Normandy Business School

Proposal for French Language and Culture

Programme

1. Introduction : Normandy business school whose origins date back to 1871,

is a business school of choice that provides pre-experience and continuing
education in a quality, student-centered learning environment. The school runs
three campuses in Caen, La Havre and Deauville. Every year, more than 1,400
students study business at Normandy Business School. The school, in to
consolidate its position in International relations has 115 international
academic tie ups and sends about 200 of its students overseas every year. It
also welcomes about 90 International students who represent about 30
different nationalities. These students spend anything between 3-12 months in
France. Since these students come from a variety of different backgrounds it
becomes very important to carefully plan and implement an integration
module for the incoming foreign students.

The aim of the research is to define concretely the needs and requirements of
International students at EMN and design a training plan for the same.

2. Target Audience : the target audience will be primarily the International

students arriving at the Campus of Caen (majority of incoming foreign
students choose Caen) and in later stages the students at other sister campuses.
In all, about 90 students are inducted by the school in all its campuses. These
international students come from Americas, West Europe, East Euro, Africa,
Far East and Australia. These students are usually in the age group of 18-26.
Most of the students are not native French speakers but speak either of English
or French, however, some are not fluent in either of the two languages. The
students have to undertake language proficiency tests at the time of application

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 to be admitted to the course

3. Problems faced by International Students :

• Cultural Shock

• Housing

• Transport

• Food

• Bills

• Bank account

• IT/Internet

• Friends/Networking

• Legal requirements

4. Research Objectives : the research project has three main objectives.

These are discussed below :

• Language : the first objective is to evalute the current language training

content in place and revise the same based on student requirements. This will
be based on the analysis of research results of lingual needs of the
International students.

• Adaptability : the second objective is to design a curriculum and a set of

extra curricular activities based on the adaptability cycle of an international
student in order to provide them a comfortable learning environment and easy

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 adaptability in the new environment.

• Implementation : the third and the most critical objective would be to

establish a control method to implement the changes and set measures to
verify the productivity of the given measures

5. Sources of Information: since the programme is designed specifically

for the international students at Normandy Business School, the data for
analysis would be collected from the International students who have already
been to Normandy Business school as an International student. During the last

decade, the school has hosted a huge number of International students. We

would, in collaboration with the International students coordinator, send
questionnaires to these students via email. They would also be contacted via
Telephone. For a fair representation, at least 5 students from each partner
school would be sent these questionnaires and out of the respondents a total of
two would be included for the research process.

6. Literature to be Considered:

• Uehara and Hicks, (1989) Finance, loneliness, culture shock, educational

communication, lack of understanding, language etc

• Antonio (1989), Finsterbusch (1992) difficulty in making friends

• Church (1982), homesickeness, depression, loss of loved ones, time pressure,

adjustement to food and climate etc

• Ward, Bochner and Furnham (2003), The psychology of cultural shock

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7. Theoretical Areas to be addressed :

• Communication : Communication is one critical challenge in the

Cross cultural context as most of our incoming students are not native french
speakers. The key elements of Communication will we be addressed and
evaluated would be as under :

• Language The language level required to be able to gain from the

academic and other courses provided at school

• Message The ability to be able to put across a message and to be

understood in the same context as desired

• Receiver Be competent as a receiver and be able to better

understand the meaning of the talker in the local context.

• Adaptability : It will not be the same set of rules that will apply to
the adaptability of all our international students. Based on their culural
backgrounds, students will have different needs, requirement and will have
different behavior. Some aspects important to be addressed are as follows :

• Cultural shock : theory would guide us through the needs and

requirements of the students based on the specific stage of Cultural
shock that they are going through. Analysis of the same would help in
better selection of activities.

• Day to day routine : several problems of the day to life can

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 interfere in the students experience and academic performance.
Aspects like transport, food, internet etc will be analyzed for the same.

• Evaluate and appreciate the french system : It was also

very important for the incoming international students to better
understand the French way of life and doing things and be able to
evaluate it from both a positive and critical aspect. This can be done by
specfic activities.

• Academic focus : The primary purpose of any international student

would be academic focus. It is important to pay attention to the following
factors as well.

• Understand the lectures delivered : A student will not be able

to absorb the essence of the lesson delivered if the he/she does not
posses the adequate language levels required. Students can be tested,
evaluated and coached specifically for the same needs.

• Local literature, news, journals etc : another part of leaning

in a foreign country is through reading the local literature, newspapers,
advertisements, articles etc. The same can be made available to the
students to help them develop their knowledge and language skills.

• Critial apprecition and comparison : most of our students

bring diverse cultures with them. It is a very health exercise to evaluate
and compare the good and bad things of different cultures. Since the
very definition of good or bad can be culturally different, this can be
an enlightening experience for all the parties involved.

• Motivation : the students need to be sufficient motivated at all

times of the year.

