The Language Teacher
December 2002
What Should be Known in Japan about Short-Term English Study Abroad
Patrick Blanche
Kumamoto Gakuen University, Japan; University of Central Lancashire, UK
Introduction
In 1993, Kathleen Kitao spotlighted a gap which Yashima and Viswatt (1991) had already noticed, when she wrote, "Although many Japanese students go overseas for study, either short-term or long-term, there has been relatively little study of these students, their preparation, or the results of the students' experience overseas." Today it appears that much of the needed research still hasn't been done, since "[t]he practice of sending higher education students overseas on short-term language immersion programs [remains] a relatively unexplored area" (Bodycott and Crew, 2000).
What can be found in Japan's mainstream EFL literature concerning Japanese people who studied English overseas for a few weeks or months is actually negligible. Two well-known ELT periodicals are published mostly or entirely in English in this country: The Language Teacher (TLT) and Jalt Journal. As far as I know, short-term overseas study has never been featured in Jalt Journal. Between January 1985 and December 2001, four articles on short-term study abroad (Johnston, 1993; Drake, 1997; Geis and Fukushima, 1997; Bodycott and Crew, 2000) and seven very brief (250 words or less) "Chapter Reports" germane to this topic appeared in TLT (Modesitt, 1985; Christensen, 1988; O'Donahue, 1993; Cogan 1994; Liebelt, 1996; Bauer, 1998; Salisbury, 2001). Total: less than 20 pages in more than 13,000 pages of text. This doesn't do justice to the fact that, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, studying abroad has long been an important component of English education.
At least 350 out of 600 or so Japanese institutions of higher learning send young people to Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, or the United States on a regular basis in February-March or July-August. A significant number of high schools, language schools, and travel agencies do likewise. All of this involves an estimated student population of well over 10,000 each year. Yet few Japanese seem to know what to look for when trying to assess the quality of a short study-abroad program, and even fewer seem to have any idea how much it should cost.
The aim of the present article is twofold: first, to give Japanese learners and ELT professionals useful tips for identifying good short-term EFL programs overseas; and second, to start laying the foundations for the coherent, serious and sustained research that is urgently needed.
Quality and Costs
Following are a few pointers I have compiled to help students, parents, and teachers make more informed decisions.
Quality
Perhaps the most important indication of quality in an overseas study program is the maximum number of participants if enrolment is limited, as it should be. In my experience, the ideal number is anywhere between seven and seventeen; twenty is manageable; anything above twenty-five is unacceptable. Only programs involving small or relatively small groups can yield a superior mix of flexibility and individual attention.1
The next most important quality indicator is the kind of language instruction being emphasized abroad. Participants should never be lumped together in the same classroom. They should be assigned to different classes, according to their respective ability levels, and work with non-Japanese foreign students. A good program ought to feature at least seventeen hours of classroom instruction a week, dispensed mostly in the morning by qualified native instructors; supervised project work in the local community, mainly in the afternoon, following morning preparations; and some optional social activities, excursions, or both, mostly in the evenings or at weekends. Low-level learners should not be expected to do much project work, but get more classroom instruction and do more homework.
Housing is the third item one should carefully look at. It might be on-campus housing, homestay, or a combination of both (e.g. three weeks on campus followed by a few days in a private home, or a short orientation period on campus before a three-week homestay). Here again, program participants should not be segregated. In a university dormitory, their neighbors must not be Japanese. Host families should never take in more than one Japanese and never more than two foreign students. Cramped living conditions are inexcusable: each participant must have his or her own room, either in a private home or on campus. Host families should ideally be whole families, giving students the chance to interact with all ages. Keep in mind that a bad homestay could be worse than no homestay. Good host families are sometimes difficult to find in Europe between late June and early September, when a lot of people are vacationing. In addition, low-level learners are often not ready to live in private homes. These learners generally benefit more by living with non-Japanese foreign students in well-equipped dormitories.
Lastly, the received idea that Japanese group leaders can make programs run more smoothly or make them safer and less stressful is expensively overstated when participants are 18 or older. Reputable academic institutions in Australia, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, and North America have become used to dealing with Japanese students. Yet many of these students are still paying for the living and travel expenses of group leaders who are largely redundant, speak to them in Japanese, and indirectly encourage them to converse among themselves in Japanese instead of English.
Costs
The financial aspect of studying abroad is what has been the least discussed in this country's EFL literature. The TLT articles or reports mentioned earlier hardly touch on this topic. In Europe and North America, foreign language education researchers seem to be only just a little more practically minded. For example, "costs" or "money" were actually discussed by Drysdale and Killelea (1982) and by Dragonas (1983). Dekker and Oostindie (1988) wrote that high costs are first among the obstacles that can keep learners from going abroad--and I don't see why this wouldn't be true here as well.
In Japan, as it turns out, the use of group leaders is not the only practice that can inflate the cost of overseas study. Travel arrangements are often too expensive. English department chairpersons and people in charge of international relations in schools are not always experienced enough to put together proper itineraries, and able or willing to use good, low-cost carriers.
What can cause the most waste, however, is something else. Many short-term study programs are by-products of exclusive relationships between Japanese universities or colleges and their respective overseas partner institutions. These special academic links have a way of stifling competition. The foreign schools have real or de facto enrolling privileges which most of them are quick to draw on. Some schools even try to turn their Japanese partners into "cash cows." As a result, Japanese universities, junior colleges and high schools commonly offer overpriced programs to their own trusting students. Some parents think high prices are justified, at least to the extent that these programs "must" be good and "safe"; but that is a fallacy.
Table 1 shows what the average cost of a four-week spring or summer program in Britain could be. The exchange rate used is 190 yen to the pound, which doesn't make studying in England or Scotland substantially more or less expensive than doing it in North America or the Republic of Ireland.
Table 1: Typical, Non-Inflated Cost of a Four-Week EFL Program in Britain
SPRING |
SUMMER |
||
(Homestay only) |
Dormitory |
Homestay |
|
TUITION |
¥115,000 |
¥120,000 |
¥120,000 |