Local Students' Adaptation to International Peers: Toward A Reciprocal Model of Intercultural Adaptation in An Eastern Indonesian University
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51454/jet.v7i3.1032Keywords:
eastern Indonesia, intercultural communication competence, internationalization at home, language strategies, local-student adaptationAbstract
This study investigates how local Indonesian undergraduate students in Ternate, North Maluku, adapt linguistically, culturally, and socially when interacting with international peers on campus. While most research examines how international students adjust to a host culture, few studies examine how local students themselves change through sustained contact. Using an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, the study first conducted interviews and observations with ten local students and then surveyed 44 respondents to examine linguistic, cultural, social-psychological, and digital adjustments. Four themes emerged: linguistic adaptation; cultural mediation and identity negotiation; social-psychological challenge and resilience; and digital communication as an intercultural space. Survey results were descriptively consistent with these themes: 84% of respondents reported conscious code-switching, 90.9% reported some anxiety during initial contact, and empathy toward cultural difference (M = 3.81) emerged as the most developed dimension of intercultural communication competence. Because only local students were sampled, the study demonstrates host-side rather than bidirectional adaptation and, on this basis, proposes a theoretical model of reciprocal adaptation for future research.
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