About

Upon our return, after we’d had time to process our experiences, we realized that what was supposed to be a learning experience for our students had also become a self-reflective experience concerning our own pedagogical beliefs and practices. How effectively had we prepared students and incorporated local culture into our teaching overseas? How many group activities should we have planned and how many opportunities should students have had to explore on their own? How did we evaluate what students had learned? Were the outcomes of study abroad sufficient to justify the months of preparation, the risks of travelling abroad, and the astronomical price tag?

In order to answer these questions, in 2019 we applied for and received a grant from Programme d’aide à la recherche sur l’enseignement et l’apprentissage (PAREA) to conduct a qualitative study of the issues surrounding language learning in the context of study abroad. The goal of our study was to better understand how both new and experienced teacher-facilitators might maximize the benefits of study abroad (Fischer & Viens, 2023). We conducted 46 interviews with teachers and students from seven different CEGEPs who had planned, led, accompanied, or participated in study abroad. To analyze our data, we used constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) and narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008), two complementary methods.

The findings from our research allowed us to write several scientific articles on facilitating study abroad, but they did nothing to address the lack of practical, usable material available for teachers. So, having listened to teachers describe the struggles, challenges, and triumphs of FSA, we decided to put together this website with the CCDMD to offer both new and experienced teachers an opportunity to take their study abroad practices to the next level.