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The student expectation journey from Study Abroad back home

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Papers
Date

Dr. Clare Wright
Linguistics and Phonetics, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds

Dr. Ying Peng
East Asian Studies, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds

ABSTRACT
This study follows up on previous work on UK-based student expectations of Study Abroad (SA) experiences in China (Peng and Wright, 2020) to address a current gap in how expectations may develop during the later stages of SA and on return home (though see Mitchell et al., 2017, Winke and Gass, 2018). The paper reports on students’ experiences across linguistic, personal, cultural and academic perspectives, to see how their expectations matched the reality of life during SA, and how they found life on re-entry to their UK university. Using questionnaires completed by 25 students within a few weeks of their return to the home institution, we found some positive outcomes, in that reality often exceeded expectation, especially in linguistic and academic progress, and high levels of general satisfaction for the year overall. However, other expectations, e.g. hopes of making local Chinese friends, engaging with local culture, or developing future employability, had not always been fulfilled. Some specific pastoral and academic challenges were identified, such as mental health support, and providing sufficient targeted support for students on Joint Honours (JH) programmes. On re-entry, maintaining the language was identified as the major challenge. Interestingly, from an institutional point of view, the expectation that SA would lead to greater autonomy and initiative was not always met—particularly in how to find new ways of keeping language use going. Overall, we see that the notion of “expectation violation” (Bell, 2016,p198) is not necessarily maintained, that students can have very positive experiences of SA, but that students’ capacity to engage fully and develop greater autonomy, intercultural perspectives or awareness of the SA experience to build future employability remain variable at best. We discuss the implications of how far such issues can be addressed by institutional support, or whether this variability is inherent within SA.

KEYWORDS: China, SA journey, re-entry, expectations, personal development

INTRODUCTION
Recent studies note the complex interaction of factors affecting students’ very varied experiences during Study Abroad (SA) – see e.g. Mitchell, Tracy-Ventura and McManus (2015), particularly for western students going to linguistically and culturally distant SA host countries such as China (Yu, 2010; Peng and Wright, 2020). In light of the variety of such experiences, researchers, institutions and students alike can benefit from investigations that explore the interaction of factors impacting students throughout the SA cycle, including on students’ return back home after the SA experience (Ingraham and Peterson, 2004; Ward and Masgoret, 2004; Sanz and Morales-Front, 2018; Devlin, 2020). Research has shown that different levels of social and linguistic interaction underpin most students’ perceptions of whether the SA experience has been a positive one overall in terms of linguistic development (Mitchell et al., 2017; Sanz and Morales-Front, 2018). Similarly, other studies have identified that pre-departure expectations may not be fulfilled during SA, leading to frustration and “expectation violation” (Bell, 2016, p198). Researchers also note just how challenging it can be for international students to create opportunities for rich interaction and engagement, leading to loneliness and isolation, and call for both host and home institutions to do more to prepare and support students both academically and pastorally (e.g., Ward and Masgoret, 2004; Wright and Schartner, 2013).

Given these challenges, however, not many studies track student experiences in later stages of SA and on return, despite evidence that transition back to home country study can also be challenging (Winke and Gass, 2018). In general, very little research has attempted to follow students through the whole SA journey from pre to post SA (though see Mitchell et al., 2017), particularly in relation to western students’ experiences when visiting China. In such cases, hopes and reality may be even more divergent than for SA in closer host countries, e.g. within the Erasmus programme (Wright, 2018). We thus believe the study discussed here is the first project to draw a holistic picture of UK students on a BA Chinese degree programme, pre, during and post-SA in China. The findings presented here are taken from the middle and later stages of students during SA and on their return to the UK. Due to limitations on time and resources, we have been unable to date to carry out the research on the same cohort, but see Peng and Wright (2020), for analysis of pre-departure expectations carried out with a previous cohort of students on the same programme. The two studies (Peng and Wright, 2020, and this one) thus aim to provide a coherent story of the student journey through SA, aiming to identify potential matches and mismatches between expectation and reality. Our focus here is on students’ levels of engagement during their stay in the host country, and perceptions of the challenges and opportunities they faced during SA and on re-entry back home to see how far they aligned the patterns of pre-departure expectations we had found in the previous cohort, reported in our 2020 paper. Such findings are key for researchers, students and institutions alike.

