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Preparation for residence abroad
Linguistic and academic; development of independent learning
Index:
Academic objectives Academic preparation Anxiety Autonomous/independent learning/self-assessment Books/Radio/Television/Websites Briefing (Staff, returners, L2landers) Confidence Curriculum integration Exchange students/L2landers Interaction Language awareness Language learning Language objectives Language strategies Lexis/vocabulary Non-specialist linguists/Specialists in other disciplines Project Reading Research methods Sociolinguistic awareness Speaking Study abroad Tandem
Characteristically, the year preceding the period of residence abroad aims to enhance students' academic and linguistic skills to ensure maximum benefits from the year abroad. Both content and methodology will be geared towards the period of residence abroad and attention will be paid to the promotion of independent learning.
Academic preparation interacts with and is often woven into linguistic preparation. It should cover translating CVs, form-filling practice, taking various roles and positions in debates and discussions, role plays in work environment situations as well as reading, listening to and discussing materials on contemporary social, political, and cultural issues. Academic preparation also overlaps with the promotion of independent learning, in line with the nature of the academic work undertaken during the year abroad. This preparation typically consists in the provision of written guidance on dissertations and/or study abroad, occasionally supplemented by some form of training.
Anxiety is common among students facing a period of residence abroad. This is often due to a fear of the unknown but can also arise from a lack of self-confidence in one's own ability to cope with a new environment and the demands it makes on one's communicative skills. It is best to address the problem directly rather than sweep it under the carpet. Information about life abroad is one way of allaying fears but reassurance that it is normal to feel some anxiety at first but that adaptation problems soon disappear is also essential. Such a message can be given by teachers but experience shows that it is most effectively delivered through meetings with returners.
Autonomous/independent learning
While there are differences between individuals in terms of their keenness
and ability to engage in autonomous learning, everyone benefits from activities
that promote the setting of personal objectives and habits of self-monitoring
and self-evaluation. It is therefore important to make room for such activities
during the period preceding residence and train students to reflect on
their needs and skills, to look for opportunities in their environment,
and to assess their progress. Means employed to promote independent learning
and transferable skills include independent study guides, notes on how
to maximise the learning potential of the year or semester abroad, study
skills units or tutorials and opportunities to engage in activities similar
to those to be undertaken, such as project work or the compilation of
dossiers. Sample personal and academic development dossiers can be seen
here:
Books, Radio, Television, Websites can all be harnessed very profitably in the preparation for the year abroad. Their role is a dual one. In the first place, they represent major sources of information on the target language and the country to be visited and as such represent valuable resources and sources of materials. Guide books such as the Rough Guides and the Lonely Planet series provide a wealth of practical details likely to be of interest to people on a low budget contemplating to stay in a particular country or already there. Radio and Television are particularly useful for becoming better acquainted, or keeping up to date, with current national and regional issues while websites make it possible for students to engage in a virtual visit of a potential or future place of residence. Secondly, the potential contribution of books, radio, television and websites to the learning experience of students while abroad demands room to be made for tasks and activities promoting their effective use. That is to say, students need to be trained to exploit these resources as well as encouraged to make them part of their everyday life. This means getting them to anticipate content, to analyse their difficulties, to think of strategies for overcoming problems, presenting them with suggestions of possible tasks (stop a recording and predict what comes next, paraphrase, summarise etc.), as well as fostering reading or listening for pleasure.
Briefing (Staff, returners, L2landers)
Briefings are an essential part of preparation for residence abroad and typically take the form of information sessions with staff and sessions in which returners and L2 landers share their personal experience of life abroad. Organised informal gatherings, for example in a pub, allowing those going abroad to put individual questions to those who have just come back are also valuable as is access to past year abroad student reports.
Confidence is essential to the success of the period of the year abroad and can be built up through self-monitoring prior to departure. It is also important to teach students that it is okay not to understand certain segments and profitable to ask for explanations. They should also be taught that it is expected that they will make mistakes when speaking the target language and that they should not be overcritical of their performance.
