SpringerBriefs in Education Early Study-Abroad and Identities - Mun Woo Lee Kartoniert (TB)

This book investigates how transnational English learning experiences can influence students' identities. More specifically it delineates how Korean early study abroad undergraduates perceive English and how they have formed their ethnic identities based on their early study abroad experiences. They tend to see themselves in between two cultures languages and this in-between-ness is the most distinctive common characteristic of their identities. However their in-between-ness means more than being connected to both Korea and America or hybridizing Korean and American discourses. As transnatio nal elites who cross the borders freely they are in a position to be cosmopolitans who can take advantage of the in-between-ness becoming keen critics of dominant cultures in both contexts and potentially social activists who can stand up for social justice. In short the early study abroad experience should be understood not just in terms of language learning but as a process by means of which learners develop social awareness in multiple language-related contexts that can lead them beyond their own circumscribed world of elitism to a position of responsibility for sharing what they have experienced and learned for the benefit of society.