Institutions of higher education around the world have responded to the challenge of globalization by internationalizing their curricula. Incorporating elements of cross-cultural examination to a freshman Fundamentals of Public Speaking class proved to be an important first step toward globalization for this speech professor. In the class,…

Study abroad is a high impact practice, touted as a tool for developing global and intercultural awareness. In 2017/18, of the nearly 350,000 U.S. students who studied abroad, sixty-five percent participated in "short-term" programs (IIE, 2018). Short-term programs are often administered as group opportunities, in which students…

While there is ample evidence that study abroad (SA) enhances oral fluency in a foreign language, the effects of different types of learning context on other aspects of oral skills, such as vocabulary use, have not received much attention in academic research and are less clear. The present study tries to fill this void by investigating lexical…

Universities increasingly prioritize intercultural learning experiences that prepare students to become competent professionals in an interconnected world (Egron-Polak, 2012; de Witt, 2009). Study abroad represents one such learning experience for U.S. university students. Study abroad programs, although varies in structure and curriculum, share…

As a regional hub for education, Hong Kong has seen a growing population of international students. In contrast to existing conceptual models in acculturation literature that are typically devoted to studying long-term settlers such as migrants or refugees in English speaking countries, this study develops and tests a fine-grained model for…

Language proficiency is highlighted in the literature on the adjustment and security of international students. India is the second top source country for mobile students globally, but few studies have focused explicitly on students from India. The purpose of this study was to examine the English language experiences of Indian students at New…

Although the number of international experience requirements (IER) for college students is growing, there is limited research on their impact. The authors present a four-year study of the impact on an IER at the University of Michigan's Penny W. Stamps School of Art and Design, comparing outcomes for required and non-required cohorts. Evaluation…

This paper uses photo-cued interviewing and grounded theory approaches to understand student empowerment resulting from study abroad programs. Using data from 62 students who traveled to 9 countries on several different programs, this paper highlights what student empowerment as an outcome of study abroad can look like and how student empowerment…

An online survey of 374 US college students was conducted in April, 2015 to examine whether and how subjective norm, direct and indirect experiences related to China, their perceptions of China (China's country reputation), and media coverage of China influence their interests of studying in China. Statistical results show that their subjective…

While intercultural competence is commonly a goal of university study abroad programmes, debates around criteria for assessing this competence have highlighted the challenges in appropriately identifying students' intercultural learning in relation to specific university programmes. To overcome these issues, this research moves beyond…

Previous studies have shown that study abroad has a positive effect on second language (L2) learning outcomes for students who spend at least a semester abroad. It is unclear, however, whether a short-term experience also has a measurable impact on L2 development. The present study examines the relationship between speaking proficiency gains made…

The Erasmus student mobility programme allocates three explicit objectives to the experience of spending a few months studying in another European country: (1) to benefit students educationally, linguistically and culturally; (2) to promote co-operation between institutions and (3) to contribute to the development of a pool of well-qualified,…

This article presents a model for a short-term interdisciplinary study abroad program designed specifically to foster intercultural competence. It provides a description of a one-month interdisciplinary General Education Summer Abroad Program in Valencia, Spain, that attempts to sensitize students to cultural differences, to engage students to a…

Teachers' classroom practices are influenced by their beliefs and are unlikely to change if these influencing factors are not changed (Webster, McNeish, Scott, Maynard & Haywood, 2012). Current roles and functions of English as an international language (EIL) require changes in teachers' perspectives in teaching English for intercultural…

In a time of growing competition for tertiary education, international students represent an important resource. However, more work is required to detail the factors that influence destination choice in study abroad. Drawing from a representative sample (n = 620) of the adult population over 19 in the Republic of Korea, the present study examined…