STUDY DESIGN
Based on previous literature, we focused on factors which could affect participants’ linguistic development, socio-cultural adaptations and personal identity, and also their academic progress, employment prospects and the impact of the transition back home after SA (Mitchell et al., 2015; Sanz and Morales-Front, 2018). From existing findings (e.g. Wright, 2013; Mitchell et al., 2017), it is known that opportunities to engage and interact can strongly impact on measures of, for example, linguistic and academic progress. But increasingly SA research has also identified that social interaction has complex effects on students’ perceptions of their identity and personal development, e.g. in growing cultural awareness, confidence and autonomy. It is also becoming important to see how far students’ SA experiences may impact on their future employability opportunities, either directly by aiming for jobs which will use their language skills, or more broadly through applying relevant transferable skills, such as interpersonal communication, resilience and problem-solving among others (see, e.g., Ward and Masgoret, 2004; Mitchell et al., 2017). However, challenges in crossing the potential threshold of successful engagement can be found in many aspects of SA life (Wright and Schartner, 2013). Therefore, our research design focused on questions across the two main themes of i) levels of interaction and engagement, and ii) benefits or potential challenges.

A range of research methodologies are currently used in SA research, but here we use a survey-based approach to create a self-report questionnaire using a mix of closed and open questions. The questions were based on similar tools used in studies for a variety of global SA settings (Ingraham and Peterson, 2004; Ward and Masgoret, 2004; Wright and Schartner, 2013; Mitchell et al., 2017).
While subjective self-reports may be seen as having some limitations in how far they represent an accurate account of events (Kasper, 1999; Ellis and Barkhuizen, 2005), we believe that students' own voices are an invaluable means of obtaining more depth of insight as to what actually happens there (Plews and Jackson, 2017).

There are two main themes in the closed question sections (Qs 1-10) of the questionnaire. All the statements are measured on a scale of 1 to 5 for comparability, although the themes differ between different themes and sub-sections. Theme A aimed to identify how far the students managed to engage with people in the host country during SA (following Wright and Schartner, 2013).
Theme A: Levels of interactions and activities
Q1 social interaction
Q2 academic interaction
Q3 initiating interactions in target language
Q4 cultural activities
Q5 employability-based activities

The questions in this section were designed to get a sense of the type and amount of interaction students had—how far they participated in different kinds of activities with different kinds of people, including local people or other international students, creating different opportunities for interaction and impact on the SA experience.

Theme B aimed to assess students' perceptions of challenges and development during SA and also at re-entry (following Ward and Masgoret, 2004; Mitchell et al., 2017; Winke and Gass, 2018). Topics including academic and linguistic experiences, but also social/personal issues which we know from past student surveys can cause challenges, such as making friends, finding suitable accommodation, coping with health issues.
Theme B: Perceptions of challenges and opportunities for development
Q 6 academic and social/personal adaptation during SA
Q 7 experience at host universities
Q 8 overall progress during SA
Q 9 personal/cultural development during SA
Q10 re-entry experience

The last question (Q11) was open-ended, encouraging qualitative comments to provide more depth of insight or highlight any broader issues not covered in the survey.

The questionnaire (see appendix) was distributed within 5 weeks of the students’ re-entry to the UK in their next year of study following their time abroad. Out of the whole cohort of 49 students studying on a BA Chinese programme in a UK university in the sample targeted for this project, 25 participated in this study. Nine were single honours students, 16 were joint honours, either with another language or other area of study such as business or history. Participation was voluntary; data collection and analysis followed ethical procedures and protocols approved by the university’s Ethics Committee.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Quantitative results – Theme A
We report here the outcomes of the quantitative parts of a self-report questionnaire investigating the quantity and quality of UK students’ experiences during SA in China and on return, both outside and inside the classroom. Questions were scored on a scale of 1-5; for ease of reporting here, results are shown as group mean scores (out of 5).
Theme A looked at time spent on interaction and activities undertaken during SA. The five points of the scale ranged from 1 (never) to 5 (very often); to avoid the risk that participants would interpret these terms differently (Wright, 2010), explicit explanations were given.
• never = 1
• seldom (approximately once a month) = 2
• sometimes (approximately once a week) = 3
• often (3 times a week) = 4
• very often (every day) = 5

Q 1 looked at the frequency of social interactions with various groups of people, specifically, home-country friends, other international friends and host-country friends. The home-country friends group (HFG) scored the highest with a mean frequency rating of 4.36, followed by the international friends group (IFG) - mean 4. The mean for the Chinese friends group (CFG) is the lowest (mean 3.06). The two means between HFG and CFG were statistically significantly different (p <.05).

