Encouraging students to value what we value: recognising student priorities and shaping student learning abroad
Simon McKinnon
School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University
ABSTRACT
This paper examines differences between student and educator expectations and priorities for the year abroad and argues that such differences can be an obstacle to learning. Discussion is set within the context of the year abroad as part of a modern languages degree at a UK university. It is underpinned by a reading of the research literature, and draws on data relating to priorities for the year abroad from interviews with students and staff from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University (UK), as well as statements about the purpose and value of the year abroad found in institutional and national policy documents. The paper makes the case for the importance of taking the student perspective into account in the design of programmes of year-abroad learning support and assessment, and argues that students engage better with learning that addresses their priorities. It presents a number of recommendations that are applicable to year-abroad programming and curriculum design more broadly.
KEYWORDS: study abroad; scope and aims of the year abroad, curriculum design in modern languages, optimising learning
INTRODUCTION
Students and their teachers do not necessarily share the same understanding of the purpose and value of the year abroad. Students’ plans, objectives and priorities for the time they spend abroad as part of their degree (whether this be for ongoing university study, work as an English language assistant, or for some other work placement) may not always be fully aligned with those of their teachers or their sending institution, and any resulting mismatch can be a source of frustration and demotivation. This paper argues that differences in the way students and teachers view the year abroad are not only frustrating and demotivating but can also be an obstacle to effective learning and teaching.
Set within the context of the year abroad as part of a degree in modern languages at Durham University (UK), discussion first focuses on a comparison of student and educator priorities through an analysis of data drawn from interviews with year-abroad students and with staff involved in the delivery of a programme of year-abroad learning support and assessment, as well as statements about the purpose and scope of the year abroad found in institutional and national policy documents. An attempt to bridge the gap between student and educator perspectives is then presented before a number of recommendations applicable to year-abroad programming and curriculum design more broadly are made in the conclusion.
The paper makes the case for the importance of researching student expectations and priorities for the year abroad and for taking the student voice into account in the design and delivery of programmes of year-abroad learning support and assessment. It argues that students are more likely to engage with interventions which give space to their own priorities as well as to the priorities set by their teachers or the institutions in which they study.
STUDY DESIGN
The study was designed according to the principle that students learn best when they are engaged with and motivated by their learning (Ushioda, 2003; Dörnyei, 2005; Willis Allen, 2013), and that learning abroad is often social (Meier and Daniels, 2011; Coleman, 2013; 2015), and experiential (Kolb, 1984; Kolb and Kolb, 2005; Passarelli and Kolb, 2012). Effective learning abroad is understood as being not simply something that ‘happens’ but rather something that has to be directed and scaffolded by interventions aligned to programme learning aims and outcomes, and which, at the same time, allow students to exploit their social contexts, experiences, and reflections, as well as their interests and motivations, before, during and after their period of residence abroad (Vande Berg, 2009; Bathurst and LaBrack, 2012; Vande Berg, Paige and Lou, 2012). The study design recognised students as ‘whole people’ leading ‘whole lives’, as individuals with personal ambitions and concerns beyond simply achieving the learning outcomes of their degree programme (Coleman, 2013, p.17; 2015). It aimed to take account of the ‘social turn’ in study abroad research by acknowledging the importance of giving voice and listening to students’ own lived experiences abroad (Howard, 2019, p.7; Kinginger, 2019).
The study was conducted in the context of a series of initiatives over several years to enhance learning support for and assessment of the year abroad in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures (MLAC) at Durham. A number of changes were made to the system of assessment and to the learning support provision offered (McKinnon, 2017; Johnson and McKinnon, 2018). Inspired by the fact that some of these changes were better received than others, the initial aim of the study was to investigate a perceived gap between student and educator expectations of and priorities for the year abroad. As time progressed, attention focused on gaining a better understanding of student priorities for the year abroad in order to find ways of more effectively promoting engagement with all the learning opportunities a period of residence abroad provides.
The study uses interview and questionnaire data to gain insight into the student perspective, and data from interviews as well as an analysis of statements in institutional and national policy documents relating to the year abroad for the perspective of educators. A grounded approach was taken to theming and analysis of all the data (Strauss, 1987; Charmaz, 2000, Oktay, 2012).
