The more prepared an international student is for living and studying abroad, the more they will benefit from the experience (Storti, 1990). Without such preparation, culture shock (Oberg, 1960) is more likely to be adverse and enduring. We developed an online English course to help students better understand their cross-cultural experience. The online course focuses on immediate social and psychological needs and is delivered in the student’s own country, prior to the commencement of their study programme.
The paper consists of an outline of some of the pedagogical theory underlying the development of the course, supplemented by examples taken from the online course, with some final comments from student appraisals.