“Study abroad and the city: Factoring space into the experience of international education”
Prof. Phil Benson
Applied Linguistics and Director of the Multilingualism Research Centre at Macquarie University
Abstract:
To the many factors that are now considered relevant to study abroad (SA) and international education (IE) – programme type and duration, age and gender, social interaction and networking, accommodation, and so on – this paper proposes that we should add participants’ uses of urban space. We might imagine SA/IE participants as agents freely roaming the wide open and richly language spaces of the cities in which they study. But in practice participants make use of only a fraction of the spaces of the cities they temporarily inhabit. Based on data from Hong Kong students studying English overseas (SA) and international students studying English in Sydney, Australia (IE), I will outline some of the factors that shape participants’ uses of urban space and the potential implications of the spatiality of the SA/IE experience for language learning.
Bio:
Phil Benson is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Multilingualism Research Centre at Macquarie University. His current research interests are in language learning and space, urban multilingualism and, especially, the learning and use of English in multilingual societies.