The major concern of the QA assessors in the mid-1990s regarding residence abroad was the fact that, in a considerable proportion of institutions, effective methods of integrating the period abroad with the rest of the course had not been found. Though standards were generally commendably high when it came to providing support mechanisms and were improving in the area of academic monitoring, the nature of the students' activities while abroad and their relationship to the rest of the course had not been thought through in depth. However, in its consultations with colleagues across the HE sector - in focus-groups, at workshops and conferences, in emails and conversations with individuals - LARA has found that the primary area of concern is the question of assessment and accreditation. Since that question is fundamental to any consideration of integration, it is clear that integration is in fact on the agenda but is perhaps being approached in only a partial way.

There is almost universal agreement across the sector that the principal objectives of the period(s) abroad in a modern language degree are:

• improved linguistic competence;
• improved intercultural understanding;
• the development of personal qualities and improved interactive skills.

If those three objectives are put together with the principle of integration of the period abroad with the rest of the course, a number of conclusions follow, as this report has tried to show:

• The number of periods abroad, their length and the point(s) at which they occur within the curriculum need to be justifiable in the light of the contribution they are expected to make towards the overall academic, linguistic, cultural and personal learning process represented by the degree course.
• The mainstream activities undertaken by students abroad (study-placement or work-placement/assistantship) will provide an appropriate environment for improved linguistic proficiency and intercultural understanding, but the learning process will not necessarily achieve its full potential unless the students know how to take control of it. That assumes they have been trained in how to do so.
• The teaching programme during the semester or year before the students go abroad provides the opportunity to build in appropriate training enabling them to develop linguistic and intercultural learning strategies as well as necessary practical skills. The course and self-monitoring materials created by LARA show how the learning process can be directed towards the desired end.
• The effectiveness of the period abroad is greatly enhanced if the students are aware of their own goals and motivated to achieve them. A learning agreement can ensure that each student's goals are clearly understood by both student and tutor and motivation can be maintained by an appropriate and properly applied assessment and accreditation system.

In making the above recommendations for integrating the period abroad into the degree-course of which it is a part, in creating teaching materials which will make it easier to achieve integration, in offering models of assessment and accreditation, the LARA project hopes to make a useful contribution to the process of review and improvement which has been under way for many years and which can lead to a more academically and educationally effective experience for the students.