Two articles of interest recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The first article considers the once “untestable” idea that “language might shape thought….A flurry of new cognitive science research is showing that in fact, language does profoundly influence how we see the world”:

Franz Strasser, a digital reporter for BBC World News America and originally from Germany, files a video report about his return to Mayo, Florida, where he spent the 2001-02 school year as a high school exchange student living with the Gresham family. For the Greshams, hosting an exchange student was not only about broadening their horizons, but also about adding another member to their family.

In today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Wendy Williamson, director of study abroad at Eastern Illinois University, tackles the question of why as few as 1.5 per cent of college students travel overseas to study every year. She cites a 2008 report by the American Council on Education and the College Board to find a reply:

“If you speak to a man in a language he understands, you speak to his head,” Nelson Mandela once said. “If you speak to him in his own language, you speak to his heart.”

Mobility International USA produced a ten-minute video (below) highlighting the success of high school students with disabilities who are participating in international exchange via the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program. The video includes interviews with several YES participants, as well as their American host families, teachers, and classmates, who all note what a positive experience hosting exchange students in their homes and communities has been.

Rather than acting as a distraction or undermining educational outcomes, study abroad experiences result in improved academic performance, InsideHigherEd.com reports in an analysis of the results of a ten-year University System of Georgia study.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) released last week an “InfoBrief” detailing the number of foreign science and engineering (S&E) students enrolled at U.S. universities:

A “comprehensive partnership” between Indonesia and the United States—to deepen relations and increase educational exchanges, including expanding the Fulbright program in Indonesia—is “steaming ahead,” reports the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“It's definitely encouraging to be around people who speak many different languages. It makes me want to be more worldly,” said Maddy Lafuse, a high school student in Columbia, Maryland, participating in STARTALK, the newest component of the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI). The Baltimore Sun profiled this week the students participating in STARTALK at Howard Community College (HCC):

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale was in Nairobi, Kenya, this week to announce the launch of a new competition called Apps4Africa, Computerworld Kenya reports: “The contest, which will run till end of August, challenges local coders and software developers to create software tools that will meet the needs of citizens across East Africa.”