Study Abroad from the Participants' Perspective: A Challenge to Common Beliefs

ABSTRACT  Much study-abroad program recruitment literature depicts the overseas experience as a short cut to linguistic fluency and cross-cultural understanding, a view that is also largely supported by research on the outcomes of a stay abroad; however, when the experience of learning to interact in a foreign language and of adapting to a foreign culture is viewed through the eyes of four American summer study-abroad students in France, a different perspective emerges. The findings of this study challenge many common beliefs about the overseas educational experience and, in doing so, raise questions that hold implications for study-abroad programs and foreign language classrooms alike.