In order to come to some real qualified answers of nowadays concerning preconceptions of other ,cultures’, we might have a look into a study of Stangor et al. who has discovered that often (american) exchange-students who had very positive thoughts about the host-country changed their opinions to a less positive thinking. The reason should be that “students come to the host-country with overly positive perceptions of the host country, which are modified during the stay”[3].[4] Why do students spend a semester abroad? Is it in order to improve one’s curriculum vitae because ‘it got very popular’ to go to a foreign country for some time as Salzmann (2015) writes? Referring to her article, volunteering – as an example of going abroad – is often used for cheap tourist-trips, in order to ‘get to see the world’. Could one compare studying abroad with volunteering abroad? If, in Salzmann’s words some students might be “sick of studying and don’t know yet what to do with all those future possibilities”.[5] But also maybe, inspired by Salzmann, studies abroad are so in common because mostly students are able to do so! Being in the age of twenty or mid-twenties and having the financial opportunity could encourage mobility. Such a mobility could be seen as an “important opportunity”[6] to see the world.
What is most important for going abroad is to have enough skills. What kind of skills could that be, you may ask. I want to talk about language-skills. Why? - Have you not also questioned yourself when people talk about going on holiday in a country, of which they do not possess the language, how they can communicate there? An answer would be: English. As it is seen today as our world’s language, a language which, in the view of us Europeans, everybody should be able to speak. Is it the world-language? Also about language, but another context: Is going to “get to see the world” the main reason to spend a semester abroad, I asked myself before entering the room where the DAAD-Test in French and the languages Chinese and Spanish and after that in English took place. There I met a guy from a French course one year ago and we talked about his intentions of going to a cooperation-university in France. He told me that you would never have such an easy chance to go abroad and to use your French skills than now as a student because of the cooperation. About the French-Thing: People often complain that in France no one would like to speak English in privacy but also not in public. So if you want to go there you have to speak French. In other European countries English-programmes are more in common. Take the Adam-Mickiewicz-University in Poznan, Poland, where I’m going to study in 2017: I wouldn’t be able to do so if there weren’t English as a tool to communicate! That’s me as an example, but what about the German-Polish-Thing in the academia-life in general? Maybe the rate of foreign students in Poland before 1989 hasn’t been as high as today because of English-taught studies. The language ,Polska’ is – somehow like ,Franҫais’ – known as not as simple as other languages. In fact, for Europeans, most Romanian language native-speakers it is told to be very hard. According to Wächter, countries with rarely spoken languages use English-taught lectures to get attractive for foreign students.[7] Which role do study-programmes that are taught in English play in the decision to study abroad? According to Wächter, there has been a shift in Europe in the early 90ies from moving students and university-teachers to a unification and innovation of the system-structures for example by creating English-taught studies in non-native English countries (Wächter 2003: 88-89). In his text he also highlights the reasons of universities to take this step of internationalization. Most of them would act so in order to attract more students from foreign countries – as I already mentioned about some phrases before. Wächter also mentions that usually the size of a university determines whether English-taught study programmes are introduced. My chosen university in Poland is a very big one, comparing the student-number of 50 000 to the inhabitant-number of around 500 000 of the whole town. (,Warszawa’ by the way has 200 000 Students and 1.7 Million people living in the city.) As you might have already seen, the connection between Germany and Poland, here between German and Polish universities, students and docents is language: English is necessary for the studies, but one should not forget the native language Polish for the daily