Q2 asked a similar question in relation to academic interaction, to compare in-class activities with out-of-class activities. The same pattern was observed in Q2 regarding the frequencies of studying with the three groups of people. Again, the two means for HFG (3.48) and CFG (2.24) were significantly different. These students were thus significantly more likely to spend both their social and academic time with their compatriot friends, and to socialise with international friends more than with local Chinese people.

Q3 looked at the frequency of seeking opportunities to initiating conversations in the target language, as a demonstration of a sense of autonomy and self-agency in creating opportunities to develop their language and potentially make friends. Here the mean frequency rating of 4.16 was high; it is similar, for example, to the mean score of social interaction with HFG. However, noting the low levels of interactions with Chinese speakers, in Q1 and Q2 above, this high rating is possibly an artefact arising from speaking activities in class. It would be necessary to clarify phrasing for this question as a measure of social initiative-taking, if using this survey in future work.

Q4 and Q5 investigated the frequencies for the students to attend cultural activities, or activities relating to building employability skills, such as language teaching, volunteer work. As in Q3, these questions aimed to tap their ability to take the initiative in activities beyond academic language study, i.e. how far they saw that being in the host country and studying the target language was not just about doing lessons in a different country, but provided opportunities to improve their intercultural understanding and employability skills. The two mean scores (3.08 for Q4 and 2.92 for Q5), i.e. about once a week, were very similar. However, on all measures in questions 1-5 there were wide variations; particularly for Qs3-5, some students answered 1 (never), while others answered 5 (every day), highlighting the variability of experiences even within this relatively homogenous cohort.

Quantitative results – Theme B
Theme B looked at students’ attitudes towards their experiences during SA in some detail, to triangulate against the reports of interaction and engagement identified in Qs 1-5 above. Questions here (6-10) were phrased as perceptions of level of challenge. In view of the greater number of sub-factors investigated in these questions, we present the data for these questions in graph form. The five points on the scale range from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely challenging).

Q6 focused on academic, and social/personal challenges. This was the broadest area, so the question was divided into 10 sub-questions:

• Academic challenges:
6a. Understanding what was required by the host university
6b. Understanding teachers/lecturers
6c. Taking tests or exams
6d. Making oral presentations
6e. Managing your study workload
6f. Thinking critically

• Social or personal challenges:
6g. Interacting socially in Chinese
6h. Making friends
6i. Finding accommodation
6j. Overcoming personal or health problems

Student responses are shown in Figures 1 and 2 below. Generally speaking, for academic challenges (6a-6f) the amount of difficulty reported was not marked - (overall mean 2.07). 6d (making oral presentations) was scored as the hardest (mean 2.32), but this was ranked as only slightly more challenging compared with other academic tasks. Similar findings were noted in students’ social and personal experiences (6g to 6j), which were not seen as very challenging overall (mean 2.08). Overcoming personal or health problems (6j) was ranked as the most problematic (mean 2.32), though not significantly different to other sub-scores.


Figure 1 Question 6 a-f: Perceptions of difficulty in academic challenges

 


Figure 2 Question 6 g-j: Perceptions of difficulty in social and personal challenges

Q7 was designed to investigate how the students coped academically in more detail, in view of research that academic context is often the core of students’ SA experience (Ward and Masgoret, 2004). Participants evaluated 6 areas of work at the host institutions and at the home university: course content, feedback, teaching methods, assessment procedures, support from host, joint honours.

Students were generally positive about their host experience (mean 3.42). Answers are shown in Figure 3 below. They were most satisfied with the course content and teaching methods (mean 4.04). However, there was one major source of dissatisfaction - support for JH students. Out of the 25 participants, 16 of them were doing JH degrees. Keeping this factor within the group scoring for this question markedly reduced the overall mean (from 3.42 to 2.45). The low score on this sub-question identified difficulties in keeping up with the other JH subject, further echoed in students’ qualitative comments which will be discussed later.

The pastoral care and support offered by the host institutions was the second lowest scored factor (mean 2.76), showing concerns in this area too, which also emerged in the qualitative comments.


