6.3. Communication in higher education institutions: cultural and linguistic challenge

This part will help you to:

• undestand the issues of multiple languages in higher education, the challenges that appear in the communication in higher education institutions due to the diversity of languages and cultures in them, and which benefits are seen as result of spreading internationalization.

To reach these goals you are expected to:

• watch the introductory video that presents an example range of people’s cultural and linguistic challenges in higher education;
• read about the benefits and challenges of academic exchange and mobility, one aspect of internationalization of higher education institutions;
• to check your knowledge and understanding with an activity.

Video

People’s experience with multiple languages in higher education

Watch this introductory video about the staff and students of the University of Tartu Narva College. They will tell you shortly about themselves, where have they lived, which languages they speak and what is their experience with different languages and intercultural communication in the learning situations in higher education.

Reading

Academic exchange and mobility in higher education: benefits and challenges

When talking about multilingual universities, the notion of internationalization comes along, and most often people have the academic exchange and mobility issues in mind, although there are much more components included.

According to the idealistic view, the trends of internationalization are expected to create a more democratic and equal world with regard to international cooperation and also to broaden the academic knowledge of students and academic staff. Instrumentally, there is this commonsense approach to create a more transparent and flexible system that enables to integrate university degrees, grading systems etc. over several countries.

However, the pressure on higher education institutions as well as staff and students being more and more internationally active and visible can have both benefits and challenges at the same time. There is some evidence already that short-term academic mobilities may have a positive impact on a personal level – changing people’s attitudes towards the target foreign language and culture from neutral to more positive as well as their language competences (Khoroshilova et al., 2015: 992), or  contributing to the personal growth of individuals concerning students’ motivations or enhancing their local and cosmopolitan identities within a plethora of affiliations (Weibl, 2015).

Yet, Ward (2001: 1) has clearly stated that “significant intercultural interaction is unlikely to occur spontaneously to any large extent, and it is almost certain that interventionist strategies would need to be introduced to promote more and better intercultural activities”. It means that welcoming international exchange students may be of gain for the institution, but it brings up challenges for university staff, who are expected to intervene actively to make such promoting activities and intercultural communication happen in the first place. As Castro et al. (2016: 1) argue, “institutions and their staff should be aware of the discursive field of internationalisation in higher education, take a critical stance and analyse their own role in student mobility”.

The competitiveness between the institutions and people may seem an inevitable or even necessary side of how things should work nowadays. But on a personal level, first of all, it actually creates an unequal situation for those, who are not native speakers of the widely spread languages, especially English, or those, who happened to live in countries where the educational system has failed to deliver such language skills.

Although the lifelong learning principle is supposed to be present in our societies, the main component of internationalization such as student or staff exchange and academic mobility are not as easily accessible to the people with families and children. Spending a week, a month or a semester abroad might seem like an attractive opportunity, but if you have someone you are responsible for, it may be complicated both emotionally and practically.

Yet, the concept of internationalization has changed during the last decades and does not only include persons travelling. It has two interdependent pillars – ‘at home’ and ‘abroad’. This ‘at home’-aspect includes the curriculum, and the change here is that the international dimension of the curriculum has progressed from area studies and foreign-language approach to the integration of international, global, intercultural and comparative perspectives into the teaching and learning process and program content with the emphasis on student learning outcomes (international and intercultural knowledge, skills, and values). Academic mobility does not only include people, but also programs (twinning, franchise, virtual) and providers (branch campus) mobility (Knight, 2012).

All in all, as the internationalization has become an inevitable part of higher education, we should learn to deal with it by researching thoroughly all its aspects, benefits as well as challenges.

Sources:

Castro, P., Woodin, J.A., Lundgren, U. et al. (2016) Student mobility and internationalisation in higher education: perspectives from practitioners. Language and Intercultural Communication, 16 (3). pp. 418-436. http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/94617/3/WRRO_94617.pdf

Knight, J. (2012). Student Mobility and Internationalization: trends and tribulations. Research in Comparative and International Education, Volume 7 Number 1. pp. 20 – 33. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2304/rcie.2012.7.1.20

Khoroshilova, S., Kostina, E., Liliya Bezdenezhnykh, L., Vezirov, T. & Shibaev, V. (2015).  Academic Mobility: The Impact of Short-Term Language Courses Abroad on the Development of Language Competences. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 214, pp. 992 – 999

Khorsandi Taskoh, A. (2014). A Critical Policy Analysis of Internationalization in Postsecondary Education: An Ontario Case Study. Ontario: Western University.

Ward, C. (2001). The impact of international students on domestic students and host institutions. Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research. https://www.victoria.ac.nz/cacr/research/international-students/the-impact-of-international-students-on-domestic-students-and-host-institutions

Weibl, G. (2015). Cosmopolitan identity and personal growth as an outcome of international student mobility at selected New Zealand, British and Czech universities. Journal of International Mobility, no 3,(1), 31-44. https://www.cairn.info/revue-of-international-mobility-2015-1-page-31.htm.

Activity

Do you remember, which issues these people brought out about the issue of different languages or culture in universities?