CONCLUSION

Since internationalization has been emphasized for years, language is

considered an indispensable element in it. With the emphasis of language, these years, more and more organization and institutes are adopting language management. In this study, educational institutes are the main focus to investigate the current language management situation to conduct exploratory study in higher educational institutes.

The relationship among school strategy, LM practices, and international outcome are emphasized the most in this study. In order to figure out the relationship, qualitative study was employed to collect the language management practices to develop the questionnaire materials for preparation of quantitative study. Second, the

questionnaire was designed basing on previous research from literature review and materials from interviews. SPSS was adopted as the tool to analyze data collected including descriptive statistics, correlation and regression.

Current Language Management Practices Applied in Higher Educational Institutes

From interviews conducted, this study found that schools manage language in two ways. First is through the practices of elevating school members’ language ability.

Second is by adopting the practices to create a better language environment in campus.

Figure 5.1 Model of Language Management in Higher Education Institutes

Both purposes are to decrease the language barriers. There are totally 46 LM practices which can be classified into two major groups. This research employed descriptive analysis to discover the top and bottom five LM practices in both language ability and language environment dimensions. The most common LM practices applied to elevate language ability (e14, e16, e17, e18, e20) are mostly designed for local students. On the other hand, there are five least applied LM practices (e4, e5, e13, e21, e22) and three out of five are the practices of setting language requirement (e4, e5, e13). The subject of the other two least applied LM practices (e21 and e22) are professors and faculty members, which indicates that the target of language training are students instead of the other school members. For the LM practices for language environment, the least applied LM practices (c6, c7, c9, c10, c11, c16) consist of two characteristics:

one is that the LM practices are more difficult to apply and the other is that the LM practices are not for urgent need. However, there are still practices applied commonly to create better language environment, for instance, adopting bilingual content in campus signs (c4), providing manual of guidance for international students (c8), encouraging foreign professors to come to exchange and visit (c21), encouraging local professors to go to exchange and visit other schools (c22), and establishing

Language Management

Elevation of Language Ability

Creation of Language Environment

Decrease of Language Barrier

international affair unit (c23). Most of the practices are relatively urgent and easy than the practices least applied. In conclusion, the LM practices could be divided into basic and advanced level in terms of its degree of necessity. This study also found that the LM practices most applied are mainly for students instead of the other school members.

School Strategy Types Influence the Implementation of Language Management Practices

In each type, the extent of involvement in LM practices is different. Prospector is the most active whereas reactor applies language management practices the least.

Defender and analyzer are between them. According to the discussion in chapter four, listing English as a required course (e14) is the practice that each strategy type would apply the most, which is defined as a very basic practice in language management.

Furthermore, different school strategy types would adopt different practices by their strategy characteristics.

In the following section, the different practices in each strategy type will be further described. Both prospector and defender adopt an active approach towards internationalization, but defender tends to have its target market. Thus, prospector and defender are both good at setting up language learning center, language ability policy for foreign students, and language ability service for local students. They are also good at building language environment in campus, even indirect language

environment, which again reflects their activeness towards internationalization. The difference is that defender dedicates more in implementing language learning for faculty members and prospector is involved in organizing courses conducted in English.

For reactor, the results shows the significant negative correlation with LM

practices, which reflects a passive attitude towards internationalization. Language incentives policy is the only basic practice it can easily conduct. Reactor did not really manage language in campus. Analyzer is considered stable; hence, there is no

significant correlation with most LM practice. Indirect language environment is the only LM practice which negatively correlated with analyzer, which shows a

reluctance to set up any practice with little influence.

The Influence of Language Management Practices on International Outcome

First, in the hierarchical regression the variables (including demographics) explained around 33 percent of international outcome and the influence of LM practices is significant because after adding LM practices, the change of R²is 17 percent (∆R² =.166), which greatly increased the power of the model. Besides, language training center is the best practice category which can predict the internationalization outcome, and the schools located in north also predict internationalization better than those in the other regions.

Research Implication

First, this exploratory study of language management designed a questionnaire for research participants to report the implementation level of LM practices. This method may incur many subjective view points and each participant may have

different standards, even though the researcher had clearly defined the standard in the beginning of the questionnaire. Thus, to overcome the subjectivity is one way to increase the validity in the future study. Opinions from other members of the school may be one way to provide more facts.

Second, for interview part, the explanation of LM concept is necessary because

of unfamiliarity of the term. What’s more, in the research design, interviews were only intended to discover the current situation of LM and LM practices in

universities/colleges, but it is more time-consuming to contact interviewees and organize data. Accordingly, the research method could be adjusted little. The search for LM practices on website should be emphasized more. As for the interview, it can be used to obtain some other perspectives of importance from Dean of international affairs, which will be more effective in collecting data.

At last, the interviewees and questionnaire participants are all in high position of school, so they are relatively busier. The difficulties of research participation can be easily imagined, so the patience and passion of research need to be shown in front of them. Moreover, in this study, an incentive in the value of NT$ 100 gift certificate from convenient store was offered to encourage questionnaire participants to answer, which is an effective way to show appreciation of the researcher and may have contributed a lot to the 74% response rate in a month.