Figure 3 Question 7: Perceptions of satisfaction with academic experiences at the host institutions

Q8 examined students’ sense of progress in relation to linguistic and academic skills, and whether they would like to have more linguistic preparation before SA. On the whole, students felt they had made good progress (overall mean 4.17), particularly in reading, speaking and listening (all mean scores were above 4). Overall, they judged that their language progress was good (4), higher than their academic development (mean 3.68). However, in relation to satisfaction with the level of preparation they had received, the mean score was 3.52, suggesting they may have preferred more pre-SA preparation in the linguistic domain.


Figure 4 Question 8: Perceptions of levels of academic and language development/preparation

Question 9 related to personal and cultural development. The students were happy with the progress they had made (overall mean 4.12), including self-reliance (mean 4.56) and problem solving (mean 4.44). They reported that they felt happy with the levels of their intercultural development (mean 4.28) – however, this does not fully align with the reports of their actual engagement with Chinese hosts, as previously discussed in responses to Questions 1 and 2. It was also the case that the need for more pre-SA preparation in cultural and social knowledge scored fairly low (mean 2.4), despite this being identified as an area of concern for pre-departure students our previous study, Peng and Wright, 2020), and was lower than the need, noted above for Question 8, for more linguistic preparation.

Taken together, this suggests that there may be levels of personal cultural awareness (ie knowledge “about” local culture) which students can feel are fairly quickly achieved, but which develop separately from the actual experience of intercultural engagement. It therefore raises the question of how far development of cultural knowledge is well rooted in authentic experience and successful interactions or, perhaps, rather more interest in culture for consumption purposes (as we noted in our previous study, Peng and Wright 2020).


Figure 5 Question 9: Perceptions of cultural and personal development

Question 10 focused on student abilities to adjust to life after their return home, given the relative dearth of research noted earlier on the post-SA phase. Generally speaking, student re-integration was reported fairly positively (mean 3.59), including in terms of managing language in class, and readjusting to their other academic work. These findings suggest that potential reverse academic or general culture shock was not a marked problem across the whole cohort (compared to other studies, e.g. Winke and Gass, 2018). Most students planned to keep in touch with their Chinese friends, and they could see themselves using Chinese in future work. However, all but one of the mean scores were below 4, which implies that the re-entry experience was not wholly satisfying on any of the domains we explored, and may have masked some greater problems for some of the cohort. Of particular interest was attitudes of students towards maintaining their language outside of class (mean score 2.8) compared to in-class (mean score 3.68). These two mean scores were significantly different (p<.05).


Figure 8 Question 10: Perceptions of adjusting at re-entry

Overall the quantitative findings show a generally positive pattern, including readiness to re-enter the home university setting, though with specific areas of challenge, such as opportunities for making local friends, providing support for Joint Honours students, and ability to maintain language engagement on return home. However, within such a small cohort, these remain exploratory findings and we do not aim to generalise these to wider populations. By exploring themes of academic, linguistic and personal sociocultural development in more detail, we were able to highlight just how variable and nuanced the students’ experiences may be, particularly where perceptions and experiences do not always tally (e.g. in cultural development versus actual intercultural engagement). We turn now to the qualitative comments to see how far the quantitative patterns are borne out by themes emerging from the students’ own words.

Qualitative findings

From the qualitative findings, we can see that, on the whole, students were voicing a positive experience - they had developed new perspectives and outlooks; they enjoyed their life in China and some did not even want to come back; they could picture themselves working and living abroad in the future, suggesting they have made a great deal of progress over the SA journey:

The experience has made me want to move abroad after University which I think is a great benefit - my eyes have been opened! (S17)

The first month of the year abroad was the most challenging, partly due to the visa requirements etc., and getting to grips with only Chinese speaking, but after this I felt like I settled in really well and to be honest I didn't want to come back. (S8)

Overall the predicted expectation gap did not seem to be problematic, as has been suggested in other literature (e.g. Bell, 2016).  The challenges were not as high in reality as expressed in our pre-departure student survey, carried out with a previous cohort (Peng and Wright, 2020). The previous study revealed a strong belief that before SA they needed more preparation on linguistic knowledge; it was going to be hard to adjust academically to the Chinese way of studying; lots of help would be needed to adapt in cultural and personal terms. This cohort after SA felt that they were relatively well prepared, and their academic adaptation showed the least gap at all. Generally speaking, they were moderately satisfied with their adaptation, experience and development during SA. However, there were problems and issues too over how far adaptation and integration could be fully successful.

