Many scholars have highlighted the great variability of second language acquisition outcomes and, thus, the inconsistencies and inconclusiveness in the study abroad literature. These have called for longitudinal, case-based research that focuses on the students' processes (rather than outcomes) and that showcases the heterogeneity of…

This article reports data drawn from a doctoral qualitative case study conducted during the 2016-2017 academic calendar. The study explored the academic, sociocultural, and affective challenges a cohort of Mexican postgraduate international students faced during their first 2 weeks at a university in England. Twenty students participated in three…

Purpose: Internationalisation has been a theme in UK higher education for a decade or more. The review of this paper, a practice-based case study, is to find how Winchester formulated two successive internationalisation strategies. Design/methodology/approach: The strategies were developed using a research-oriented method: grounded in the…

Sociocultural theory emphasises the mediational role of tools in learning. International students usually find themselves in a vicious cycle, experiencing difficulties when engaging with local people and culture which might provide the mediation necessary to develop their intercultural communicative competence. Yang (2016) further points out that…

This historical multi-case study uses the concepts of coloniality of knowledge, critical hybridity, and indigeneity in examining higher education development in Africa through the efforts of Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, two educational reformers and former international students in the USA. We develop a framework for…

This scoping paper explores the experiences of overseas students from Nigeria studying in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom. It considers the context for these students and some of the particular pressures and challenges they experience in making the transition from education in Nigeria to achieving academic success and…

This case study examines student perceptions of the experiential value of a work placement carried out as part of a languages degree programme. The data for the case study consists of a corpus of 67 reports submitted from 2011 to 2015, reflecting on placements carried out in Europe, Japan, the UK and the US. The data offers a student view of the…

The past two decades have seen the idea of internationalization move into the mainstream of higher education policy and practice, on a global scale. In countries like the US and UK however, higher education is widely perceived as a hierarchical field, where high- and low-status universities are differentiated from one another: serving different…

Educational sojourns abroad are not only increasingly popular; it is also believed that they have many positive outcomes for students. The transformative potential of a study sojourn abroad has been claimed in linguistic and broader intercultural terms (e.g. Brown [2009] "The Transformative Power of the International Sojourn: An Ethnographic…

The authors in this qualitative study examined international students' cultural and social experiences using data collected through case studies and semi-structured, in-depth, informant style interviews. Participants were all international students (n = 18), mostly postgraduate from Asian and Far Eastern countries studying at a British higher…

A work placement module is compulsory in the second year of most degree programmes at York St John University, as part of an institution-wide strategy to embed employability in the curriculum. As most languages students spend their second year studying abroad, the Languages in the Workplace module was designed in such a way that the setting up of…

Mobility of mainland Chinese students across national borders has become common worldwide; however, the underlying reasons that motivate these students to pursue postgraduation abroad and why these factors are influential are not sufficiently studied. By analyzing the results of a case study performed at three British universities, we examine the…

This book develops a comprehensive understanding of the motivations and experiences of students who choose to study abroad for the whole or part of a degree. It includes case studies of students from East Asia, Europe and the UK, and considers the implications of their movement for contemporary higher education. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

Internationalization of geography in higher education comes in many guises. This paper discusses some of these, with particular attention to curriculum development and transfer. The context is Bangladesh and a case study is presented of a link programme between three higher education institutions in that country and one in the UK. The British…

A course introducing British culture is a standard component of many study abroad programmes running in this country that are aimed at international students who will be spending a limited amount of time in the United Kingdom. However, it is not often acknowledged that such students possess a range of strong pre-conceptions about British culture…