The Effectiveness of International Student Exchange Programs between Japan and Korea: From the Survey of Korean Schools

<p>This study explored the effectiveness of international student exchange programsby surveying Korean schools that established sister-school relationships with Japanese schools. The methods of research are interviews and analysis of students’ documents. The interviews were accomplished with teachers in charge of the exchange programs at 4 schools in Korea.</p><p>As Japanese has been adopted as a second foreign language at many high schools in Korea, there are demands to establish sister-school relationships with Japanese schools as part of the learning. In contrast, there is a limited number of schools in Japan which teach Korean and there is no system to connect with schools in two countries.</p><p>The main types of exchange programs are homestay, class experience and collaborative activity program. Students who participated in the homestay program started to be interested in their homestay host family members and the interest led to change in the perception of Japan and Japanese people. In addition, exchange programs motivated the interest in learning Japanese.</p><p>However, there are obstacles to overcome in the international sister school exchange programs. First, the success of exchanges is influenced by an accidental factor. Second, there were no systematic exchange programs between Japan and Korea. Third, as there is a lack of systematization in establishing a sister school partnership, some limited school members participate in the program. Finally, in addition to these issues, Japanese schools need to switch their focus to the broader foreign language education rather than English-only education.</p>