The interview and questionnaire data covers the period during and after implementation of changes to the programme. It includes two datasets: first, more than five years of free-text comments in year-abroad module evaluation questionnaires, and secondly, a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with randomly-chosen year-abroad students (6 in 2015; 5 in 2016; 6 in 2018) and with staff involved in year-abroad support (5 in 2018-19). The questionnaire data was useful in helping us to build a general picture of the student body and to identify specific student priorities for the year abroad; however, comments made were sometimes limited in scope and, in some cases, could be read simply as a list of likes and dislikes. The interviews allowed us to dig deeper, to focus attention on thematic areas of concern or interest that emerged from the conversations, and to come to more nuanced conclusions about what the students were saying. The staff interviews focused directly on opinions about the scope and purpose of the year abroad.
Year-abroad related institutional and national policy documents reviewed include student-facing and staff-facing or administrative documents from Durham University, as well as documents published by UK government agencies, interest and advocacy groups, and other national bodies involved in the promotion of study and work-placements abroad, and modern languages more generally.
Institutional context
Students in MLAC study one or two languages chosen from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian or Spanish (Durham University, 2019a). About 240-270 students take a year abroad through the School each year, in the third of four years of study. Considerable freedom is afforded in terms of placement location and type. Students can spend their year abroad in almost any country in which their language of study is used. Similarly, students are free to choose either to study at a partner university, complete a British Council teaching assistantship, or arrange a work placement themselves, though more limited arrangements are in place for Arabic, Chinese and Japanese (Durham University, 2019b). Since most students study two languages, they tend to do a combination of different types of placement in more than one country and often in a number of locations. Following the changes to our programme mentioned above, the MLAC year abroad is currently assessed through a 5000-word (one language) or two 2500-word (two languages) target-language essay based on an academic research project (on topics such as literature, culture, history, current affairs or linguistics), linked to learning elsewhere on the curriculum (Durham University, 2019c).
FINDINGS
Student priorities: ‘my objective was to improve my language as much as possible’
Language learning was the number one priority for most of the students in the study. Given that they are modern languages students, this is certainly a legitimate priority. However, for the most part, students defined language learning in simple terms such as ‘getting better at [x language]’, ‘practising my language’ or ‘improving my language ability’. Even those who developed this further tended to see language learning as being limited to building oral fluency in social, informal or transactional situations: making new friends, shopping and travelling, coping at work or university, finding a flat, agreeing a mobile phone contract, or opening a bank account. Few mentioned the written language or more complex ideas such as linguistic varieties and registers.
The importance given by our students to oral fluency can be better understood when its role as a motivator is taken into account. Many saw oral fluency as a motivating priority because its acquisition was perceived to be a necessary and easily noticeable marker of having completed a successful year abroad. Some described the acquisition of ‘near-native fluency’ as a watershed moment in their own language learning. It was perceived as being something very difficult to achieve without spending an extended period of time in the target-language country. For our students, oral fluency was seen as a prize uniquely offered by a period of residence abroad. They felt that it was what distinguished those returning from a year abroad from those who were yet to depart, even if many of them did not ultimately achieve the fluency gains they sought.
‘I learnt quite a lot about the world of work. This is extremely useful’
Employability was another important priority for many of our students. This is evident not just in the questionnaire and interview responses but also in the fact that most of our students now complete at least one work placement as part of their year abroad. These students value the year abroad as an opportunity to build an impressive CV, gain experience of the workplace, test out possible future careers, and make useful contacts. Even students who did not complete a work placement were aware that the year abroad provided convincing evidence of exactly what employers are looking for in their future graduate employees: independence, personal autonomy and maturity, and, more specifically, communication, problem solving, and enterprise skills. As one student put it: ‘you just acquire a lot of skills that you didn’t have before.’
‘The year abroad is about having experiences’
The interviews indicated that some of our students see the year abroad principally as an opportunity to travel and ‘have fun’; they see it very much like a gap year and a time to be free from the academic pressures of university life; they seek out the perfect Instagram photos and videos in front of iconic sites, and to get as many likes as possible on their Facebook page. For these students, the year abroad is what Celeste Kinginger describes as ‘globalized infotainment’ (Kinginger, 2008, p.206). This being said, the data suggested that most of our students were much more focused on the educational and developmental benefits of the year abroad, even though most did also see being based abroad as an opportunity for some travel, getting to know the local history and culture of the place where they were staying, meeting new people and making new friends.
