How best to prepare students for short-term study abroad programmes, based on their expectations and experiences

The focus of this paper is to improve the pre-departure and preparation sessions for students participating in a short-term study abroad programmes. Focusing on a group of students from the University of Yamanashi, Japan, going to Canada, pre-departure and post-return questionnaires, and self-report journals were used to determine the expectations, fears and goals of the participating students, as well as how they dealt with critical incidents in-situ. The results revealed that while improvement of speaking and listening skills were the main goal, these were also the areas that presented the most difficulty. Addressing cultural-linguistic barriers, as well as encouraging students to be more informed about the host culture, as well as their own culture, were revealed to be areas where improvements could be made in pre-departure preparation. Sessions of this type could be applied to other university short programmes in the future.