Creating a community of inquiry
In addition to managing what your FSA will look like, you’ll need to consider who will accompany you on this trip. It’s normal that young people who sign up for a once-in-a-lifetime trip will want to meet locals and practise the target language. It’s also normal that these same young people will want to communicate what they’re experiencing to their friends and look cool (usually by doing so in their dominant language). Therefore, it can be said that in any FSA experience there will be two opposing forces: the desire to learn and branch out, and the desire to fit in and build relationships. Ignoring one in favour of the other is unrealistic and probably undesirable. As a language teacher, you’ll need to balance these goals and allow time for both exploration and group bonding. The best way to do this is to create a self-regulating community of inquiry.
A community of inquiry begins with the recruitment process. If you’re careful in the way you build the community before the trip begins, the culture you establish will carry over into the experience itself. The next section will show you how to cultivate appropriate rules and norms for your community from the get-go.