisations such as the European Universities Association (EUA),
but also, complementarily, in terms of its impact on the outlook of
young people themselves. Once again, this interest has in part been
bound up with financial concerns, especially in the UK. What tangible
benefits have accrued from study and work abroad, both to the learners
and to the environments within which they have been learning? How
has their potential as an economic resource been enhanced as a result
of intercultural encounter? Is the period of residence abroad being used
to best advantage? How can participants be better prepared for such
experiences, so that these benefits can be maximised? It has also been
fuelledbytheuniversalupsurgeofinterestinthesocialandpsychological
processesinvolvedintheexperienceofmobility.Perhapsnotsurprisingly,
this interest in process and developmental outcomes has coincided
withthesimultaneousenlargementoftheEuropeanUnion,theincreased
predominanceoftheEnglishlanguageandtheemergenceoflocal,ethnic
identities as indices of cultural diversity within nation states. For all
these reasons, cultural interaction through mobility has become widely
recognised as amaterially significant field ofresearch.
The other major development in intercultural research to which this
volume bears witness, is the extension of opportunities for study
abroad from Europe and North America to the wider world and vice
versa. Over the last decade, educationally sponsored mobility has
become a global phenomenon, particularly in the UK and Ireland, due
to the HE sector’s increasing dependence on overseas students as a
source of revenue and the attractiveness of English-speaking environ-
ments as places of learning. Exchange programmes between European
countries and the Americas, China, Japan, India, Malaysia and Africa
are now becoming more commonplace. It has become essential to
address not just the practical study problems confronted by students
engaged in intercontinental educational mobility but the attitudinal
changes and pragmatic communication issues which these sojourns
entail. Of equal interest is the extent to which these issues continue to
underlinedeep-seateddifferencesinculturaloutlook.Whilethephysical
opportunitiesforstudentstoworkandstudyabroadhavediversified,the
impact of global student mobility on research has been multiple. It has
broadened the types of educational intercultural encounter which have
been investigated, and, at the same time, brought together different