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ERIC Number: EJ1253533
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Sep
Pages: 35
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-2164-5965
EISSN: N/A
Designing Programs to Foster Intercultural Competence through Interdisciplinary Study Abroad
Goetz, Lily Anne; Holliday, William
NECTFL Review, n80 p11-45 Sep 2017
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 higher degree in historical inquiry, and to develop Spanish language skills by weaving together three General Education requirements (history, intermediate Spanish, and an English advanced writing seminar) in an immersion setting. It also presents data demonstrating that participants showed improvement in their Spanish language-speaking abilities and exhibited high levels of cognitive and affective engagement. The data also suggest that participants generally performed favorably in comparison to student cohorts who completed similar General Education courses on-campus, especially in terms of the engagement levels of students with grade point averages <3.0 on a 4-point scale. The article also emphasizes that one cannot assume that cultural immersion will, on its own, lead to intercultural competence; it describes how this program fosters intercultural transformation and Spanish language skills growth among students through specific activities that require students to interact with Spaniards in a variety of contexts. It concludes with a discussion of further possibilities for research regarding the potential role of interdisciplinary study and university core curriculum courses in the development of intercultural competence.
Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. 2400 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14214. e-mail: info@nectfl.org; Web site: https://www.nectfl.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Spain (Valencia)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A