Hello! I work on our study-abroad support team.
People go abroad for all kinds of reasons, and they set off with all kinds of English.
As I write this article, there is something from before and after my own time abroad that I have never forgotten.
Before I first studied abroad, I'm a little embarrassed to say, I thought, "I like English, and my English is probably better than average." I think I took a fair amount of confidence, and pride, in simply being interested in English.
I was due to take part in a study-abroad programme run by a foundation, and before we left Japan, the other participants and I met up. One of them said this:
"I got failing marks in English the whole way through school, you know."
Before departure, we all gave a speech in English about what we were determined to do, and his English was, to put it kindly, far from fluent. To be honest, I remember wondering whether he would really be all right taking on a study-abroad experience with the English he had.
Then came the surprise. After the programme, back in Japan, we gave another round of English speeches at the debriefing session. I was astonished. The one who spoke most naturally, most confidently and most fluently was that same classmate.
I felt a little stung, I admit. But more than that, I felt respect, and wondered: "How much English must he have used out there?" "How many challenges must he have taken on?"
The same length of time abroad, and it can turn out so differently depending on how you spend it. From that experience I learned that, when you study abroad, it pays to care less about where you start and more about "how you spend your time once you're there".
In this article, I'll draw on research and on accounts from people who have done short-term study-abroad stays, and think about what people who make big gains in English, even in a short time, actually do while they're abroad.
First, the short version
To make the most of a short-term study-abroad stay, you don't need to be good at English from the start. What you need is not "I'll speak once my English is good enough" but "I'll get good by speaking".
Looking into the research and into learners' accounts, five points stood out in particular:
- Speak first, expecting to make mistakes
- Give yourself a "one English mission a day" outside class
- Rather than banning Japanese, deliberately build up your English time
- Catch the English you couldn't say on the same day, and use it again
- Set a "small goal" that compares you with yesterday's self
None of them takes any special talent. All of them are things you can start tomorrow.
① People who improve don't wait for a correct sentence before speaking
There is a trap that people who have studied English conscientiously fall into more easily than most: they build the whole sentence in their heads before they speak. "Is this the right grammar?" "It's the past tense, so..." "Is this the right word?" By the time they're done, the conversation has moved on.
In published accounts from people who did short stays abroad, those who felt their English improve keep returning to one phrase: "not being afraid of mistakes".
A university student who spent three weeks in the Philippines names "speaking up actively without fearing mistakes" as what they focused on. Another university student, who spent four weeks abroad, recalls putting "getting my own ideas across before perfect grammar" first in order to improve their speaking.
This is not just pep talk. There is research showing that overseas study experience improved learners' willingness to communicate in English, their speaking ability and how much they spoke up in class.
What matters is not speaking correctly but joining the conversation in the first place.
From today, for example, when a teacher asks you a question, try saying "I think..." before you've put together a perfect sentence. That alone is fine. You can look for the rest of the words afterwards.
Something you can do from today:
"Start a conversation yourself three times a day."
That is enough to begin with.
② People who improve don't let English end when class does
At a language school, you spend several hours a day in lessons. Of course those hours matter a great deal. But on a short-term study-abroad trip, there is another stretch of time that matters just as much: after class is over.
The account of a 56-year-old working adult who spent two weeks on a study-abroad programme is very instructive here.
This learner reportedly made a point of "creating opportunities to use English on their own initiative": joining a buddy programme, attending university classes, ordering for themselves in restaurants, asking questions at tourist sights and asking people in the street for directions.
I think this is an excellent approach. After all, going abroad does not mean that people will automatically start talking to you in English, one after another.
Research, too, regards social interaction and chances to use a second language while abroad as important factors in language learning.
That is why I'd like to recommend a "one English mission a day".
It doesn't have to be difficult. For example:
- Monday: Order your coffee yourself.
- Tuesday: Ask your teacher to recommend a Filipino dish.
- Wednesday: Invite a student from another country to lunch.
- Thursday: Ask a shop assistant how two products differ.
