The Need for Abroad Schooling

As the possibilities for further education and specialization slowly enter in the realm of the possible for more and more people, we will find an increasingly higher expectations and requirement by educational institutions, future employers and potential clients. Because of the way our world works and the way trade and communications are intertwined, both international experience and language learning become vital requirements throughout the world and specially in highly developed countries like the United States.

The way languages are taught on a college or university environment is quite limited and not really congruent with what we know now to be the better methods for language learning. Immersion is really the basic premise on which all the successful on-location language learning programs are based on. Research shows that by being constantly surrounded by the language and forces to utilize to communicate and persuade in order to achieve very real objectives gives an incredible boost to the learning capability of language students. Since culture is so intertwined with the workings of the language, being surrounded in the culture that uses that language as a means of interaction and perception also brings many benefits (and increases awareness of other worldviews, societies and beliefs.) It is clear that immersive learning programs are not just an excuse to have a holiday with a tacked on curricula. If you enroll in one of the English schools New York area, you are getting more than a few classes and the chance to see some musicals.

This means that even students with disabilities will be taking foreign language courses abroad more than ever (despite the perceived impossibility for doing so in several contexts.) Students with different disabilities already count for 3% of all college students that are currently studying abroad and, if the estimations by the Institute of International Education are right, this number will only grow in the following years.

Traveling abroad to experience and learn in this kind of language rich environment usually means that you need to overcome certain obstacles. For some people, like Sarah Franz, the obstacles seemed to be a bit harder than for others. Sarah is deaf and had always been discouraged from traveling overseas to learn Spanish when she attended an English school New York City. But as she and many other students with disabilities have told us, just a good deal of planning, creativity, flexibility and the willingness to take a chance is all what is needed to have a successful experience abroad. Sarah ended up going overseas twice as a college student and has come out happier and more confident of herself from the experience.