The first concern was evidence of the lack of interaction with native speakers, a finding supported by both quantitative and qualitative data. In the research literature on SA, the relatively low incidence of contact noted between SA students and local people has been a concern in many different contexts (Ward, 2001; Ward and Masgoret, 2004; Wright and Schartner, 2013), so it is not unique to China or to this particular cohort. In the pre-departure survey, the previous cohort of students expressed a strong desire to have a lot of contact with the local people, but it is disappointing to see that for the cohort in this study, in reality the association with native speakers was rather limited.

The most difficult and frustrating part of my year abroad was making Chinese friends, the opportunities to do so were surprisingly scarce. (S22)

I also felt like there were too many home university students here which made it difficult to make different friends... Only a handful of students made non-home university friends. (S17)

The second major concern is the support given to students with mental health issues. It was noticed that individual students with a history of mental health problems were more likely to have on-going personal issues during SA and at re-entry. The home university studied here tries to ensure that students do fulfil “fitness to study” requirements, and during SA, students noted that institutional support offered was helpful. However, in our findings, the students' feedback suggested this is not sufficient. The findings showed that on the whole, it was efforts made by individuals themselves or through their parental support network which made the difference between a student being able to cope with a year abroad or not.

No emotional support was given from the host university – the home university were as helpful as they could, but for students who have a history of mental health issues there should be something to help them out. If my parents could not have afforded therapy I would have left. (S7)

Whether this means that institution senders should counsel some students not to go remains a big question to be addressed. Furthermore, mentioning mental health complications is not always easily understood and accepted in a different culture. This is a wide question with complex intercultural issues, which are beyond the scope of this paper. However, we note in relation to this specific setting, that some host universities in China are now beginning to develop mental health support systems for international students, partly in response to growing understanding and awareness of the issue, such as providing counselling in English and organising seminars on mental health targeted at international students.

The third major issue relates to Joint Honours (JH) students over the support they could get during SA and their adaptation difficulties at re-entry. The quantitative data shows a very low satisfaction rate in this area, which was also supported by qualitative comments. Throughout the year abroad keeping up with the other subject area seemed particularly tricky for this cohort.  If someone is a JH student and also has mental health challenges, that would make their experience even more complicated. As one student noted:

I came back after two years abroad and I felt disoriented. I struggle with anxiety and depression, and I am going to a counsellor to keep the situation under control. If it wasn't for my family and my personal tutor I would have dropped out of university. (S9)

However, institutions may be likely to have a majority of JH students in their SA cohorts. Where the other subject is another language, particularly if studied from scratch, such as Arabic and Chinese, this means students may have two consecutive years abroad. This group of students are likely to have a particular package of needs, and our research suggests that more tailored and specific journey support is necessary, depending on time and resources available. We would suggest ensuring some regular contact and guidance from a nominated tutor from the other language programme to help keep in touch; or attend classes or study groups at the host university to maintain knowledge of the other language.

The fourth problem was found in re-entry challenges, in terms of reverse academic shock and linguistic dependency. Qualitative comments from the participants were consistent with the findings of difficulties emerging in the quantitative data. In this cohort, some of them may have struggled to readapt; the main issue was finding it hard to maintain their language skills and manage the workload, particularly for the JH students, which suggests there may have been some evidence of reverse academic shock.

It is difficult to properly keep up language practice and reintegrate into academic work because there isn't enough time to properly devote yourself to Chinese if you are joint honours. Especially as we've gone from being surrounded by Chinese to hardly hearing it. (S2)

The amount of work that needs to be done is too much and the pressure is too high. I don't feel ready to be back yet. (S9)

With these and similar comments in mind, it is important for institutions to allow students time to readjust and it would be worth looking into specific measures to support re-entry, such as  orientation meetings before the start of the academic year, talks by students from higher level groups sharing experience on how to cope with re-adjustment, guidance on how to find language exchange partners after returning and other language practice opportunities.

Perceptions that students were returning to a heavy workload was interesting. During SA, students had typically had 3-4 hours per day in language classes, plus homework, so they had in real terms a fair degree of flexibility and spare time. From previous quantitative findings and qualitative comments, it is noted that they did not appear to be engaged very much with other activities e.g. to build their cultural or local knowledge - only two students mentioned learning Chinese skills such as tai-chi and calligraphy.  During SA, 100% of students’ study time and focus was spent on learning the language; however, when they came back, only 30% of their formal class time is devoted to Chinese language study, while other study hours relate to other classes.

