Some people study abroad looking for a chance to see the world, add perspective to their studies, or experience new culture. Then there are the contemptible few who look at study abroad as a chance to extend their summer vacations, taking trips to private beaches and eating sumptuous, multi-course meals as the rest of the country's people starve themselves, or jet setting to nearby countries with beautiful women. Then there are the valiant few who are willing to cast themselves in the far reaches of a foreign country, denying themselves proper bathrooms, clean water or the convenience of English, in order to have a truly foreign experience from anything that one could come in contact with while in the states (unless you happened to drive through West Virginia or upstate New York).
I don't mean to entirely de-legitimize other peoples' reasons for study nor the other places people choose for their study abroad experience. I personally hold the opinion that study abroad best lends its usefulness to people looking for an authentic environment to learn a language. But there are even those who take advantage of larger, more Westernized cities (for example, the students in Beijing or Shanghai) so that they don't have to worry about the shock of being in an environment where a little bit of English will set you further back from where you started. Thus, I propose for all study abroad programs to adopt an environment that does not let students treat it like an extended vacation where grades don't count toward your GPA. This can be done through the language pledge.
At CET Harbin, the day before classes start we recite and sign a language pledge stating that for the length of the program we will only speak in Chinese. They mention listening to English language music with headphones and even go so far as to suggest reducing the frequency by which we contact family and friends in the US, as the slightest utterance of English could corrupt the precious language environment for our fellow students. While this seems extreme, I think that in the week and a half that the pledge has been in effect, my Chinese has already improved. I'm excited to see the point that I'm at by the time October rolls around.
CET Harbin is a tough program. I probably spend about 8 hours every day looking up characters, writing oral reports, which our teachers seem to assign daily, memorizing dialogues and vocabulary and grammar patterns, and trying to do readings on Chinese-US relations that are entirely in Chinese and don't have an English version or a convenient list of vocabulary words in the back. But despite the enormity of my work, if we had not had a language pledge, I most likely wouldn't wake up every morning wanting to bang my head against the wall (unfortunately that would wake my roommate and every other person in this dorm). The work load would be tough but manageable and it would be easier to explain the ridiculous run-ins I have with the real Chinese out on the streets of Harbin. But then it wouldn't really be studying abroad. It would be like I was displaced from Georgetown and the registrar has mistakenly put me into four Chinese classes (something I'm sure that Georgetown could manage to do).
I think the most important part of study abroad is adopting the environment that you are in and allowing yourself to become a part of it. And in this case it means that you need to take on all the difficulties of the language and the language pledge and start defining yourself and your experiences within it and through it.
To me, this is a legitimate study abroad experience.
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