Curriculum integration has a number of advantages. It provides time and scope for a whole range of activities, makes it easier to check that all aspects are being catered for, gives a clear focus to the year, and preparation is less likely to be thwarted by timetabling difficulties and absenteeism. In the best cases the curriculum delivers linguistic, social, personal, professional and cultural preparation and both its content and the methodology employed are explicitly directed towards preparing students to gaining maximum benefit from their time abroad.
Exchange students are invaluable sources of information both on life in the target country and on coping with life in a foreign country. They should be invited to take part in briefings and if possible involved in tandem learning.
Technology and the growth in the numbers of foreign students attending British universities have made it much easier to prepare students for interaction. Technology has brought new opportunities for communicating in writing with speakers of the target language through e-mail and other forms of electronic correspondence which offer significant advantages in terms of speed of exchange over letter writing. At the same time the presence on site of large numbers of foreign students has made it possible to supplement or even replace traditional conversation classes with conversations with exchange students. The best schemes do more than just pair students, providing a framework as well as guidelines for their interaction.
The development of language awareness and an appreciation of different registers so that students do not use slang in form oral or written communication or over formal language in conversation forms part and parcel of the preparation for RA.
Language learning prior to departure should provide plentiful opportunities for active learning as a means of preparing students for the linguistic demands of the foreign environment. However, it also needs to cover those areas less likely to improve.
Language objectives prior to departure are bound to be varied due to the range of demands made on linguistic skills during the period of residence abroad. Many students will need to enhance not only their oral skills but also their ability to cope with a foreign academic environment. There are various ways of developing oral skills, including courses combining oral skills and presentation skills, tandem learning (whether in the context of bilingual oral/aural classes or through a linguistic partner scheme involving the compilation of a work portfolio) and the increasing use of the target language as a medium of instruction in all classes.
Effective learning strategies are indispensable for a successful year abroad and many students need to be told how to make the most of their learning environment. Stress should be laid on the importance of adopting both individual and social strategies for enhancing linguistic proficiency. The former might include watching or listening to the news regularly, jotting down new vocabulary or comprehension problems, and reading for pleasure. The latter are concerned with maximising opportunities to use the L2, for instance by accepting invitations to go out, asking people out, or taking on part-time work. Bar work and waitressing are bound to involve communicating in L2 but even mundane and rather uninteresting office jobs like stuffing envelops can be useful for developing comprehension and fluency as the routine aspect of the task allows those involved to talk between them. Preparation should also include coping strategies for those with limited competence and for students placed in areas where they find it difficult to understand the local accent. It should be emphasized that it is okay not to understand certain phrases or speakers, and that is not only acceptable, but beneficial, to ask for sentences to be repeated or rephrased.
Preparation for RA needs to equip students with enough vocabulary to enable them to deal successfully with the kind of situations they are likely to find themselves in. Role plays and simulations involving opening a bank account, finding accommodation, making travel arrangements and enrolling for courses are invaluable means of ensuring coverage of key vocabulary items and have the additional benefit of providing essential practice in making enquiries and complaints, whether in person or by telephone. For those going on work placements, preparation may also need to include additional items of specialised vocabulary relevant to their field of activity in order to help them get on easily with their job.
Although students will no doubt pick up slang quite easily during their stay, they may find it difficult at first to follow informal conversations and understand jokes without a basic knowledge of common slang terms. In order to save possible embarrassment, it is a good idea to introduce such terms prior to departure, together with due warnings about appropriateness.
Non-specialist linguists/Specialists in other disciplines
Non-specialist linguists pose special problems in that they often have particular linguistic needs which may require specific preparation programmes. There may also be problems in dealings with their departments or faculties where they may not be sufficient understanding in the need to prepare for Residence Abroad.
Commendable preparation for project work while abroad includes the provision of guidelines (see sample here) and handbooks, induction sessions on library and documentation skills, the inclusion of mini-projects in preparatory modules, and help with selecting and defining a project topic prior to departure.
Students should be encouraged to take advantage of all the opportunities they have during their stay abroad to improve their reading skills. Attention should be drawn both to the benefits of paying attention to the written environment (posters, notices, adverts) and to the importance of reading for pleasure. Students might usefully be advised to choose reading materials related to their interests and to set themselves realistic but challenging targets, e.g. buy and read a different magazine each week, or read two articles per day and n books per month.
