A global, multicultural world has made interaction with people from other cultures more common than any time before in history. As a consequence, intercultural competence and language skills are essential for future employment. By providing an intercultural learning environment and research of high international standard, institutions of higher education can contribute to the individual learning process and personal development of their students, so that they develop such skills and competences. Drawing upon literature on intercultural interaction, culture differences and international education and on experiences of those involved in international and intercultural education, this paper introduces a pedagogical model for personal Documentation, Reflection upon and Assessment of Competence Outcomes of Studying abroad experiences (the DRACOS-model) which assists students in reflecting upon and learning from their studying abroad experiences. With its three constituent tools – ‘study abroad diary’ (SAD), ‘report of intercultural situations or encounters’ (RISE) and ‘guide line for assessing development of intercultural skills, (GLAD) – a number of potential strengths and weakness of the model are discussed.

Introduce a model for intercultural learning.