- Friday: Ask someone you've befriended this week about their weekend plans.
Doesn't that make it feel a little less like "I must study English!"?
Turn your daily life itself into a small English classroom. That is where the strength of studying abroad lies.
③ You don't have to go as far as "I'll never speak to another Japanese person!"
As a Japanese student heading abroad, you'll often hear this piece of advice:
"Once you're abroad, don't hang out with other Japanese people."
It's true that if you spent every day with only Japanese people, speaking nothing but Japanese from morning to night, you might not make full use of an English-speaking environment you had gone to such trouble to reach.
But you don't need to avoid Japanese people altogether. If anything, that can leave you mentally worn out.
A study of students abroad, published in 2024, found gains in English speaking across different patterns of social contact, such as students with a lot of contact with local people and students with a lot of contact with other international students. Speaking only to "native speakers" is not necessarily the one right answer.
English is a language used by people all over the world. Filipinos. Koreans. Taiwanese. Vietnamese. If you can talk to someone in English, every one of those conversations is practice.
That is why I'd suggest not "avoiding other Japanese people" but "deciding when you'll spend time in English". It can be as simple as "have lunch with students from other countries", "English only for 30 minutes after dinner" or "make three new friends a week". Rather than forcing yourself into English around the clock, widen the situations in which you use it, bit by bit, on your own initiative. That is enough.
One learner who spent eight weeks abroad likewise recalls spending meals and breaks with friends who were not Japanese, using English, and feeling "I'm really abroad".
④ People who improve don't leave "I couldn't say it!" at that
When you live abroad, it is bound to happen: that moment when you think, "Hang on, how do you say this in English?"
Say you were at a restaurant and wanted another side plate. You couldn't say it. Somehow, gestures got the message across. And then you forgot all about it.
You can get by like that. But if you want your English to improve, this very "I couldn't say it!" is the best study material there is.
That night, look it up: how do you say "another side plate, please" in English? The next day, ask your teacher. And this time, say it yourself.
That way, the expression is no longer a sentence from a vocabulary book. It becomes English you really needed.
In second-language acquisition, getting feedback from the other person mid-conversation, such as a correction or a rephrasing, and then having the chance to use it again is regarded as important. It has also been discussed in research on conversation during study abroad.
There is also research showing that, in foreign-language learning, recalling something from your own memory and using it, known as "retrieval practice", is more effective for retaining vocabulary than simply rereading the answer.
So I'd like to recommend a nightly "just three" memo.
Each day, jot down one of each: ① something you couldn't say, ② an expression you heard for the first time, ③ a sentence you want to use tomorrow.
You don't need ten or twenty. Just three. Then, the next day, use one of them in a conversation with your teacher or a friend. On a short stay, repeating this alone makes for quite intensive learning.
⑤ People who actually improve don't set "becoming fluent" as the goal
I don't really recommend a goal like "I'm going to be fluent in English by the end of this trip!" The reason is that there is no clear benchmark for "fluent". Even after two weeks, you'd find yourself thinking, "I'm still nowhere near fluent...".
What I'd recommend instead is adding one thing you couldn't do yesterday. For example:
- Day 1. I kept asking the teacher to repeat their questions.
- Day 5. More questions made sense the first time.
- Week 1. I answered with only "Yes" or "No".
- Week 2. I could add a sentence giving a reason.
At first, you couldn't start a conversation yourself. Today, you managed to ask, "Where are you from?" That is enough.
In fact, one university student who studied for four weeks recalls that they had asked their teachers to repeat themselves again and again at first, but after four weeks hardly needed to, and could feel their listening improving. This student was also keeping in mind the aim of "speaking English actively and increasing how much I speak".
Study-abroad research, too, has shown that a stay abroad can lead to gains in fluency and overall language ability.
That said, a short stay abroad will not necessarily transform every aspect of your English dramatically.
That is exactly why it matters to notice the small changes.