life! To be able to communicate in my freetime in my study semester abroad, I take Polish-lessons at my university. Isn’t it interesting, how the offer of languages at the language-center at one’s university determines the possibilities to go abroad, or a little bit further: how determines this what ,cultures’ you are able to get to know? To stress the importance I want to bring in the case of my Polish teacher who came to Germany in 1981 only with her partner, leaving her mother and home, and furthermore being pregnant and unable to speak German. The first thing she started was to learn the official language in order to be able to work and live here. Talking about German-Polish-cooperation she showed the opinion that “Language can help in order to fathom the ,soul’ of people”[8].[9]
In order to end my writing, I just want to give you some more information about my intentions of going abroad to Poland which I already brought twice as an example because I didn’t only want to make a German-Polish-comparison. At first glance this writing is about a German-Polish-exchange but behind it a critic on aspects of modern education is hidden. I noticed that often people think that going abroad to a western country’ is a typical sign of modern education. As already has been mentioned some lines before, students go abroad because they are able, don’t know yet what to do and also because it is so common. And that’s why somehow I found it quite sad that countries in east-middle Europe are not taken into the pre-selection of possible study-countries. As numbers are always a concrete sign of something: Kesselhut tells us in his article about making a semester abroad in Poland that only “every fortieth German Student, who does an Erasmus-Semester in a foreign country, goes to Poland”[10]. So, one could argue that nowadays ,internationality’ or ,interculturality’ are so common (or better: people like internationality) that a student only can be a ,real’ one if she or he has once in her student-life been a semester abroad. My motivation to do an exchange-semester, by the way, is to get some distance from my student-life here, to get to see another university and to get much more deeper in touch with the ,Polish’ or former east-bloc-culture as I am now. Cultures are often reduced to food, prejudices and the history. But I think that there are some more aspects to find in ,the Polish culture’. Or, said in the words which Jessica Tschäpe mentions in her blog-entry : “Who is visiting each other is not hating each other!”: I hope my German-Polish-Exchange will not only widen my educational horizon but also encourage the Polish-German-relationship.
[1] Cf: Orlowski, Hubert: „Polnische Wirtschaft“. In: Kobylinska, Ewa; Lawaty, Andreas; Stephan, Rüdiger (Hrsg.): Deutsche und Polen. 100 Schlüsselbegriffe, München/Zürich: Piper 1992, S. 515-522, hier: S. 516.
[2] Cf: Ziemer, Klaus: Grenzen der Wahrnehmung. Das deutsche Polenbild in den letzten 200 Jahren. S. 56-69. In: Weber, Norbert H. (Hrsg.): Die Oder überqueren. Deutsch-polnische Begegnungen in Geschichte, Kultur und Lebensalltag. Band 10. Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation. Frankfurt, 1999, S. 56.
[3] Stangor, C., et al.: Influence of student exchange on national stereotypes, attitudes and perceived group variability. S. 663-675. In: European Journal of Social Psychology 26.4, College Park, 1996, p. 673.
[4] Cf: Stangor et al. 1996: p. 668.
[5] Salzmann, Leonie: Some Self-Reflective Notes and Critical Comments. Voluntourism. 20. July 2015. In: Transnational Routes. Blog. http://transnationalroutes.weebly.com/blog (Stand: 24.11.2015).
[6] Rao, Tengda: Diary of an Exchange Student. 23. July 2015. In: Transnational Routes. Blog. http://transnationalroutes.weebly.com/blog (Stand: 24.11.2015).
[7] Wächter, Bernd: Englischsprachige Studiengänge in Europa. S. 88-108. In: HoF Wittenberg – Institut für Hochschulforschungen der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. (Hrsg.): Die Hochschule . Journal für Wissenschaft und Bildung. Wittenberg, 1/2003, p. 93.
[8] Written Interview on four pages with my Polish-Docent on December the 9th in 2015 after class, p. 4.
[9] Cf: Written Interview on four pages with my Polish-Docent on December the 9th in 2015 after class, p. 2.
[10] Kesselhut, Stefan: Studieren in Polen. Geht in den Osten! Nur wenige deutsche Studenten machen ein Auslandssemster in Polen. Die anderen verpassen etwas. In: Zeit Online. Hochschule. 03.03.2011. In: http://www.zeit.de/2011/10/C-Polen/komplettansicht. (Stand: 22.02.16).