Ana Beaven

Interactions among future study abroad students: exploring potential intercultural learning sequences

The study presented in this article aims to explore if and how intercultural learning may take place in students’ class interaction. It is grounded in the assumption that interculturality is not a clear-cut feature inherent to interactions occurring when individuals with presumed different linguistic and cultural/national backgrounds talk to each other, but that interculturality is co-constructed during interaction. In other words, every ‘interdiscourse interaction’ is potentially intercultural. We have assumed this perspective while investigating student–student class interactions that took place in an intercultural education course aimed at enhancing students’ intercultural learning in view of their sojourn abroad. Interactional data were analysed from the perspective of conversation analysis. Then, drawing on the notion of séquence potentiellement acquisitionelle as well as on a constructivist approach to intercultural learning, we conclude that, in interaction with their peers, learners can co-construct ‘potential intercultural learning sequences’ (PILS), which present recognisable interactional and discursive features.

Interculturality in study abroad

Study abroad (SA) is now a well-established domain of enquiry in applied linguistics and, like the phenomenon itself, is extremely varied. This variety can be traced back to the 1990s, when the bulk of research on SA began to appear (Freed, 1995; Parker & Rouxeville, 1995). Nevertheless, within this multiplicity, three trends in research topics and perspectives can be identified and historically contextualised. First of all, Coleman (2015) points out that, when SA emerged as a subject in applied linguistics, it was approached according to the methodological principles of mainstream research in that period: thus, mobile students’ language gains were mostly measured through preand post-sojourn tests, which tended to focus on the acquisition of discrete language skills (e.g. listening or writing) or dimensions (e.g. morphology or syntax). In addition to interests intrinsic to applied linguistics, explanations for this initial trend in SA research can be found in external broader socio-educational factors: in the 1980s and 1990s, the phenomenon of SA was not yet seen as an important step in formal education – at least in terms of numbers. According to the OECD, in 1975 there were 0.8 million students worldwide enrolled outside their country of citizenship, while they were 4.5 million in 2012 (2015, p. 360). This substantial rise in numbers thus created a widespread interest – also on the part of investors such as international political organisations and educational institutions – in establishing what concrete benefits SA had on foreign language learning based on scientific (i.e. measurable) outcomes. In the last decade or so, SA has experienced a new substantial change in perspective and purposes (Kinginger, 2009). Again, this shift does not represent a break with previous research, but rather can be interpreted as the development of a synergy between more general socio-cultural factors and a new turn in applied linguistics. Affecting the former is a growing – almost avid – interest in student mobility, framed within the politics of internationalisation on the part of higher education institutions. After all, in the context of globalisation, the growing numbers of students spending a period of time abroad has triggered the interests of the various stakeholders, who see mobility as way of increasing the students’ employability potential and global citizenship (Lewis, 2009; Paige, Fry, Stallman, Josić, & Jon, 2009; Schomburg & Teichler, 2011). Within applied linguistics, the increased insistence on the benefits of SA has inevitably brought with it a need not only to evaluate, but also to understand better what factors foster or inhibit students’ learning outcomes. This has also been motivated by the fact that many studies employing preand post-tests seemed to suggest that students’ language gains abroad can be highly variable (e.g. Kinginger, 2011). As a consequence, researchers have been striving to identify what personal and social variables (e.g. type of accommodation, participation in local leisure activities, social contacts in general) foster or hinder students’ second language learning abroad (Dewey, Belnap, & Hillstrom, 2013; Isabelli-García, 2006; Llanes, Tragant, & Serrano, 2012). Coleman (2015) ironically wonders why applied linguistics failed to take into account such crucial factors for so long. When historically contextualised, it appears clear that this shift in perspective was made possible by the broader social turn (Block, 2003) in applied linguistics. Nevertheless, according to Kinginger (2013), there is still a dearth of studies in applied linguistics approaching SA from a sociocultural perspective.

Intercultural preparation for future mobile students: a pedagogical experience

ABSTRACT Higher education (HE) student mobility offers the opportunity to acquire, among other things, intercultural experience. Nevertheless, it is crucial to prepare students and give them the tools to reflect on their experiences before, during and after study abroad. In this pedagogical paper, we present and discuss ‘Perceptions of self and other’, one of the pre-departure activities developed in the frame of the European project IEREST, which aims at enabling students to examine their previous intercultural encounters and at developing their ability to build successful intercultural communication with others without prejudice. The paper, directed to an audience of practitioners involved in study abroad preparation, focuses on the feedback received from different stakeholders involved in the initial piloting of the activity, in seven HE institutions. Overall, the activity was considered original and innovative, theoretically solid and engaging for the students. The critical points considered involved the time required to adapt the activity to the specific context in which it was taught, and the need to manage students’ expectations by clarifying that the aim was not to provide practical advice and information about specific destinations, but to make them reflect on what intercultural encounters can offer in terms of personal development.

LANGUAGE AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION FOR MOBILITY: INSIGHT FROM THE IEREST PROJECT

The increase in the number of students taking part in study abroad programmes worldwide has highlighted the need to offer intercultural preparation for this specific group of students. The IEREST European project (Intercultural Education Resources for Erasmus Students and their Teachers) has produced a set of teaching resources to help students benefit from their sojourn in terms of personal growth and intercultural learning. The theoretical approach underlying such resources is linked to a concept of interculturality that promotes the idea of multiple identities, and to the notion that identities are co-constructed in interaction (Holiday, 2011, 2013). Furthermore, the learners are taught to recognize the subjectivity and instability of worldviews. In this sense, the activities are culture-general, and can be taught to students regardless of their specific destination. This paper presents the activity “Meeting people abroad”. Although originally not designed for the language classroom, it was adapted for use in an Englishlanguage course for a group of future Erasmus students. Central to the activity is the learners’ engagement with other mobile students through the task of carrying out an interview from potentially non-essentialist perspectives. The target language is thus seen not as an aim in itself, but as the means to develop the learners’ intercultural communication skills and understanding. In their new format for the foreign language classroom, the activity was tested at the University of Bologna in September 2014. Feedback was collected through focus groups at the end of the course, and was used to evaluate the materials and reflect on ways of introducing the intercultural in foreign language education (Byram, 2008), in particular in the context of student mobility.

Exploring Intercultural Learning and Second Language Identities in the ERASMUS Context

This chapter investigates a teaching activity from the European project Intercultural Education Resources for ERASMUS Students and their Teachers, which is titled ‘24 h ERASMUS Life’ and was conducted at the University of Bologna with 33 participants. Students and teachers worked online for six weeks using forums, videoconferences, chat rooms, and a course blog. The authors gathered data from the blog postings and employed thematic analysis, focusing on the students’ language experiences, including identity-related features of language proficiency, linguistic self-concept, and second-language-mediated (L2) personal development. The outcomes of this study contribute to understanding the multifaceted nature of L2 identity development during study abroad and its links to intercultural learning within a non-essentialist theoretical framework. Some pedagogical implications for mobile student preparation are also considered.