The popularity of exchange programs or study abroad programs has been on an unprecedented increase. My research investigated the intercultural experiences of participants in a relatively new type of exchange program – short term regional ones. In addition, I looked at the perceived outcomes – their impacts on intercultural knowledge acquisition and attitude change as perceived by the participants themselves. My research adopted the qualitative case study design where I selected three alumni of such programs who differed in terms of experience richness and program focus. Using semistructured interviews that encourage participants to critically reflect on their previous experience, the study revealed that the majority of intercultural experiences occurred during the program while predeparture experiences were rarely accounted. Typically, targeted programs did not hold any followup activities so my participants relined mostly on gained international relationship for postevent experiences. For impacts of the programs, my participants gained significantly about social, historical, linguistic, cultural values and specialized knowledge. On the other hand, attitudes changed both negatively and positively while the former exceeded the latter. Unpredictably, the findings confirmed the necessity of reflection in making intercultural experiences meaningful and longlasting. The popularity of exchange programs or study abroad programs has been on an unprecedented increase. My research investigated the intercultural experiences of participants in a relatively new type of exchange program – short term regional ones. In addition, I looked at the perceived outcomes – their impacts on intercultural knowledge acquisition and attitude change as perceived by the participants themselves. My research adopted the qualitative case study design where I selected three alumni of such programs who differed in terms of experience richness and program focus. Using semistructured interviews that encourage participants to critically reflect on their previous experience, the study revealed that the majority of intercultural experiences occurred during the program while predeparture experiences were rarely accounted. Typically, targeted programs did not hold any followup activities so my participants relined mostly on gained international relationship for postevent experiences. For impacts of the programs, my participants gained significantly about social, historical, linguistic, cultural values and specialized knowledge. On the other hand, attitudes changed both negatively and positively while the former exceeded the latter. Unpredictably, the findings confirmed the necessity of reflection in making intercultural experiences meaningful and longlasting.
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS & CULTURES OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES GRADUATION PAPER INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCES OF SHORT-TERM REGIONAL EXCHANGE PROGRAM ALUMNI: A MULTIPLE-CASE STUDY Supervisor: Nguyễn Thanh Hà Student: Phan Thị Thu Hiền Course: QH2015.F1.E1 HÀ NỘI - 2019 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA NGÔN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HỐ CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHỐ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP TRẢI NGHIỆM GIAO TIẾP LIÊN VĂN HÓA CỦA NHỮNG THÀNH VIÊN THAM GIA CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TRAO ĐỔI NGẮN HẠN KHU VỰC: NGHIÊN CỨU NHIỀU ĐỐI TƯỢNG Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thanh Hà Sinh viên: Phan Thị Thu Hiền Khoá: QH2015.F1.E1 HÀ NỘI - 2019 Supervisor's Signature of Approval: Hanoi, May 2nd, 2019 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not be possible if it were not for the support from others I would like to thank my supervisor, Nguyen Thanh Ha, for guiding and giving me a lot of useful advice Throughout the project, I encountered problems and hard questions which were all addressed properly with her timely assistance Besides, I felt very grateful towards my three participants, who were willing to spend time sharing information for my research They were all kind and supportive when I had to inquire their personal experiences Their participation was the key element to the accomplishment of my thesis Additionally, I want to pay my gratitude to Ms Hoang Thi Hanh, whose comments were extremely valuable to me when I was confused and puzzled about research topic at the beginning Her guidance made me become more confirmed and clearer about the research track to follow Last but not least, I highly appreciate my dear classmates and my family for constant encouragement and motivation i ABSTRACT The popularity of exchange programs or study abroad programs has been on an unprecedented increase My research investigated the intercultural experiences of participants in a relatively new type of exchange program – short term regional ones In addition, I looked at the perceived outcomes – their impacts on intercultural knowledge acquisition and attitude change as perceived by the participants themselves My research adopted the qualitative case study design where I selected three alumni of such programs who differed in terms of experience richness and program focus Using semi-structured interviews that encourage participants to critically reflect on their previous experience, the study revealed that the majority of intercultural experiences occurred during the program while pre-departure experiences were rarely accounted Typically, targeted programs did not hold any follow-up activities so my participants relined mostly on gained international relationship for postevent experiences For impacts of the programs, my participants gained significantly about social, historical, linguistic, cultural values and specialized knowledge On the other hand, attitudes changed both negatively and positively while the former exceeded the latter Unpredictably, the findings confirmed the necessity of reflection in making intercultural experiences meaningful and long-lasting ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not be possible if it were not for the support from others I would like to thank my supervisor, Nguyen Thanh Ha, for guiding