http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i39/39b02001.htm
| From the issue dated June 3, 2005 |
POINT OF VIEW
The Benefits of Short-Term Study Abroad
By TAMMY L. LEWIS and RICHARD A. NIESENBAUM
Study-abroad programs can enhance students' acquisition of a foreign language, improve their knowledge of the host culture, and even transform their worldviews. Yet less than 1 percent of American college students study abroad each year. And of those who do, almost one-third enroll in programs that take place in English-speaking countries or that use English as the language of instruction. That reduces the impact of the experience because of the lack of immersion in a foreign language.
Students choose to stay in this country for a variety of reasons, including financial constraints; fears of violence against Americans abroad, particularly since September 11, 2001; and a perceived or real lack of fit with their academic program or major, especially when the courses in the major are hierarchical, as in many science and health-profession majors. For those students, short-term study-abroad programs -- those that last less than a semester -- are a good option to consider. They can make living in a foreign country easier and less threatening; in some cases, they give students the confidence to participate in subsequent programs that last a full semester or year.
We teach a course in the spring called "Environmental and Cultural Conservation in Latin America," which lasts a semester on the campus and has an additional two-week study-abroad component in Costa Rica immediately following the semester. To increase the short-term program's effectiveness, we focus on a specific community -- a small, economically diverse town with no tourism, where hardly anyone speaks English, and where the students have direct access to the local people -- rather than the whole country.
Through our annual trips and regular e-mail communication with local leaders, we have come to know the community and its concerns well. The program has research and service-learning components; both are linked to the community's needs. One longstanding issue is the local people's desire for sustainability -- to have an economy that supports all members of the town, to protect their watershed, and to guarantee good health for everyone in the community.
We design the course to reflect the community's needs and our students' interests. Students from all the college's academic divisions -- natural science, social science, arts, and humanities -- typically enroll in our course. During the on-campus semester, we provide background and context for the experience abroad, and opportunities to develop language skills, research skills, and interdisciplinary research projects. Those tools will help the students get the most out of the short time that they will spend abroad.
The research projects that the students create on our campus and then pursue in Costa Rica involve a number of methodological approaches, including environmental and ecological sampling, observational study, interviews, case studies, and formal surveys. Projects have analyzed land use in the watershed in which we work in Costa Rica, water quality in the river that runs through the area, and perceptions of ecotourism; one compared environmental education in Costa Rica and Pennsylvania.
In addition to the research projects, students spend at least three consecutive days on community service, and they have multiple opportunities to discuss and reflect on that activity. Examples of the service include helping clean up the river, working with a women's cooperative on recycling, and teaching English in elementary schools.
Both the research and service experiences teach our students about a specific community and its concerns. We have chosen that in-depth strategy over a more touristic approach, moving from site to site, learning a little about a lot of aspects of Costa Rica, but not getting to know people very well. In that way we try to give our students what we see as the chief benefit of study-abroad programs: learning about people from different cultures.
Last fall we surveyed the students who had taken our course during the past six years, to see if our short-term study-abroad program had outcomes similar to those of longer programs. We reached four main conclusions.
First, when the students returned to the campus, many of them took courses outside their major specifically because of their participation in the program. Nonscience majors enrolled in upper-level biology courses. Biology majors took additional courses in Spanish.
Second, almost half of our students traveled or studied abroad again. Those who did made a clear connection from their experience in Costa Rica to subsequent trips. For example, one student noted that the short-term program "gave me more confidence to do a semester program."
Third, most of the students demonstrated increased interest in interdisciplinary studies. For instance, biology students clearly saw the importance of economics and demography in analyzing the health of an ecosystem -- a lesson their field experience made plainer than any laboratory work could.
Fourth, all students indicated that their participation in the program had influenced their perceptions of the costs and benefits of globalization. Students' analysis of globalization became more sophisticated through the strategies of interlinking the short-term study abroad with both course work and community interaction. One student commented: "Before visiting Costa Rica, I was vehemently opposed to agricultural development. ... However, after talking with farmers in Costa Rica, I realized that choices are limited and that the problems surrounding deforestation of tropical rainforests are much more complicated than I had previously assumed. Essentially, I became a conservationist who does not separate people from the environment."
Both short-term and long-term study-abroad programs can meet some of the goals of the liberal arts in general. The students who took our course reported that it had made them question their assumptions, gather and interpret data, and use the data to reach a better understanding of their own role in a globalized society.
Although some students and parents have expressed fears about studying abroad since September 11, many scholars and policy makers have argued that it is even more important now for Americans to learn about other cultures. A recent report of the Strategic Task Force on Education Abroad, convened by NAFSA: Association of International Educators, has argued that after the terrorist attacks we are in a "Sputnik moment" in which "it is time to launch a major national effort to ensure that every U.S. college student graduates with both an understanding of at least one foreign area and facility in at least one foreign language." If a semesterlong or yearlong experience seems too daunting, our research suggests that a shorter, well-planned program can help students to achieve those goals.
Tammy L. Lewis is an assistant professor of sociology and head of the department of sociology and anthropology, and Richard A. Niesenbaum is an associate professor and head of the biology department, at Muhlenberg College.
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Section: The Chronicle Review
Volume 51, Issue 39, Page B20
