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This material has been included to prepare students in advance for the realities of ACA campus life abroad. It should be studied carefully as students decide whether to participate in the program and reviewed carefully during the first and second week of the summer abroad experience
Students enrolling in the ACA program will find that there are many adjustments to make in studying on an international campus in a language other than their own. An important rule in international living is to expect to change and to do things differently. That is the norm. Students who cannot adjust well and make changes in their diet and daily routines may find the international living experience quite difficult.
Language Adjustment
In many ways ACA students must be able to accept "being a child" again because at the beginning of their summer abroad their language ability may be less advanced than that of local children in elementary school. This can be a very frustrating experience, especially for beginning language students. Timid people may have quite a difficult time. Students must expect that they will make embarrassing mistakes in class, and on and off campus. They must accept that teachers may have to correct them and make them repeat over and over, without thinking that they are being exposed to ridicule or that the faculty is nasty or rude. To be successful, students must take the risk of embarrassment and grasp the moment. The alternative is to withdraw into an American enclave, speak English and be full of regrets at the end of the term, because "I still can't speak the language."
During the summer, more advanced language students often believe they are understanding less rather than more of what they hear. The reason this happens is that they are changing their language learning and processing. Instead of translating material which they may have done when they learned language basics in North America, they are beginning to think and process information completely in the new language. This new process builds a whole new set of synapses in the brain and develops a new part of the brain. This allows students to think entirely in the new language. When it happens, students should not be discouraged and think it was a mistake to join Adventist Colleges Abroad. Instead, they should recognize what is happening and determine to persevere and try, try again. Strong perseverance will make the difference. By the end of the summer more advanced students will be able to understand almost everything that is said to them by people in the host country if they take advantage of every opportunity to hear, read, write and speak the language. Beginning and intermediate students will not attain fluency in just six weeks.
As the summer progresses, spoken English will be less and less tolerated on each campus. Teachers and school administrators will increase efforts to ensure that the host country language is the language of communication. (No English between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm.) This goal, of course, can only be realized if students individually take the initiative themselves, place restrictions on themselves, and read, speak, and write only in the host language. There will be times, of course, when it is absolutely necessary to communicate in English, but those students who make the most progress will be very circumspect in the use of their native language.
One of the major adjustments will be the adjustment to an "adolescent" type life. It's very frustrating to discover that children on the street can speak the language better than you can, and it can make people feel dumb or stupid not to be able to say what they want to, and have people laugh at them when they try to talk. But by and large, students will find that people will be positive and try to help them out.
It is difficult for people who have weak self images to feel good in an international study experience. Students may feel infantilized by their lack of language skills and may get what they consider to be negative messages. It is important to find a "support group" for encouragement--a group of people or a person who will specifically bring messages of encouragement. Such help can promote positive feelings and a sense of still being in charge. Back to Summer Programs |