and giving me a lot of useful advice Throughout the project, I encountered problems and hard questions which were all addressed properly with her timely assistance Besides, I felt very grateful towards my three participants, who were willing to spend time sharing information for my research They were iii all kind and supportive when I had to inquire their personal experiences Their participation was the key element to the accomplishment of my thesis Additionally, I want to pay my gratitude to Ms Hoang Thi Hanh, whose comments were extremely valuable to me when I was confused and puzzled about research topic at the beginning Her guidance made me become more confirmed and clearer about the research track to follow Last but not least, I highly appreciate my dear classmates and my family for constant encouragement and motivation iv ABSTRACT The popularity of exchange programs or study abroad programs has been on an unprecedented increase My research investigated the intercultural experiences of participants in a relatively new type of exchange program – short term regional ones In addition, I looked at the perceived outcomes – their impacts on intercultural knowledge acquisition and attitude change as perceived by the participants themselves My research adopted the qualitative case study design where I selected three alumni of such programs who differed in terms of experience richness and program focus Using semi-structured interviews that encourage participants to critically reflect on their previous experience, the study revealed that the majority of intercultural experiences occurred during the program while pre-departure experiences were rarely accounted Typically, targeted programs did not hold any follow-up activities so my participants relined mostly on gained international relationship for post-event experiences For impacts of the programs, my participants gained significantly about social, historical, linguistic, cultural values and specialized knowledge On the other hand, attitudes changed both negatively and positively while the former exceeded the latter Unpredictably, the findings confirmed the necessity of reflection in making intercultural experiences meaningful and long-lasting v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i ABSTRACT v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RESEARCH PROBLEM AND RATIONALE 1.2 SIGNIFICANCE 1.3 SCOPE CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 EXCHANGE PROGRAM 2.2 INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCES OF SHORT TERM PROGRAM 2.2.1 Intercultural competence 2.2.2 The nature of intercultural experience 2.2.3 Types of cultural experiences 2.2.4 Sources of Intercultural experiences Interpersonal interaction Organized activities Informal experiences 10 2.3 IMPACTS OF SHORT TERM PROGRAM ON PARTICIPANTS IN TERMS OF INTERCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE AND ATTIDUES 10 2.3.1 The role of reflection intercultural learning 10 2.3.2 Intercultural knowledge gain and attitude change 11 2.3.3 Types of changes 13 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN 16 3.2 SELECTION OF PARTICIPANTS 16 3.2.1 Criteria for selection 16 3.2.2 My participants 16 3.3 DATA COLLECTION 17 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS METHOD: THEMATIC ANALYSIS 18 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 20 vi 4.1 OVERVIEW OF PARTICIPANTS’ EXPERIENCES IN THEIR EXCHANGE PROGRAMS 20 4.2 FINDINGS 23 4.2.1 Research question 1: Intercultural experiences 23 4.2.2 Research question 2: Intercultural knowledge gain and attitude change 26 4.2.2.1 New intercultural knowledge 26 4.2.2.2 Attitude changes 30 4.2.3 Unexpected findings 32 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 38 5.1 FINDING SUMMARY 38 5.2 LIMITATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 38 5.3 CONCLUSION 39 REFERENCES 41 APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 47 vii superficial due to the short period, it created a foundation for the participants to build on later Visiting new culture will make people more curious and once the curiosity exists, it will motivate people to explore Even though cultural experience depends on the program and also on the personal focus, all short-term programs give a sense of a new culture, not total understanding This is because even if you spend months or years, you could not understand one country or a culture completely Otherwise, it could become bias or stereotypes when attempting to get generalization For example, if I come to Malaysia for days and meet that kind of person, I could not immediately jump to conclusion that Malaysian people is all the same Program is the stepping stone for people to try to learn more about others Long term relationship and widened network My participants gained long term international relationship thanks to joining the program For instance, Helen built strong connections with some Myanmar students, with whom she updated recent events or information Additionally, Tina maintained the relationships through social media and widened her international network Tina not only actively interacted with other counterparts but she also claimed to benefit from keeping in touch with such friends There are a lot of talented individuals in the programs, who are doing quickly in life now Looking at them is a type of motivation for me.” Or “There is one girl from Cambodia She is super cool She is an inspiring writer, who has her own blog She wrote about things and I really love her perspective about life Tina also commented that she easily built up relationship with international friends thanks to the scaffolding of team-building activities and grouping method Each group was required to consist of different nationalities Therefore, she could gradually get acquainted to some international friends who then frequently keep in touch with her even after the program Unlike these two young girls, Thomas seemed to build more professional relationships He was said to have some partnership for his projects since some people from India and Germany asked him to bring the project to their home country Many participants appreciated his ideas and would like to cooperate with him in the future 4.4 DISCUSSIONS 4.4.1 Research