Practical Implication

For schools interested in internationalization, they first should be aware of the necessity of the international affair unit, which is the LM practice most applied in the dimension of language environment. Second, each school has its advantage in

internationalization because different school situation will result in different need for LM practices. In other words, when schools devote more care in the alignment between strategy and LM practices, the more beneficial is the effects.

Though students are the important focus in internationalization for most schools according to the survey result, schools should put more emphasis on the language ability of other school members as well to elevate the language ability of all school members. The result shows that language learning center can bring in positive effect in internationalization. Language learning center is not only set up for students but

can also be beneficial for other school members.

Limitation

First, during qualitative stage, although universities of high international outcome were chosen, it may not cover LM practices applied in all schools. Second, the effectiveness of LM practices should be evaluated by all school members to ensure the neutrality and objectivity. However, the school members include

international and local professors, international and local students, faculty and staff members. With 163 universities and colleges in Taiwan, it is not easy to conduct such research in a census survey.

Secondly, the unfamiliarity of the term “language management” confuses the study participants. Hence, the term “internationalization” is used to lead them to talk about language management practices. Furthermore, to test the effects of language management practice towards internationalization outcome, the international student number is the only index adopted in this study to measure the internationalization, while the degree of internationalization cannot only be seen from it. Hence, it would be considered as one limitation as well.

This study intends to uncover the language management practices in schools whereas it is delimited to higher education institutes in Taiwan on account of the study focus. Besides, in the qualitative stage, only top nine universities/colleges of 163 in Taiwan with great performance in recruiting foreign students are chosen. The result from this preliminary study may be limited to the experiences of these interviewed schools.

Suggestions for Future Research

LM is a research subject surfaced in recent years, therefore, the literature is

internationalization and communication. How to construct organized LM literature and build some models and dimensions would be a great contribution to help the research community get the key points more easily. For instance, Feely and Harzing (2003) organized 11 options to overcome language barriers in organizations, which is really helpful for understanding the subject and for future research.

Besides, in LM field, few empirical studies are found. Future researchers are encouraged to conduct more empirical research with different research samples, including private organizations in different industry sectors, and with diverse research methods to increase the reliability.

Finally, for those who are interested in LM of educational institutes, it is suggested to involve the school members’ feedback to see if there is a gap between decision maker and school members.

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APPENDIX A: Interview Question

1. What is the degree of internationalization your school involved?

2. Would you please share the internationalization policies that your school has now?

3. What are the language assistances and requirements does your school have from the registration of international/local students to graduation?

4. What are the language assistances and requirements does your school have for other school members except students, such as administrative personnel, professor, and personnel of guidance system?

5. By the impact of internationalization, what are the adjustments of language requirement for local students, professors, and faculties? And what are they?

6. What are the changes of teaching and curriculum because of school internationalization?

7. What are the plans to develop international academic performance?

8. What administrative assistance do school offer to support international students?

How’s the language and accessibility of school website? Do you receive any feedback of administrative assistance and website use? What are they?

9. How international is the campus environment of your school?

10. Do schools have plans to cultivate language ability of foreign students? Please explain the difference your school provides for English-dominant and

non-English-dominant students.

11. Would you please share some internationalization practices successfully implemented at school based on your own experience?

APPENDIX B: Interview Question [Text in Chinese]

1. 您認為學校對國際化關注的程度為何？

2. 是否可以請您分享學校目前國際化的政策有哪些？

3. 想請問學校對於國際學生和本地學生從入學到畢業所提供的語言協助和語言要求有哪些？

4. 想請問學校在校內員工(（如：行政人員、教授、輔導人員）的語言協助和語言要求有哪些？

5. 學校國際化後，對於本地學生、教師及員工的語言要求是否有改變？其語言要求為何？

6. 因應國際化，學校在教學和課程上的調整為何？

7. 學校是否有擬訂國際學術發展相關計畫？

8. 目前學校給予外國學生的行政協助有哪些？其中網頁建置的設計為何？學生是否有反應學校在行政協助和網站使用上的問題？大部分為何？

9. 目前校園環境內雙語化的情形為何？

10. 學校是如何提供外國學生語言能力培養的協助？針對英語系和非英語系國家的學生是否有不同的措施？其措施為何？

11. 最後是否可以請您依照個人經驗，分享您認為校內國際化目前最成功的幾個實務做法？

APPENDIX C: Questionnaire

Dear Sir/Madam,

First of all, thank you for your time to complete the questionnaire.

Internationalization is the goal that every school has been working on. As a result of internationalization, schools in Taiwan has increased their diversity in student nationality, and hence brought about the language barrier and language management issue. The research hopes to understand the internationalization strategy and language management practices by means of a survey. Your participation in the research is greatly anticipated. The research result will only be used in the research and all responses will be kept confidential. Your efforts and response will make the research result more valuable and representative. Should you have any question, please contact Grace. Thank you.

Best regards,

National Taiwan Normal University Project owner: Dr. Rosa Yeh

Research assistant: Grace Ou E-mail:opc2614@gmail.com Mobile:0912709133

【第一部分】高等教育國際化策略 [Part 1] Internationalization Strategy

In the section, the questions aim to understand the internationalization strategy that adopted by colleges. The question items represent the internationalization strategy. Please select the response that you believe would most represent your school. Internationalization in the research includes student recruiting,

在文檔中語言管理於大學院校國際化的影響 (頁 64-90)