The language choices of exchange students

The Erasmus Programme is the flagship of the EU’s academic exchange programmes. Taking as a point of departure that language proficiency is a key factor of a successful stay abroad, this research focuses on exchange students’ language learning and language choices. It draws on data collected between autumn 2015 and spring 2018 by means of online questionnaires and interviews with more than 500 participants. A major finding is that a large majority of exchange students consider learning the language of the host country an important incentive for their stay. In practice, however, student enthusiasm is often stymied by a lack of adequate language courses and/or poor organisation, leading to students spending most of their time with other exchange students, as opposed to with locals. Countries with popular languages, especially English and French, performed very well in raising linguistic proficiency, while the results in other countries, especially those with less widely spoken languages, where the language of instruction is usually English, varied significantly. The chapter also includes a discussion of the Online Linguistic Support (OLS). It concludes by addressing the question of how the potential of the Erasmus Programme can be better exploited to support multilingualism and language diversity.