question one: Intercultural experiences My research results suggested that intercultural experiences was also gained through main phases of short term exchange programs For instance, Bohman (2014) claimed that for the preparation phase, introductions or guidelines were attributed to the students’ motivation 34 for active experiencing My informant – Helen mentioned the pre-trip experience of having an online forum which provided her with certain insights about Singaporean culture like foods or prerequisites of travelling to Singapore All of such preparation made her more excited and eager to find more about cultural aspects of this nation However, among all investigated programs, only one was reported to have meaningful preparation while all others were not mentioned This might also explain why there were little pre-departure intercultural experiences accounted in my research 4.4.2 Research question 2: New intercultural knowledge and changed attitudes New intercultural knowledge New knowledge was the gain as well as motivation for my participants when they attended short term exchange programs Just like Bohman (2014) concluded from his research, one of the driving factors for his informants to join student exchange was desire for new technical knowledge and new perspectives Such factors were similar to my participants’ sharing They all attended the projects related to their interests For instance, Thomas only joined the programs with the main themes about environment, education or youth Therefore, the majority of specialized knowledge they gained was not compulsorily related to their major but to the themes of the programs Other reasons for student exchanges highlighted by the informants of Bohman (2014) included the opportunity to visit other cultural contexts and be able to go beyond the tourist’s perspective That was exactly Helen’s point of view when she said that she could not gain so much knowledge if she visited Singapore as a normal tourist Hokanson (2000) found that the more fluent and literate students are in the language, the greater their development will be in the areas of culture and sociolinguistics, and the more interculturally sensitive they will become Therefore, the lack of language proficiency may result in minimal or no adaptation to the host culture, a consequent lack of intercultural sensitivity development and, worst of all, reinforcement of previously held stereotypes about the host culture That was the reason why my participant, Tina found herself at loss for the first exchange program She even emphasized her second cultural experience was successful because at that time she was more confident about her English Particularly, I intended to explore the gained linguistic knowledge of new culture but the knowledge my participants gained was about the use of official language - English Therefore, it could be seen that such short term exchange programs provided participants with experiences of primarily used language rather than new culture language 35 Changed Attitudes My participants mentioned their difficulties in the exchange program like language proficiency or pre-assumptions but generally, they all claimed that they kept their mind open to any new things and would not complain much about the differences That allied to the solution to intercultural communication suggested by Keles (2013) That solution was “People from different cultures need to break the assumptions they have about other cultures Everyone makes or has assumptions about others Assumptions are beliefs rather than objective truth and are usually influenced by a number of subjective factors For intercultural communication to truly work, people need to assess their assumptions and ask themselves why they hold those ideas or beliefs By doing so and even openly examining them with others, the initial barrier to intercultural communication is overcome.” This was also applicable to the personal development of my participant Take Thomas as an example He broke his conceptions about happiness and marriage, which drove him to be more open and flexible when encountering differences 4.4.3 Unexpected findings Despite the fact that my research did not aim at finding supporting factors of intercultural learning of exchange program alumni or the program effectiveness, the results still revealed those items, which were confirmed by some previous research Gaia (2015) found that short-term exchange program could be transformative because students viewed these experiences as life-changing as much as they long-term ones—they begin to see themselves as part of a larger whole, and come to understand that the world extends beyond county, state, regional, and national boundaries This is also consistent with my participants’ sharing about her feeling of responsibility when observing harsh life of Cambodian people Although Medina-Lopez-Portillo (2004) mentioned the importance of program duration towards the development of cultural sensitivity, I was initially at doubt However, one participant of mine, Thomas, straightly expressed his gratitude for a precious opportunity to know another culture despite the short duration Medina-Lopez-Portillo (2004) also raised the question about the role of race and ethnicity in intercultural experience She witnessed that her participants were more interactive with people from the same race or group Tina, my participant, had experienced the feeling of being distanced from “the first-world friends” in Korea while she felt extremely close to the international friend in Mekong Friendship 36 projects Added to that, Helen also felt more connected with Singaporean students and found them easy to talk with due to certain similarities 37 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS 5.1 FINDING SUMMARY The first research question, participants’ intercultural experiences started from predeparture period to post-event in spite of unequal intensity for each phase The experiences in the first phase were much less diverse and rich than the other two Particularly, only one participant experienced interpersonal interaction during pre-departure since the organizers hosted the forum for participants to get familiar with each other The majority of intercultural experiences came