Abstract:

Nowadays the internationalization of higher education throughout the world has become a major feature of institutional life for all stakeholders. What seemed once a far away dream inaccessible to many is now an open window to new and challenging experiences - this globalization has numerous dimensions like providing study abroad opportunities for students, teachers and universities staff, developing partnerships with foreign universities, promoting numerous enriching exchanges, and, of course, hosting international students and scholars.

The Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) tells us that the aim of international education is “to help people gain understanding, acquire knowledge, and develop skills for living in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world.” Mobility exchange programs are this and much more – if the experience is already, as several university studies show, memorable for most students, one can say it is equally memorable and perhaps more important for teachers as they are the first mean to get the information across to students.
This paper focuses on the relevance of the Erasmus staff mobility program that enables teachers to share teaching methods and techniques at the same time as it gives students the possibility to have contact with the knowledge and expertise of academic staff from other European countries. This paper will show how beneficial the creation of links between higher education institutions is and how much higher education has to gain from this as they are given the chance of broadening and enriching the range and content of the courses they offer.
The study was conducted through a teaching assignment conducted between the Estoril Higher Institute for Tourism and Hotel Studies and University College Birmingham with the main purpose of exchanging experiences as far as two main teaching subjects/fields were concerned: Tourism and Foreign Languages.

Keywords:

Exchange programmes, mobility, experiences.