Abstract:

Mobility programmes enable students to study and work abroad each year, as well as they support co-operation actions between higher education institutions around the world. In addition, few programmes launched by the European Union have had a similar Europe-wide reach to the Erasmus mobility programme. On the one hand, around 90% of European universities take part in the mobility actions and 1.9 million students have participated since it started in 1987. On the other hand, the annual budget is €400 millions and more than 3,100 higher education institutions in 31 countries participate. We could also claim that the Erasmus mobility programme has also helped to better understand the European Union as a multicultural zone where people need to communicate in other languages and with other cultures. In this sense, the universities have tried to provide the conditions for learners to develop multilingual and intercultural competence, encouraging internationalization of the universities by means of teaching languages, mobility actions, and giving support to networks and European projects.
However, although mobility actions are popular among European students, little research has been conducted on the impact of mobility actions on linguistic and non linguistic aspects of learner development. From this perspective, this paper focuses on two of the theoretical benefits of students’ participation in the Erasmus programme, mainly language learning, and intercultural awareness. Thus, first the study reports on students’ participation in mobility programmes at the University Jaume I. Then, on the basis of students’ motivation to take part in mobility programmes the present study analyses the impact of students’ participation in the Erasmus programme on language gains, intercultural awareness and changes in beliefs and perceptions after the study abroad. Finally, some pedagogical implications are suggested.

Keywords:

English language, mobility programmes, high education, multilingual competences, intercultural competences.