PanSIG 2025

Who’s afraid of culture shock? Emotions of university students preparing to study abroad

18 May 2025, 13:05

25m

BLDG 8/1F-113 (Kanda University of International Studies (神田外語大学))

Research-oriented Oral Face-to-face presentation Study Abroad B8-113 SAT: Task-Based Learning, GILE & PIE; SUN: Study Abroad, Vocabulary

Speaker

Adam Littleton (Toyo University)

KEYWORDS

study abroad, emotions

ABSTRACT

In both academic and popular literature, culture shock is frequently presented as a universal, uniform, and linear process involving discrete stages; a journey from cultural and linguistic insecurity to one of mastery and competence. To what extent does this tidy conceptualization reflect reality? How do Japanese university students actually feel as they prepare to study abroad, and how well do these feelings conform to the culture shock model? To explore these questions, this small-scale study asked a class of Japanese university students about the emotions they felt as they prepared for their study abroad experiences, and the emotions they anticipated experiencing while abroad. Students were then asked to attribute these emotions, identifying possible antecedents. It was found that, while there is indeed truth to the idea that many students begin their study abroad with deep-seated linguistic insecurity, this anxiety is balanced by a host of other emotions, many of which hint strongly at students’ confidence in their own linguistic and cultural competence. While the culture shock model identifies real generalizable patterns, the linearity, universality, and orderliness which it often implies were found to be rough approximations at best of a far more complex and interesting picture.