An Innocent Abroad: One UK Student’s Experience of Studying in Hong Kong and the Implications for the International Classroom at Home

Abstract

The international classroom should be a place where students can gain intercultural competencies, which are increasingly important in a global economy, but there are difficulties facilitating interaction between students from different cultures. Students prefer to work in monocultural groups due to the barriers of language and understanding cultural and academic norms therefore they cannot take advantage of sharing and learning from each other’s experiences. To understand how to improve this situation, from a student perspective, a White male student from the UK was sponsored to spend a week studying in Hong Kong and to reflect on his experiences. From this it was found that the induction period was the most important for academic and social integration for all students and should focus on expectations of students, including behavioural aspects such as intercultural communication.