The present article analyzes the service-learning experiences of US students during a short-term study-abroad trip to Germany in July 2017. The study identified a key, overarching challenge: the gap between students' expectations and the actual study-abroad outcome. The overall service-learning study-abroad experience was deemed very positive for…

In 2013, the so-called Viducation project was launched at the Institute of Romance Studies at the University of Kiel4 (CAU) as a reaction to the new Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts degree programmes in order to improve students' learning skills and core competences by creating subject-related videos. Filmmaking by students is already widely…

Empathy is widely perceived and understood as an unquestioned component of Intercultural Competence (IC). The authors see the ability to empathise with others and to see their point of view as an important condition for developing an ethnorelative viewpoint, and therefore consider it important to incorporate activities into the intercultural…

This paper describes an experiential education course designed to enhance student learning while abroad. Studies have shown that students studying abroad need specific interventions in order to profit fully from the immersive experience. The article describes a sequence of task-based interventions designed to prompt students to engage with the…

Against the theoretical background of world society and learning challenges related to globalization processes the article deals with empirical findings from two qualitative-reconstructive studies on learning experiences of young people. The first is a study on young people in Germany engaged in child sponsorship programmes for children in the…

The claim to strive for greater internationalisation in the fields of academic education not only corresponds to the pressures of an increasingly globalised world but is also a response to the ever-growing challenges of cultural diversity that exist within one's own country. For students, however, the geographical space relevant to their education…

This two-year quantitative study analyzes students' experiences during migration experiential learning study-abroad programs in 2017 and 2018 in Munich, Germany. U.S. students worked with German refugee organizations to gain a more comprehensive understanding about the political, social, and cultural complexity of Europe's current migration…

This article deals with a concept helping to reflect on teaching practice in the project "Kolumbus-Kids" at Bielefeld University. Lesson reflection aims at the mediation and training of certain teaching competences of student teachers, and therefore self-reflection is promoted by using the newly developed reflection wiki, its videotaping…

Most of the projects aimed at making migrants more successful in the context of higher education in Germany focus on programmes that introduce the rules and expectations of the university to students and try to change their habitus. This article discusses a multilingualism project conducted in a German university that strives to go beyond this…

Computer-mediated communication and remote collaboration has become an unexceptional norm as an educational modality for distance and open education, therefore the need to research and analyze students' online learning experience is necessary. This paper seeks to examine the assumptions and expectations held by students in regard to…

In 2014, the Faculty of Management and Economics at Witten/Herdecke University introduced its first international programme, the MA PPE, which served as a test case within the overall internationalisation strategy. Despite the challenges detailed in this paper the overall implementation deemed successful. The university derived many valuable…

Background: Although culture is deeply embedded in language, cultural proficiency is not always gained during language learning. Experiential pedagogies that emphasize reflection may be appropriate for such learning. Purpose: This research explored pupils' self-awareness as they engaged in the co-construction of personal life stories in one…

This mixed method case study explored globalization and complex relationships through a virtual exchange project between students from Germany and Colombia in upper intermediate level English classes. We believed by providing a space for online conversation, written collaboration and discussion, students would enhance their plurilingual and…

This article examines the discursive construction of social presence and identity in a bilingual collaboration between tertiary distance learners of German in New Zealand and Academic English students in Germany. Drawing on positioning theory, this small-scale study investigated the collaborative practices of a group of students, whose synchronous…

In line with previous studies, where outdoor nature experience was shown to support adolescents' environmental knowledge, our study monitored the influence of a hands-on environmental programme within a National Park on cognitive knowledge achievement. A sample of 4th and 5th graders (n = 289) completed a week-long outreach conservation programme…