‘Last on my list of priorities’
Students were much less clear about what their teachers expected of them while abroad and what the University’s priorities for their learning were. Some claimed that they were given mixed messages by different teachers or by year-abroad advisors, or they complained that what their teachers were asking them to do did not fit in with their own priorities. This was a source of significant frustration and, for some, ‘added a huge amount of stress to an already stressful experience’.
Such frustration was most evident in relation to assessment of the year abroad through the target-language extended essay. With its focus on research (often relating to cultural or literary topics) and the written language, many students perceived there to be little connection between the assessment and their own priorities and experiences abroad. Some felt that the assessment did not reflect what the University’s priorities should be. Students complained that the research project was ‘a strange way of assessing the year abroad’, that it was ‘last on my list of priorities’, ‘getting in the way’, and that it ‘ultimately took away from valuable time in my year abroad’. One student even commented that having to complete tasks related to the assessment was ‘a complete waste of time when trying to make the most of being in another country’.
Educator priorities
By educators, we understand teachers involved in study-abroad programmes, year-abroad tutors and advisors, curriculum designers, universities, national policy influencers and makers, and study-abroad researchers internationally.
Teachers’ and advisors’ priorities
The teachers and advisors interviewed did not all share the same view of the year abroad as each other and they did not all have exactly the same priorities for their students. Nevertheless, all the teachers and advisors in the study identified broad learning objectives and priorities for the year abroad that, alongside linguistic goals, also included explicitly academic, intellectual, and personal-development goals. Language learning was, indeed, prioritised but at the same time as the study of culture and society, and the development of intercultural awareness and competence, enterprise skills, and enhanced employability. The interviewees also stressed the importance of the integration of all year-abroad learning with learning elsewhere on the curriculum, noting, for example, the importance of including preparation for the year abroad in class activities in the year prior to departure, or using student experiences abroad as the basis for some classes in the year after return. Some of the interviewees also stressed the importance of encouraging students to follow up on their learning in Durham by attending lectures, exhibitions, screenings and performances relating to their literary and cultural studies while abroad.
Moreover, teachers tended to problematise their approach to each of these objectives and priorities, and to present them as complex rather than simple. Thus, language learning included the written as well as the oral language; it covered mediation (stressing the student’s position as ‘cultural mediator’ (Council of Europe, 2018, p.122)) as well as production, reception and interaction; it involved an appreciation of different discursive strategies, styles, registers and contexts of use. Similarly, the acquisition of cultural knowledge included an emphasis on developing the students’ own processes of intellectual enquiry, building key academic skills such as research skills, self-reflection, and critical thinking, and adopting attitudes leading to a questioning of received wisdom. In other words, using encounters with culture to develop life and thinking skills rather than for the acquisition of cultural knowledge for its own sake.
Institutional learning outcomes statements
Internal institutional documents at Durham give a similar emphasis to broad learning objectives for the year abroad. The statement of year-abroad learning outcomes notes that a period of residence abroad will ‘contribute to the student’s intellectual development, improve linguistic skills in the target language, develop intercultural competence, and enhance employability’ (Durham University, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, 2016a). In the same vein, the programme specifications for the BA in Modern Languages and Cultures note that the year abroad ‘enriches [the student’s] linguistic competence and their contextual knowledge through engagement with speech communities and a variety of social, cultural and professional environments’. It goes on to say that students abroad ‘acquire intercultural agility and sensitivity, emerging as truly global graduates’ (Durham University, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, 2016b) It is, however, noteworthy that these documents are mainly intended to be read by teachers or by those responsible for accrediting programmes. Publicly accessible, student-facing documents, perhaps more likely to be produced for marketing rather than pedagogical purposes, are more limited in what they say about the year abroad, with the learning and teaching summary for the BA in modern languages and cultures stating merely that the year abroad is key in ‘fostering the accelerated acquisition of language skills and expanding intercultural competence’ (Durham University, 2019d).
