Adopting the notions of "identity," "investment" and "translocal scale," this study explores how international students negotiate language choices with multilingual others and construct new sociolinguistic spaces. Interview data with 12 international students at a Chinese university revealed tensions between language…

Erasmus student experiences currently seem to be closely linked to the neoliberal common sense, meaning that market-oriented motivations and consumerist behaviours can often be found in students' discourses and experiences. With this point in mind, in this qualitative inquiry, we focused on how a cohort of prospective English language teachers…

This study qualitatively explores how studying abroad in an English as a lingua franca context promotes student-sojourners' intercultural awareness (ICA) taking a longitudinal perspective. A group of Catalan/Spanish bilinguals and Turkish-L1 speakers were interviewed regarding their past ERASMUS experiences in terms of ICA following a stimulated…

This article draws on interview data to report how students of Mandarin in UK universities were exposed to and responded to 'Chinese culture' during their studies. The experiences that the students shared and the ways they responded demonstrated their understanding of cultural complexity, incorporating a fluid and dynamic view of culture as…

Developing intercultural awareness among participants is an objective of many short-term study abroad (SA) programmes. However, such programmes often focus on essentialist 'target' national culture learning. Moreover, simplistic evaluation of intercultural development risks the decontextualisation of personally meaningful learning in experiences…

This paper explores the role of a series of intercultural dialogues deployed as an intercultural intervention in scaffolding the development of interculturality of Chinese international students and Belgian undergraduates. The data highlight the fundamentally dynamic dialogic nature and process of intercultural engagement whereby the individuals…

International non-profit organizations (INGOs) were traditionally established to facilitate dialogue and bridge cultures. In order for INGOs to successfully carry out their objectives, global activists must work together in a culturally sensitive and responsible manner. The current article examines a volunteer training model that was designed to…

Although contexts of learning abroad have traditionally been conceived as optimal settings for language and intercultural learning, Researchers advocate the implementation of pedagogical interventions that promote qualitative intercultural dialogue and guidance in language and intercultural learning process. Yet, studies are needed that carefully…

The study looked into three Chinese MBA students' discursive language and cultural behavior in an American study abroad (SA) program. It intended to unveil the complex social and individual factors shaping the students' second language (L2) and cultural learning. The key notions of identity and investment were employed to interpret the three MBA…

Attracting the best students into universities is a policy agenda driven by the state and universities in Estonia and Denmark. While the policy of internationalization of higher education (IoHE) in Estonia and Denmark is well crafted in the policy and academic domains, the value additions international graduates add to the learning environments…

In an interview with a postgraduate student about her intercultural experience of recently arriving for study abroad, it was found that the two researchers and the student were engaged in a mutual exploration of cultural identity. The interview events became conversational and took the form of small culture formation on the go in which each…

This study utilises the 'small story' approach to investigate metaphor in mobile students' narratives of intercultural experience. Metaphor in narrative is seen as a dynamic, discursive, and sociocognitive phenomenon. The narrative accounts presented in this paper derive from interviews conducted for mobility project evaluation. The participants…

The initial response to COVID-19 exposed widespread racism and Sinophobia across the world, which contributed to a rethinking of equality and diversity in Higher Education (HE) and beyond. Within Modern Languages, much attention has been placed on decolonising the curriculum. The death of George Floyd in 2020 further contributed to an increased…

Reflecting upon their intercultural experiences, with a tool like the "Autobiography of intercultural encounters," may help adolescents become better interculturalists. This research investigates how the use of the Autobiography may allow adolescents develop intercultural competence (IC). Using Byram's framework on which this tool is…

The paper reports on the findings of a PhD study exploring the implications of the separation between language and content in Modern Languages for students' development of intercultural competence and criticality across four universities -- two in the US and two in the UK. In particular, it exposes the diverse views students developed on the…