Most students carry out some form of research during RA and thus require some introduction to research methods, either in the form of written guidelines or as part of a special module possibly involving some kind of mini-project. Depending on the nature of the research to be undertaken they may be given advice on and practice in gathering and interpreting data and information, locating specialist libraries and archives, organising and conducting interviews, note taking, writing up results, in addition to general information on the compilation of bibliographies and the inclusion of references, footnotes and appendices.
To pave the way for successful communication during RA, preparation should include the development of sociolinguistic awareness through the study of texts drawn from a range of registers and regional varieties.
It is common for students to express anxiety at the prospect of speaking the foreign language. Concerns about speaking your L2 are perfectly normal and understandable given the relative lack of emphasis placed on oral skills in many higher education courses and the fact that unlike most writing activities, face to face and telephone conversations do not give you time to think or to revise what you say. It is important, however, to bear in mind that oral language differs a great deal from written language and that we often have an idealised and incorrect view of oral interactions. One way of boosting your self-confidence if you are afraid of not finding your words or making mistakes is to listen to conversations between native speakers. Whether you do this in the UK listening to native speakers of English or on arrival in the host country, you will find that conversations do not proceed in the smooth way that is characteristic of the kind of written texts you have been exposed to. Recording and writing down a couple of conversations will make you appreciate that native speaker speech is full of hesitations, false starts, unfinished utterances or segments that do not conform to the rules of written standard language. Try therefore not to be too critical of your own speech and concentrate on getting your message across. If you know you are going to have to talk to someone about a particular topic, try and imagine how the conversation might go. Given the unpredictable nature of most exchanges, the interaction is unlikely to turn out as you thought, but the practice will help you revise relevant vocabulary and expressions so that these will come to your mind more readily and improve your performance on this occasion and your general fluency and self-confidence. Do not hesitate to tell your listener if there is something you do not understand or if you can't recall or do not know the right word. Learn expressions asking people to speak more slowly, to repeat what they have said, as well as phrases such as 'I can't remember the word but it means something like ...'. Look for opportunities to speak: you will find that the more you speak, the easier it will become.
Do not expect to have the same kind of contact with members of faculty as at your home institution. If you are going to France, it may even be difficult to make contact with French students. One reason for this is that more French than British students live with their parents; another is that social life often focuses on establishments which are off-campus and indeed not part of the university.
The library system is also likely to be different from the one you are used to. As in Britain there will be tables for you to work on but overcrowding may make it difficult to find a place at busy periods. In France, there will be few books available for you to browse through. The books you can consult or borrow are generally off limits and you need to ask for them. In order to find relevant titles you may have to search through piles of index cards and it may not be easy for you to decide which is best for your purpose. You might like to ask your teacher for a reading list if one is not handed out. Be prepared to have to wait whilst the books are fetched from store. This can take quite a long time, so come with some work or reading to do.
Tandem learning is a form of collaborative learning between speakers of different mother tongues which can be very useful in the preparation of residence abroad (as well as during residence itself). In tandem learning two people with different native languages work together either face to face or through e-mail to help one another improve their language skills and their knowledge of each other's culture. A number of institutions offer facilities for tandem learning but if no such facilities exist students may be able to set up their own arrangements with exchange students or by joining an e-mail tandem network. The website of the International Tandem Network www.slf.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/e-mail/idxeng00.html is a good starting point for those interested in the latter.
Remember, if you engage in tandem learning, that successful tandem learning demands commitment and planning and normally requires that both partners should contribute equally in order to benefit equally. This means spending the same amount of time on the two languages and devoting the same amount of effort to each. Partners should negotiate what they want to work on so as to accommodate each other's preferences. You will need to decide the extent to which you wish to use your native language and target language. Depending on your needs you may decide to deal with the same themes and tasks in the two languages or, on the contrary, work on different exercises. In face to face tandem learning you may wish to read aloud, discuss current affairs or pre-selected topics, talk about recent events, etc. In e-mail tandem learning you will write to each other and improve your reading and writing skills. In both cases you may help your partner by correcting his/her mistakes but should beware of trying to correct everything as the main aim is to communicate.
Dr. Marie-Madeleine Kenning
03/11/99