National policy
At national level, the year abroad has wide support, with various educational councils, academies, interest groups, and government agencies involved in defining its scope and promoting it to students, educators and the public. For example, Universities UK (‘the voice of universities’ (Universities UK, 2020a)) funds a project aimed at investigating and promoting student outward mobility (Universities UK, 2020b), runs a campaign calling for the protection of opportunities to work and study placements abroad post-Brexit (Universities UK, 2020c), and produces student-facing materials that spell out the broad range of benefits that such placements can bring (Universities UK, 2020d). Similarly, the British Council promotes a range of different work and study abroad opportunities on its website (British Council, 2020a), and lists benefits such as a stronger CV, ‘fluency in another language’, ‘communication, presentation, time management, organisation, teamwork and problem solving’ skills development, ‘cultural awareness’, and ‘professional confidence’ when describing its English language assistantship placements (British Council, 2020b). Indeed, students do not have to look far for inspiration, with the very popular globalgraduates.com providing ‘100 Reasons to study abroad’ (Global Graduates, 2016).
Increasingly, the year abroad has been promoted to non-linguists as well as linguists, with publicity materials and policy documents further stressing its broad educational benefits beyond the purely linguistic. A joint position statement in 2012 by the British Academy and the University Council of Modern Languages made the case for the year abroad as part of any UK degree programme. It noted the value to employers and to society more generally of qualities such as a ‘global mindset’, ‘global knowledge’, ‘cultural agility’ and ‘advanced communication skills’, qualities all fostered by a period of residence abroad (British Academy/UCML, 2012, p.2). It listed a range of specific gains associated with the year abroad, including benefits associated with academic learning, culture and interculturality, language acquisition and personal development (British Academy/UCML, 2012). And it maintained a broad focus when it noted that:
In addition to academic learning and deeper cultural insights, students on a year abroad develop both essential skills which help them to observe without misinterpretation or ethnocentric judgement, and interpersonal skills which allow adaptation to complex cultural milieux. (British Academy/UCML, 2012, p.2)
Finally, national benchmarking for the year abroad in modern languages is set by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) in their Subject benchmark statement: languages, cultures and societies (2019). As might be expected, especially given the range of types of languages degrees offered in the UK, the approach here is also broad-based. Residence abroad as part of a modern languages degree is expected to develop ‘linguistic and cultural skills’ and ‘international perspectives’ (QAA, 2019, p.6) as well as contributing to the ‘enhancement of [subject] knowledge, understanding and skills’, and providing ‘experiences and contacts that can be valuable in subsequent careers’ (QAA, 2019, p.7). It should foster ‘intercultural awareness and capability’ as well as the ‘qualities of self-reliance’ that ‘enable graduates to become mobile and transnational citizens in the global environment’ (QAA, 2019, p. 7). It should provide for ‘the development of cultural insight’ and should ‘enable students to reflect on their own language learning skills and techniques’ (QAA, 2019, p. 15).
IMPLICATIONS
The study found significant variation within the views expressed in the student questionnaires and interviews. Nevertheless, a number of themes emerged and, overall, the students in our study tended to have a relatively limited set of educational priorities for their year abroad in comparison with the educators we interviewed and with the conceptualisation of the year abroad found in the institutional and policy documents reviewed.
For most students, language learning with a focus on informal use of the oral language was given as the main priority. Other priorities noted by the students included improving employability while abroad, making friends, navigating day-to-day living abroad, and making the most of opportunities for travel and tourism. Other, explicitly academic goals were rarely mentioned as a priority. In this respect, the study supported arguments found elsewhere in the research literature (see, for example, Coleman, 2013, p.22).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the data indicated that educators tended to have a less narrowly focused and instrumentalised view of the purpose and scope of the year abroad. The priorities mentioned by teachers and advisors in the interviews, and the expectations they had for their students tended to encompass a broad range of learning aims and objectives that included a variety of academic, personal development, and employability-related gains offered by residence abroad. This view echoed statements found in institutional and national policy documents that also stressed the range of opportunities open to students on a year abroad.
This potential mismatch or gap between student and educator expectations and priorities for the year abroad raises two important questions. First, what can we do to encourage all students to share the perspective of their educators and take a broader view of the scope and purpose of the year abroad? Secondly, what can we do to better take account of student expectations and priorities for the year abroad, using them positively as a way of helping students to engage with all the learning opportunities that the year abroad provides?
