‘I do not have to love them, I’m just interested in their language’: preparation for a study abroad period and the negotiation(s) of intercultural competence

ABSTRACT

Study abroad opportunities can contribute significantly to the development of higher education students. However, participants’ preparation experiences and future-oriented thought patterns prior to the international mobility period can influence the merits of such opportunities. This study, therefore, explored the preparation experiences of prospective English language teachers from Turkey who chose to study in England for a 4-month period. Utilizing an interpretative phenomenological analysis method, we revealed that participants’ lived and imagined experiences were shaped by three main themes: a groundless optimism, naiveté, and intercultural (in)competence. Based on these findings, we discussed the preparation processes for study abroad programs.

Yurtdışı eğitim olanakları yükseköğretim öğrencilerinin gelişimlerine önemli katkılarda bulunabilir. Fakat, katılımcıların uluslararası hareketlilik döneminden önceki hazırlık deneyimleri ve gelecek odaklı düşünce örüntüleri bu tür programlardan kazanılabilecek edinimlerin niteliğini etkileyebilir. Bu çalışma, bu sebeple, İngiltere'de dört aylık bir süreç için eğitim almayı seçen Türk İngilizce öğretmen adaylarının hazırlık deneyimlerini incelemiştir. Bu çalışmada, yorumlayıcı bir fenomenolojik analiz yönteminden yararlanılarak, katılımcıların yaşadıkları ve hayal ettikleri deneyimlerin üç ana tema ile şekillendirildiği ortaya konmuştur: temelsiz bir iyimserlik, deneyimsizlik ve kültürlerarası yeter(siz)lik. Bu bulgulara dayanarak, yurtdışı eğitim programlarına yönelik hazırlık süreçlerinin tasarımı ile ilgili önemli unsurlar tartışılmıştır.

KEYWORDS:

• Study abroad
• international exchange programs
• language teacher education
• intercultural competence
• imagined communities
• interpretative phenomenological analysis

Acknowledgements

We thank the Editor, Malcolm MacDonald, and the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions for this manuscript. We developed this article based on the research we conducted for the Master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate School of Social Sciences at the Middle East Technical University (Çiftçi, 2016). We are grateful to the committee members Betil Eröz-Tuğa and Deniz Ortaçtepe for their constructive comments on this research report. We also thank the language teachers who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Emrullah Yasin Çiftçi is a research assistant at the Middle East Technical University. He is also a PhD student in the English Language Teaching program at the same university. His research interests include language teacher education, intercultural (communicative) competence, international education, and intercultural programs.

A. Cendel Karaman (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin – Madison) is an associate professor at the Middle East Technical University. His research interests include teacher education processes, international education, and curriculum studies. His work has been published in the International Journal of Educational Development, Systemic Practice and Action Research, Foreign Language Annals, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, and Intercultural Education.

ORCID

Emrullah Yasin Çiftçi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9747-6333