from organized activities, where participants actively learned and exchanged ideas The informal experiences were reliant on travelling and observation After the program, participants continued to have intercultural experiences thanks to international relationships built during the programs All programs studied did not have any follow-up activities for participants to join Answer to the second research question was divided into two major parts: noticed changes in cultural knowledge acquisition and attitudes Regarding knowledge acquisition, participants of short term exchange programs gained more knowledge in four aspects: Social knowledge, Historical knowledge, Linguistic knowledge, Cultural norms or values Even two participants claimed that they did not learn anything from some programs due to ill-managed activities and insufficient time However, a chance of being involved in foreign cultures was an undeniable benefit of short term exchange program In respect to changes in attitude, there are both positive and negative changes noticed by the participants My participants underwent such positive alterations as Prejudice diminishing, Cross-cultural empathy and Openness, Personal development, Respect, Generalized comparison, while Rushed generalization was negative one Positive changes outnumbered the negative ones while participants remained unaffected under some circumstances Interestingly, my research produced some unanticipated results, which confirmed the importance of reflection and preevent attitudes towards the efficiency of intercultural sensitivity development Some participants also opined their personal view on the effectiveness of the short term program, which was really critical and valuable 5.2 LIMITATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Although the research catered for intercultural experiences of alumni from a new type of short term exchange program, the limited number of cases studied did not allow making any generalization Besides, I only collected data amongst the programs in South Asia while 38 the popularity of this kind of program is worldwide Actually, this is a fairly modest piece of research situated specifically among Vietnamese young people, hence, given the importance of the study, its insights need to be explored further in different areas and with different groups of students Based on the results presented in this thesis and the limitations, there are some recommendations for further study Effective international intercultural experience seems to require reflective practice, which is usually overlooked in the targeted programs The possibility is that more research could look into the role and implementation of reflection in intercultural competence development for exchange programs Moreover, given the popularity of regional exchange program recently, there needs to be collective vigilance regarding the efficiency of boosting intercultural competence Quality of exchange programs is largely dependent on the implementation of activities during the event However, after studying, I recognized the lack of official review and examination of exchange program agenda Further research on specific agenda of these short term programs might help to enhance their effectiveness Moreover, despite both negative and positive impacts of intercultural experiences investigated, the former was not revealed much through my research Improvement for short term program sometimes requires criticism for alteration and advancements Therefore, negative impacts of short term program could be another probable research area 5.3 CONCLUSION To conclude, this paper provides a deeper understanding about intercultural experiences of alumni from several prevalent short term programs in South Asia The focus was on students’ perceived value of short-term programs in terms of cultural understanding and its influence As it was a small-scale study, I not aim to generalize the pattern of the results However, there is still limited literature on those particular short share programs This study can thus serve as a pilot for a large-scale research study across countries or regions, particularly for the youth programs I hope this paper can contribute to the knowledge of intercultural experiences and intercultural sensitivity development by discussing the gained experienced of short term program alumni The insights 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Make sure to get below information: The number of exchange programs Description of such exchange program: Duration, place, purposes, participants, organizer, activities Personal expectation before the program Question 2: How would you describe the exchange program’s activities? (The target information is the description of all activities in chronological orders) Interesting or outstanding points about each activity Disturbing or uncomfortable aspects of the activity Comparison with prior-event assumptions: Differences & similarities Personal feeling or thoughts about such experiences Question 3: How would you describe your interaction with other participants including the host and international ones? Brief description of such individual’s background: nation, major, religion 47 Interesting or new points they make about (their) culture Comparison with prior-event assumptions: Differences & similarities Personal feeling or thoughts about such experiences Question 4: How would you describe informal experiences like gatherings, observations or travelling in general? Brief description of such experience Comparison with prior-event assumptions Personal feeling or thoughts about such experiences Is there anything I haven’t asked you about your intercultural experience that you would like me to know about? 48 ... QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA NGƠN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HỐ CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP TRẢI NGHIỆM GIAO TIẾP LIÊN VĂN HÓA CỦA NHỮNG THÀNH VIÊN THAM GIA CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TRAO ĐỔI... CỦA NHỮNG THÀNH VIÊN THAM GIA CHƯƠNG TRÌNH TRAO ĐỔI NGẮN HẠN KHU VỰC: NGHIÊN CỨU NHIỀU ĐỐI TƯỢNG Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thanh Hà Sinh viên: Phan Thị Thu Hiền Khoá: QH2015.F1.E1 HÀ NỘI -