Better communicating our priorities
If students do not share their educators’ priorities for the year abroad then educators must ask themselves if they are doing enough to communicate these priorities to their students. The gap, identified in this study, between what can be found in student-facing documentation and what is found in staff-facing materials and broader year-abroad policy documents is telling. We cannot claim that students have misunderstood the year abroad if we do not do enough to fully explain to them exactly what the year abroad is about. A successful year-abroad programme will therefore be clear about its aims, objectives and the priorities students on it should have, and rigorous in the communication of this information. Moreover, it will also be ambitious in these aims, objectives and priorities, promoting broad learning that goes beyond an unproblematised conceptualisation of oral fluency and basic employability.
Researching the student perspective
It is difficult to take account of student expectations and priorities in the design of our programmes if we do not know what they are. Initiatives to enhance learning support for and assessment of the year abroad at Durham initially set out with the intention of aligning learning abroad and its assessment more closely with the research-led focus of the learning aims and outcomes of the Durham modern languages degree (Johnson and McKinnon, 2018). However, as we have seen, some students were frustrated by what they perceived to be a mismatch between the priorities implied in design of the programme and their own priorities. The pedagogic and research basis for the design was sound, but we had not sufficiently taken student expectations and priorities into account in it. It was only by researching the student perspective through this study that we were able to more fully integrate it into later iterations of the programme.
Integrating student and educator priorities
We piloted a series of interventions that aimed to respond to what students had told us were their priorities for the year abroad, integrating these priorities with our own as educators by encouraging students to broaden their horizons and become more aware of ways in which aspects of learning abroad are interconnected and also linked to the learning objectives of their degree programme as a whole.
These interventions gave students resources to allow them to record and reflect on their experiences and achievements in a learning journal while also exploring basic theory relating to language use, culture, interculturality, and employability. Each intervention focused first on an area of learning seen by students as a priority (e.g. sourcing evidence of employability), but then went on to encourage exploration of related ideas (e.g. ways in which developing intercultural skills abroad enhances employability). Students were given tools to help them reflect on the communicative strategies involved in language use related to day-to-day year abroad activities, to get to grips with ideas such as linguistic variety and register, and to create a record of their language learning. Structured reflections on travel and experience of the local environment were used to help students build – and question – cultural knowledge and their own growing cultural expertise. Similarly, intercultural interventions exploited interest in social interaction or the desire for improved employability to help students understand interculturality conceptually and become more aware of their own intercultural competences (McKinnon, 2017).
The pilot was very well received by the students who had engaged with it. Interviews with these students indicated that they had developed a clearer understanding and articulation of broader year-abroad goals, that they had become more aware of their own learning abroad, and that they were able to see this learning as complex and integrated with learning elsewhere on the degree programme (McKinnon, 2017). Although, in the end, the interventions were too demanding in terms of staffing and resources to be rolled out to the whole cohort, many of the principles behind them, and, in particular, the importance of understanding and acknowledging student priorities for the year abroad, will be adopted in further iterations of the Durham modern language year abroad.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Students do not have the benefit of ten, twenty, or more years of teaching, designing curricula or supervising year-abroad placements. In most cases, their year abroad is their first experience of living independently in a foreign country. As one student put it, they are ‘learning what this experience is all about as they go along’. Quite naturally, then, student priorities for the year abroad are likely to be narrower and less complex than their educators’. It is our job, as educators, to help students to see the bigger picture and to encourage them to share our values and priorities.
As we have seen, alignment with the aims of the degree programme as a whole is laudable but not enough if it does not also take students’ priorities into account. Knowing, as a teacher or curriculum designer, the value and purpose of the year abroad is not enough if this information is not also communicated to students in language they understand. Designing interventions that tick all of the institutional or policy-driven boxes is not enough if these interventions do not appeal to students and engage them actively in their learning.
To optimise learning, educators must first get to know their students well and get to know their priorities for the year abroad. They should also make sure that they are familiar with their institution’s priorities for the year abroad so that they are in a position to communicate them unambiguously to their students without sending mixed messages. Educators should be unapologetically ambitious in their priorities but they should also make sure that these priorities are not only aligned to the learning objectives set by their institution but that they also respond to and exploit their students’ ideas about what the year abroad is for. Learning abroad is most effective when it is ambitious and wide in scope and when it also takes place in a context of understanding and respect for the learner’s own plans, objectives and priorities.
Address for correspondence: s.g.mckinnon@durham.ac.uk
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