The number of students studying abroad is increasing but all these students get different outcomes from their experience depending on which narrative they had a while abroad. Vande Berg talked different kinds of narratives that students use to view the outside world. There are three master narratives: positivism, relativism, and experiential / constructivism. Positivism narrative is going abroad alone and just “learning through experience”. People with a positivism narrative usually are very competent when it comes to the language. Relativism narrative is more focused on immersion into the culture but with the help of others. Students with relativism usually do homestays and they have a good foundation of the language. Experiential narrative is also like relativism, its full culture immersion but without a guiding hand. Students with an experiential narrative will go self reflect after their experience. I wondered which narrative then should students have to fully gain the best experience of studying abroad. Personally I would like relativism because then you are learning about the culture and you take more from your experience. Also you have someone to help you understand the country and its values by speaking to others.

 

The second article by Bennett addressed two different communctions. Monocultural and intercultural communication. It very interesting to hear that one can have a similarity based language or a difference based language. Bennet made me go back to my life and think about which communication I used. I think I use monocultural communication because I usually speak to people or think about things that are similar to my tastes or comfort. I don’t leave my comfort zone to learn about something in another country. For example when grocery shopping I noticed I go to the aisle with african food. I usually don’t go into an aisle containing asian food for example.

 

I read Jennie’s post. She about how students coming from abroad usually think they need to have been changed by something. Transformation is not for everybody. I agree with her. Sometimes one learns something but you just don’t want to bring it  into your life. So not everyone is transformed by their experience.