Japanese university students’ longing for an idealized France and encounters with global English in Europe

Japanese college students’ akogare (meaning “longing”) for an idealized West has conventionally been researched and discussed under the assumption that the West is synonymous with Anglophone countries and that an encounter with the West is categorically an international experience. The present study provides new insights by exploring Japanese college students’ longing for an idealized France through a content analysis of blogs and reflective entries written by students during or after participating in a French study abroad program. The analysis reveals that Japanese students from prestigious universities display a high level of satisfaction irrespective of how well they are able to use French. This finding, which is intertwined with the nature of fun-oriented study abroad programs, is also related to the widespread use of English in Europe. The linguistic discovery reminds students of the overriding global status of English vis-à-vis French as a regional language. The study provides future research directions and pedagogical implication in light of (1) increasingly fierce competition for the securement of language course takers, which drives the institutional reproduction of language ideologies and the implementation of fun study abroad programs, and (2) the long-term effectiveness of such ideology-driven survival strategies amid the changing popularity of foreign languages in Japan and elsewhere.