Introduction
This paper explores the issue of language barrier in the advancement of academic exchange programs across the globe. Academic exchange programs have become common with the growth in the pattern of interactions between countries. The patterns of cross-national interactions in diverse fields are being enhanced as a result of globalization.
One notable area in global interactions is the growth in socioeconomic exchanges between countries. It is now common to find people of different nationalities spread in a number of countries around the world. The trends in the education sector denote growth in the academic exchange programs.
However, it should be noted that different countries have diverse lingual dimensions, which makes it hard to achieve the objectives of academic exchange programs. In this paper, it is argued that language is one of the main impediments to the efficiency and effectiveness of academic exchange programs between countries. The paper begins by expounding the problem of lingual variation in education. This is followed by the development of possible solutions to the problem of language in cross national academic exchange programs.
Kallen (12) observed that globalization has paved way for various developments. From the last quarter of the 20th century, exchange and the mobility of people have become a common phenomenon in the academic field. Among the most critical developments of globalization is the reduction in cross-national transactions.
One sector that has attained growth as a result of globalization is the education sector. The global education sector has largely expanded due to economic globalism. It is critical to note that the number of foreign students in the world today is higher than it has ever been recorded.
With academic institutions working to ensure that they put in place modalities of increasing efficiency in cross national education, the issue of language has come out as one of the main impediments to the attainment of the desired results in such programs. It is critical to explore the nature of problems that are brought about by lingual variations in the contemporary globalized world. The exchange and mobility in the academic realm is highly impeded by the difference in national languages (Kallen 14).
National languages have been restricted to people from given countries for a relatively long period of time. Most of the national languages that are spoken and used for making transactions in a substantial number of countries were derived from international migration and colonialism. These languages vary from one country to the other depending on the colonial master that colonized each country.
Nations that were colonized adapted languages from their colonial masters and use these languages as second languages, in spite of depicting the languages as national languages.
Therefore, the issue of the prevalence of diverse local dialects in a substantial number of countries is an impediment to the learning of national languages, and by extension a barrier to the learning and usage of international languages in communication. The existence of a lot of local dialects in the world adds to the complexity of language adoption in the global scene.
Language remains to be one of the critical factors in communication. Learning is highly based on the use of language to make meaning out of the different concepts that are passed across.
It can be argued that it becomes impossible to advance education without language. While the lack of coherence in language is a barrier to education, the presence and embrace of diverse languages in the world has also been cited as an impediment to the advancement of cross national systems of education. There are major languages today that are used in different countries and regions in the world today.
The major languages that are used in the world today include ‘English, French, Germany, Española, Italian Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic’. These are termed as the international languages. Most countries use certain international languages as the official languages. This implies that the language that is chosen by a country as a formal language is used in making most of the formal transactions, among them teaching and education in general (Baker 419).
Variation in language is something that cannot be overemphasized. It is quite visible in the spectra of education and the challenges that are witnessed in advancing academic exchange between students and researchers from countries that use different languages. However, more students are registering to advance their academics in different countries in the world.
This is not a problem when it applies to students from countries that use similar languages. However, this is more problematic in cases where students are drawn from countries that use different languages. An example that can be given here is the academic exchange between an Arab speaking country and an Anglo speaking country. The variation between these two languages totally impedes free communication.
Free communication and educational exchange can only be attained in cases where people from either of the countries have studied the languages to the level at which they can effectively use them in communication. Language is a defining factor for cultural adaptation, thus the difficulties in language learning or the language gap often prevent students from adapting to a given culture. This, in turn, makes it difficult for students to fit within the academic systems that are used in in foreign countries (Gonzalez 66).
According to Kallen (12), mobility in education is only easily attained in situations where the countries or regions involved in such mobility and exchange use similar language.
However, this does not imply that regions or countries that do not use similar national languages do not embrace academic exchange programs. Exchange programs happen in such situations, but on a very minimal scale. The rationale behind the observation is the existence of the greater variation that is brought about by the barrier in language between nationalities of the countries or regions involved. This expounds on the scale of the problem of lingual barriers on education in the globalized world.
Language has been termed as a push factor in as far as the mobility and exchange in education in the world are concerned. Language only acts as a pull factor in a restricted number of scenarios, such as the educational mobility between countries that converge on a single language; for instance the English speaking countries like USA, Australia and the European Union nations (OECD 278).
Diversity in languages has been found to impede the advancement of academic exchange programs since institutions are forced to put in place mechanisms of language compatibility, which is critical in facilitating the exchange of ideas in diverse academic institutions. On the other hand, it has been noted that students from the non-native countries still find it challenging to advance their academics because of having a poor background in the language that is used in education in the foreign country.
Therefore, they end up earning undesirable grades not because they do not comprehend concepts, but out of the mere fact that they cannot easily express issues in the foreign language. This case has commonly been reported in the academic mobility and exchange between the Arab countries and the Western countries. Students from the Arab world are often termed as victims of language gap in the Western academic institutions (Gonzalez 66).
The problem of language gap in the contemporary society is proving to be a real impediment in international access to education by millions of people across the world. There is need to address the problem of language gap in education since it has proven to be quite problematic in academic mobility and exchange in the contemporary globalized world.
It is important to note that several mechanisms have been activated in order to help bridge the lingual gap in educational mobility and exchange across the globe. The main concern is whether these efforts can fully iron out the lingual gap, bearing in mind that language learning is a process.
However, an assessment of the mechanisms utilized has denoted a positive trend in language learning by both individuals and institutions as a way of bridging the lingual gap in academic mobility. There has been a significant growth in the number of internet software programs that are used in for learning different languages. The number of people who are using these programs is also rising at an accelerating pace (Rassool and Canvin 122).
This is a positive pointer in multilingual development across the globe. Taking advantage of the internet tool in advancing multilingualism is a critical move because a substantial number of people in the world today spend more time on the internet. Apart from the use of the internet for advancing the learning of international languages, educational policies are also geared towards advancing international language learning in the world (Gonzalez 67).
The other tactic that is being deployed by various academic institutions across the world entails the embrace of language speaking, learning and tests or the non-native speakers who have an interest in advancing their education in other countries. However, this is not an all-inclusive remedy. It is restricted to only the people who are interested in academic advancement in other countries.
An example of such a scheme is the ‘Top English Language Fluency Test’, which is programmed for students from the non-native English speaking countries. These programs are short and are used to sharpen the lingual skills of students so that they can easily adapt to the given foreign language that is used in education in the given country (Gürüz 136). Therefore, it cannot be taken as a comprehensive mechanism of bridging the language gap that prevails in the world and its impact on academic mobility and exchange.
Conclusion
From the discussion above, it can be concluded that language is one of the main restricting factors in the mobility and exchange of education in the world.
Several efforts have been directed towards the improvement of international language learning in a substantial number of countries in the world. The efforts are replicated in the increase in the number of academic exchange programs in the world today. However, there is still a significant gap in language in the contemporary globe, which is still bound to affect educational mobility and exchange.
Works Cited
Baker, Colin. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, 2011. Print.
Gonzalez, Virginia. Second Language Learning: Cultural Adaptation Processes in International Graduate Students in U.S Universities. Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America, 2004. Print.
Gürüz, Kemal. Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy. Cambridge, MA: Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 2005. Print.
Kallen, Denis. “New Perspectives on Academic Exchange between Eastern and Western Europe.” Higher Education in Europe 15.1(1990):12-22. Print.
OECD. Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators. Paris: OECD, 2003. Print.
Rassool, Naz, and Maggie Canvin. Global Issues in Language, Education, and Development: Perspectives from Postcolonial Countries. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2007. Print.