• Cultural shock : research theory tells us that there will different

times of their sty abroad when the students will be very low on
motivation. This needs to be addressed after proper identification.

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 • Positive attitude : a feeling of positive attitude, if sufficiently
developed in the students, will not only create a health environment
but also improve results and productivity.

• Feedback for future students : to maintain our healthy relations

with all our international partners, it is quintessential that our incoming
students carry a positive feedback for the other students who might be
interested in coming.

8. Methodology : The methodology would be a two phased research.

◊ In the first phase, we would collect data from the International Students who
have spent an academic year at EMN. The data set will be qualitative,
including at least three International student from all partner universities. To
verify the quality of the responses, all the survey would be passed on via the
International students coordinators (Incoming and Outgoing), who already
share a good rapport with the International students. The questionnaires would
be designed on the basis of the above mentioned set of problems faced by the
students in their academic and professional life. The results will be collated to
prioritize the problems and also to add other problems that might be stated as
answers in the questionnaires. The questionnaires, being qualitative, would
contain more open-ended question than close ended question, in order to
extract personalized problems of the students. This is important because the
students come from completely diverse backgrounds and the problems faced
by one set of students might not definitely apply to the other set.

◊ The Second phase of the research would be theoretical research based on the
available literature and theories. There theories would be carefully evaluated
and selected based on their applicability in the French context. This is quiet a
complex research for the same reason as discussed above. The arriving come

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 from completely different backgrounds and the results of some changes on one
group of students might not affect the other group in the same desired fashion.

With a broad view from the Theories and concrete information from the
Questionnaires, we would be able to draw a training programme for the
International Student co-oridnators, draw a language and culture training
programme for Incoming students and organize coaching session for volunteers
resident students who would like to help International students

9. Action Plan : once approved, the research project would begin in the month
of May

• 15th May : Finalizing of questionnaires

• 16th May : Sending questionnaires via Email and cold calling

• 30th May : Collation of answers and second round of cold calling

• 15th June : Results of the Qualitative surveys

• 30th June : Finalization of Literature and theory review

• 30th July : Submission of First draft of research project

• 10th Aug : Submission of Final draft after feedback

• 15th Aug : Staff orientation

• 20th Aug : Staff training

• 1st Sept : Implementation for academic year 2010/11

The financial aspect of every action plan will be dealt at individual level.

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10.Key Partnerships :

• Language coaches : First, the school already has a team of professional

French language teachers. The students would be split into different
groups, based on their language levels and numbers, and allotted to
different teachers. The evaluation from these language classes can also be
made a part of the curriculum. Second, special events such as coffee table
talks, seminars, movie screening etc would be organized in the school
campus to further involve the students in learning the language

• Banks and other administrative offices : the French banking system

is the most essential requirement of the Non-EU students on arrival. They
cannot conduct even basic financial transaction like paying rent etc
without a bank account. The school already has a tie-up with BNP Parisbas
which offers attractive facilities to the students. Other administrative
formalities such as CAF, Carte de sejour, Apartment insurance etc also
need to be made a part of the research project. After the results of the
project, special emphasis would be laid on the key concern areas where the
students faced the most problems. Additional documentation would be
sent to the students as part of the Pre-departure guide in order to make
them better acquainted with the French administrative system.

• Leisure activities : it is very important to involve the international

students in day to day leisure activities for a real exposure and
understanding of the French culture. The student organization, Global
Village, is already quiet active in the domain and organizes a lot of event
all round the year of international students. Through the results of the
research project, we will also be able to identify which activities are liked
the best and by students and which ones offer a scope of improvement.
This data can be used to further plan events and activities for the following
academic years. Also, a lot of foreign students, especially Non EU
students travel to other European countries around France. It can also
helpful to make a finding if students would like to joint trips to foreign
capitals be organized by the school. This can act as a strong integrating
activity as a lot of students, who might not have the opportunity to interact

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 in normal course of time will get an opportunity to spend a lot of time
together. Tie ups with Travel agencies can offer attractive rates for group
activities for students.

11.Potential measures to address the problems :

• Training for Cultural Shock

• Tie up with Residences/ Co-ordination with local students

• Buddy programme for the 1st week/ Distribution of details/ Website

• Introduction to food habits, variety etc

• Buddy programme/ grouping of International students/ Former students

• Direct co-ordination with partner banks/ Orientation session

• IT session with IT Dept/ Buddy sessions

• Group tasks/ Class outings/ Intra course academic activities

• Session for Legal programmes/ Buddy programme

12.Conclusion :

The research will be conducted on the present and past years data available
with the school authorities and will give a sufficiently accurate guide map for
the future. We very strongly believe that this research project will help us
identify and improve upon the key critical areas. This will have a positive
impact on the overall experience of the international students, which will
further strengthen our ties with out partners. This will help EMN build even
more on the strong market reputation it has build based on its international
partnerships all across the globe.