Facilitating International Healthcare Experiences

International healthcare experiences (IHEs) provide opportunities for students to experience healthcare in unfamiliar and sometimes challenging settings. Students have reported multiple benefits through completion of IHEs including increased personal and professional development, increased cultural sensitivity, and increased self-awareness and self-confidence. While many benefits have been noted, there are also many challenges in developing, implementing, and sustaining IHEs including financial considerations, safety concerns, and apprehensions regarding the impact the IHE is having on foreign patients and healthcare workers. This chapter's aim is to summarize the currently available literature on IHEs and to provide subjective reflections from students and international colleagues associated with IHEs connected to the authors' institutions.

Intercultural Awareness and Short-Term Study Abroad Programs

One of the desired and anticipated outcomes of study abroad is that participants, who are exposed to difference, will develop a deeper appreciation of intercultural awareness. For students about to graduate and function in an increasingly globalized world, intercultural awareness is a fundamental requirement and a valued asset. Although greater intercultural awareness is associated with longer study abroad experiences, the historical and current reality is that students predominantly chose shorter stays. To optimize intercultural awareness gains for students and their faculty, and to provide greater benefits for the internationalization of their colleges and universities, it is suggested that short-term study abroad programs focus on the inherent liminality of the experience. This chapter explores liminality and the opportunities and challenges associated with the liminally-centered study abroad program.

Development of an Enhanced Study Abroad Curriculum in Teacher Education

This chapter describes the design of an enhanced innovative study abroad curriculum to be integrated into teacher education programs. The curriculum is based upon the results of in-depth interviews administered to teacher candidates and/or practicing teachers of English following their return from a study abroad program. It is designed to meet the needs of prospective study abroad student teachers of English and to address possible challenges that may result from their participation in such programs. The enhanced curriculum is comprised of 10 modules, each focusing on a different topic. Integrated into the enhanced curriculum are tasks and problem scenarios reflecting on the real experiences of the returned study abroad sojourners. It is expected that the curriculum will increase teacher educators' knowledge about the learning needs of prospective study abroad participants and enhance their awareness of the contribution(s) study abroad makes to create global citizens.

Towards a Culturally Reflective Practitioner

Since 2007, it has been possible for student teachers based in Europe to complete a teaching practicum at a school abroad, supported by the European flagship mobility programme ERASMUS. The focus of this study was on 35 undergraduate preservice teachers who completed a three-month teaching practicum placement in the UK and Ireland. Data from reflective reports was content analysed and completed with focus group discussions six months after the students' stay abroad. On the basis of the reflective reports, a case study was additionally collated that focussed on their intercultural learning development. The findings indicate an interconnection of linguistic, intercultural, and professional development with professional development as the most prominent and the intercultural development as a rather neglected one. Suggestions on how to design a formal instruction element based on the principles of cultural (peer) mentoring and guided cultural reflection as part of the teaching practice experience are outlined.

The Academic Second Language (L2) Socialization and Acculturation of International Exchange Students

As internationalization efforts intensify across the globe, the number of higher education (HE) students who are gaining some form of international educational experience is on the rise. A large percentage of study abroad participants are from East Asian nations (Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Korea, Macau SAR, Taiwan), and most enroll in English language enhancement modules or English-medium content courses during their stay abroad, depending on their level of proficiency. To better meet their needs and ease their adjustment in an unfamiliar academic and social environment, it is imperative for researchers to conduct systematic studies that delve into study abroad experience. This chapter reports on a mixed-method study that investigated the second language socialization and acculturation of international exchange students from a Hong Kong university who took part in a semester-long stay in their host country. The findings have implications for both home and host institutions.

Designing Short-Term, Faculty-Led Study Abroad Programs

Study abroad education has become an increasingly important educational program for teaching global learning and intercultural competence, maturity, and sensitivity of students. However, tuition costs of study abroad tours can be daunting. Thus, the question arises how value can be defined and, more importantly, how value is created. This chapter adopts the lens of service-dominant logic (SDL) and value co-creation to suggest that students should be engaged as an active co-creator of their study abroad experience. Based on focus groups and an analysis of student reflection papers, this chapter proposes that the value process of short-term, faculty-led study abroad tours consists of three stages: (1) value proposition and potential, (2) resource integration and value co-creation, and (3) assessment of value realization. The framework provides faculty with a way to understand, adapt, and manage the resource integration and influence students' perceptions of their study abroad experience.

To Study Abroad

Universities globally are increasingly seeking to improve the international mobility of their students. There are several latent benefits that accrue to a university whose faculty and/or students actively participate in international exchange programs. Essentially, this can lead to an increase in the capacity to develop international relationships, greater diversity in the student population with all the benefits that stem from diversity, opportunities for benchmarking against best practices, and the university's international reputation spreading on a global scale. Drawing on extant literature, this descriptive chapter reviews many and varied scholarly works to elicit a comprehensive range of ‘Push-Pull' factors or ‘a complex matrix of influences' that play a role in tertiary-level students' decision-making in relation to study abroad.