Language Ideologies and the Experiences of International Students

Through their language policies, universities favour particular languages in the process of learning and this challenges the value, inclusion and power of other languages. This chapter explores this issue from the perspective of international students through a series of task-based focus group interviews that concentrate on the University of Helsinki language policy and which have been analysed using discourse analysis methodology. The findings suggest that while the university is supportive of the development of language proficiency and values languages in general, many languages which are present in the international student body are not used actively for study purposes.