Study Abroad as a Pedagogical Framework

Abstract

International mobility or study abroad (SA) consists of a formative stay in a country other than one's own in between periods of instruction at home. Pedagogical approaches to foster the potential benefits of SA periods are based on the assumption that the unique experience of living, studying, and integrating into a new community will result in linguistic, cultural, and personal development. When linguistic benefits are obtained, learners improve their listening abilities, become more fluent, and have greater and more diverse syntactic and lexical resources; particularly, if they also attend language courses abroad, are at an intermediate level, and have signed a language pledge. Culturally, it is also assumed that sojourners may develop as more autonomous learners and adopt a new outlook toward the target language culture and the world at large, with potentially positive effects on their future careers. However, research measuring the SA effects shows wide variability in results. Not all SA programs and settings offer the same opportunities, and not all individuals have the functional linguistic level and communication strategies to take advantage of the opportunities, features closely related to personality. For this reason, educational initiatives have been undertaken that seek to embed SA more firmly in the curriculum through pedagogic predeparture preparation, support during the stay, and debriefing upon return. SA these days takes place in multilingual settings where the new trend is toward the internationalization of education, with English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) being used as the medium of instruction on many courses (EMI).