IEREST Module zur Optimierung des Auslandsstudiums

Nowadays participation in study abroad is no longer a privilege for the very few. Thanks to the Lifelong Learning Programme, and now Erasmus +, it is promoted at all levels of higher education (Bachelor, Master, PhD), and even within secondary schools, and has involved millions of students in the last decades; it is also seen as one of the most effective instruments of internationalisation. Spending a period studying abroad is not a new practice: it dates back to antiquity and has always been appreciated as the best way to learn about different countries, cultures, people and languages. What is new regarding student mobility is the growing understanding of the need to be properly prepared for such a sojourn in order to maximise the benefits offered by this experience, also from an intercultural point of view. Still quite often such preparation is limited to providing practical information about the host institution or country (like finding accommodation or buying a SIM-card), or culture-specific information which often transmits a non-problematic and stereotypical view of a national culture (such as “The French are…” or “the Germans are not….”). Indeed, intercultural preparation is very seldom offered to mobile students, partly because of the difficulty in finding appropriate teaching materials which are culture-general, and therefore usable with all students, regardless of their destination. This is the gap that IEREST, the project presented here, aims to fill.