ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the reader to TSS, identifies the variables that made it a unique and effective study abroad program, discusses key elements of the program's approach, and analyzes key components that were related to the students’ development of intercultural competence. ELT, developed over the past several decades by David Kolb and others, defines learning as the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. An Academically Integrated Port Program enabled the students to examine overlapping social, political, environmental, cultural, and business issues across cultures and countries by providing lectures, orientation to the city, visits to relevant organizations, various project and tourist sites, and participation in service-learning and other experiential activities that were designed and led by TSS staff in collaboration with local facilitators. Differences in cultural concepts and practices were ever-present: differences in the treatment of time, in expectations about dress, in communication and conflict management styles, in views and practices.
