Host Language Proficiency, Intercultural Sensitivity, and Study Abroad

Abstract

This paper focuses on a case study of advanced foreign language students who took part in a short-term study abroad program. By examining their journeys, from their home environment to the host culture and back again, we gain a deeper understanding of the development of their intercultural communicative competence. In the process, the linkage between linguistic and intercultural development is problematized. While the participants were Hong Kong university students who sojourned in England, elements of their stories should reach across ethnic, linguistic, and geographic lines and resonate with foreign language learners in other parts of the world.