College of Liberal Arts

Traditional research on cultural adjustment focuses on the sojourner's experience within a foreign country. Sojourners never travel or move into a vacuum, however, and the missing component of such a focus is the experience of those who come into contact with these sojourners. In order to demonstrate the need to expand research on cultural adaptation, results from a case study are presented. The context for the case study is English language education in South Korea. Narratives of experience were collected from 26 South Korean university students based on their interaction with native-English-speaking teachers. Results demonstrate that students experience aspects of cultural adjustment when involved in interactions within the classroom setting.