⑥ Perhaps the people whose English improves are the ones who "fail more often"
Before departure, people sometimes tell me, "I'm anxious because my English isn't good enough." To anyone feeling that way, I especially want to say this.
It's fine to go even if you can't do it yet. If your English is limited when you start, you have plenty of room to improve.
A meta-analysis of study abroad has also confirmed a medium-to-large effect on language acquisition across study-abroad programmes as a whole.
Of course, that does not mean "the weaker your English, the more you will surely improve".
But you make a mistake. You miss what was said. You aren't understood. You say it again. It gets through. Being able to build up that kind of experience is also a privilege of those who aren't perfect yet.
If you want to get better at English, I think it is perfectly reasonable to aim not at never failing, but at going somewhere you can fail plenty with peace of mind.
⑦ On a short-term study-abroad trip, try taking "rules of your own" like these
Let's gather what we've covered so far into a form you can actually use. Before you go abroad, try saving these five in the notes app on your phone.
My five rules for a short-term study-abroad stay
- RULE 1: Even if I get it wrong, I say something first.
- RULE 2: Every day, I do one thing in English outside class.
- RULE 3: Every day, I talk to someone from a different country at least once.
- RULE 4: I take away just three pieces of English I couldn't say.
- RULE 5: I find one thing I did better than yesterday.
If that's all it takes, don't you think, "I could do that too"?
You don't need a talent for English. You don't need a TOEIC score of 800 either (out of a possible 990, a high score on the English test widely taken in Japan). All you need is to take a little action.
Thoughts from the front line
In my work, I'm sometimes asked, "I can only go for two weeks. Is it worth it?" or "Is one month too short?"
Of course, if you can stay for three months, six months or a year, you spend more time in contact with English. But "short" does not mean "pointless".
Picture two weeks in which you talk with your teacher every day, get out into the town, make friends from other countries, look up the English you didn't understand and use it again the next day, repeating all of that. Now picture two weeks in which you attend lessons and spend all the rest of your time in Japanese. Even with the same 336 hours, what fills them is very different.
I think the classmate I met all those years ago, who "always got failing marks in English", must have cared, more than anyone, not about where he started but about how he used each day that followed.
The sting I felt on hearing him speak that day is now a very fond memory. It is also the experience that taught me that "your English ability isn't something settled before you leave".
Editor's note
The biggest thing I learned from my first study-abroad trip may have been less about English itself than this: "you must never judge how a person will grow by how well they could do at the start."
Before we left, he struggled with English. I had a little confidence in mine. Looking only at the starting line, I may have seemed slightly ahead.
But studying abroad turned out not to be a sprint. Who you talked to once you got there. How many times you failed. How many unfamiliar places you went to. How often you spoke up first. It was the accumulation of all that which gradually made the difference.
And now, I'd like to say this to my younger self:
"You don't go abroad to prove what you can already do." "You go so that you can do what you couldn't."
Because the stay is short, every day is precious. But that is no reason to panic. Tomorrow, a little more than today: say one more thing. Try starting with just that.
We, too, want to work alongside you to build a study-abroad experience where you can take on plenty of challenges, and fail plenty, with peace of mind.
References
- Heinzmann, S., Hilbe, R., Ehrsam, K. & Bleichenbacher, L. (2024). Study abroad students' social contacts in different linguistic contexts and their relationship with English use and development. Language Learning, 74(S2), 24–57. DOI
- Kang, D.-M. (2014). The effects of study-abroad experiences on EFL learners' willingness to communicate, speaking abilities, and participation in classroom interaction. System, 42, 319–332. DOI
- Karpicke, J. D. & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968. DOI
- Kim, K., Lee, J. H. & Lee, H. (2024). Systematic review synthesising the effects of study abroad experience on the development of language fluency. Oxford Review of Education. DOI
- Tseng, W.-T., Liu, Y.-T., Hsu, Y.-T. & Chu, H.-C. (2024). Revisiting the effectiveness of study abroad language programs: A multi-level meta-analysis. Language Teaching Research, 28(1), 156–200. DOI