A Polish proverb says "The more I travel, the more I learn". The belief in this proverb was evident as I interviewed 15 students who want to participate in the Erasmus student exchange program this year. This is a popular European program where students can study at another school for a semester or a full year and receive full credit from their home institution. They have to pass a language interview to make sure that they can study in the language at the other university. Many of the classes are offered in English, so I got visit with students who applied to programs in Belfast, Denmark, Portugal, Turkey, Iceland, the Czech Republic, and France. It was fun (and refreshing) to hear their reasons for wanting to study abroad. They all hoped to improve their language skills. They were eager to meet people from other cultures and get to understand different perspectives of the world. They all recognized that the chance to study abroad would be an incredible growth experience for them. Wish I could convince all of my students at home to adopt a similar attitude : )
The students did very well with their English and most of them were also studying at least a third if not a fourth language. Very impressive. One was even studying Japanese! (very unusual in Poland).
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