One speculation to be explored further is that within the SA environment, being more fully focused just on language, students felt less of an ‘academic’ identity and more in 'holiday mode'. This potentially aligns with their relatively low levels of actual activities to make local friends, and time spent invested in activities to boost intercultural awareness or future employability options. As noted in our previous study (Peng and Wright, 2020), there was some evidence of students’ lack of interest in deeper cultural investment and making local friends, instead showing a focus on  individualised ‘cultural consumption’. This detachment from deeper engagement could add to the challenges found on return to fulltime academic work and in re-entering into a full-time academic identity on their return.  We suggest that both students and institutions need to be realistic about this shift of focus, and clear about what would be appropriate measures to facilitate students’ autonomy in handling the transition back into academic life.

The lack of autonomy was particularly marked in relation to maintaining language. Some students were worried about losing their language skills, so they wanted more intense learning experiences, including more speaking sessions, which they thought could perhaps be best provided by additional time with teachers inside and outside class.

I think it's easy to lose our language skills, especially speaking and listening, so I think it needs to be more intense when we get back from China. Perhaps there could be more casual opportunities outside of busy classes to chat to teachers in Chinese. (S23)

In speaking classes, there isn't the opportunity to speak that much as it is only an hour long. plus it is very strictly structured rather than just free conversation. It would be beneficial to talk with the teacher individually, maybe for 20 minutes. (S2)

Linguistic dependency and lack of self-motivation over how to maintain language was somewhat surprising. These points have not been widely reported in other literature on this topic, as far as we are aware, and suggest that some coaching is needed to shape student expectations that opportunities for practise are important but that students should find such opportunities themselves. Talking to teachers in the target language might be an effective way to improve speaking skills, but it would not always be possible or realistic for resourcing.  One way of taking more ownership for language development would be to use opportunities to find language exchange partners—particularly for Chinese, these abound as there are many Chinese students on many campuses; however, it seems that home students do not seem aware of how to take more advantage of this. More could be done to foster awareness of these options.

CONCLUSION
In tracking this small cohort of SA students going from UK to China and back, our mixed methods study found many trends which resonate with other findings about the overall positive nature of the SA experience, and do not in general echo studies which have pointed up more negative experiences, with high barriers to engagement and potentially acute expectation gaps.  Four particular challenges have been identified as impacting on expectations and challenges, specifically contact with host language speakers, support for JH students, needs of students with mental health difficulties, and re-entry challenges. These challenges need further evaluation and discussions between institutions at home and as hosts, with students, so that solutions can be found which are realistic and appropriately managed on both sides. The issue of re-entry also raises questions over managing students' expectations on return - about maintaining their language more proactively and managing workload, to reduce the potential negative impact of ‘reverse academic shock’ on return home.  To a certain extent, as institutions we need to check our own expectation gap - are we expecting students to jump relatively seamlessly back from immersion in the target language, where they may not self-identify as full time academic students, to the reality of academic life where only 30% of the time may be devoted to language study? Students clearly appreciate the support given by institutions to prepare for SA, though more can always no doubt be done. However, identifying and managing expectation gaps pre and post-SA are not necessarily just an issue for the students alone, but also for us as institutions. This is an area we aim to explore in more depth in further study.

The findings in this research have begun to show a rich sense of the nuances emerging from taking a longer perspective within SA research, which benefits both the rationale behind such research for students and institutions alike, as well as providing increasingly robust methods used to track the SA journey. We can learn more about the varied experiences affecting students during SA and impacting re-entry on return home; we also still need to learn more how students continue to reap any benefits in the short-term and long-term, for example how the SA experience can fit into employability, life choices, career transformation. Further tracking studies will also allow us to refine the tools we use to evaluate students’ experiences, using both questionnaires and interviews, and to compare findings on SA in China and non-European countries against other research, for example within the ERASMUS exchange programmes. As the future of language degrees themselves as well as levels of SA support in institutions remains challenging, clear stories of how to make the most of SA will be valuable to all.

Address for correspondence: c.e.m.wright@leeds.ac.uk

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APPENDIX: QUESTIONNAIRE
(AVAILABLE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH USE BY PERMISSION OF THE RESEARCHERS)