Language Learning in Study Abroad: Case Studies of Americans in France (original) (raw)
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In Chapelle, C. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Wiley-, 2012
Students, parents, educators, and policy makers often assume that study abroad is a prime context for language learning, providing "high quality, contextualized exposure" to language (Isabelli, 2007, p. 333) in abundant interaction with expert speakers. Yet, empirical evidence suggests the need for a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between study abroad and developing language ability. This entry offers an overview of research on second language acquisition (SLA) in study abroad.
Exploring Learner Language Development During Short-Term Study Abroad
The number of U.S. college students participating in study abroad programs has grown steadily in recent years, with more than 62% of participants choosing short-term programs lasting a maximum of eight weeks. It is commonly believed that study abroad is the best way to advance speaking skills, but what types of gains can we expect during such short programs? This descriptive study explores gains in learners' speaking ability during a six-week study abroad program in Spain. Participants' personal stories, narrated before and immediately after the program, were analyzed to pinpoint changes in fluency and accuracy. Learners demonstrated increases on almost all measures of fluency and showed improvement in past tense morphology. These results suggest that short-term study abroad can promote the development of oral skills in terms of longer and more accurate production. Pedagogical activities that focus on discourse analysis (of exemplar texts and students' own narratives) and self-evaluation apply the research findings to the classroom context.
Applied Linguistics
The current study investigated advanced L2 learners' linguistic development before, during, and after a nine-month stay abroad, the extent to which contextual changes (home-abroad-home) influenced the nature and magnitude of development, and the ways in which relationships among different linguistic elements changed over time. Participants were 56 university learners majoring in French (n = 29) and Spanish (n = 27), who spent an academic year abroad in the middle of a four-year BA degree program. Oral data were collected six times over 21 months to trace development and change in complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexis (CAFL). Results showed ongoing improvements over time on most measures, including accuracy. Correlations indicated long-term relationships between fluency and vocabulary only and that accuracy-complexity relationships emerged in instructed home contexts only. These findings suggest that the affordances of home and abroad contexts can shape learners' linguistic development and use differently. The role of pre-departure linguistic ability is discussed as critical to understanding the nature and extent of L2 linguistic development in study abroad.
Study Abroad and Language Acquisition
International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2012
In current SLA research, two strands of complexity research can be distinguished (Housen and Kuiken 2009). In the first strand, complexity figures as an independent variable, namely, as a factor whose influence on some aspects of L2 performance or proficiency is investigated. Examples include studies of how the complexity of tasks affects L2 performance and development (Robinson 2011), or how the complexity of the target structure affects the effectiveness of instruction (e.g. Spada and Tomita 2010). In the second strand, complexity is investigated as a dependent variable, typically alongside fluency and accuracy, as a basic descriptor of L2 performance and proficiency. Here, the complexity of L2 learners' performance is measured to demonstrate the effect of other variables, such as the effects of learner factors (e.g. age, aptitude) or of different types of instruction or of learning contexts (e.g. Kormos and Trebits in press; Norris and Ortega 2000). However, a review of the L2 literature shows that there is no consistency in terms of how complexity is defined, operationalised and measured in L2 research, which at least partly explains the inconsistency of complexity findings both across and within studies (Housen and Kuiken 2009; Housen, Kuiken and Vedder, forthcoming).
The Benefits of Study Abroad on the Fluency of Learners of French as a Second Language
Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2016
This study addresses possible benefits of study abroad on second language fluency. Specifically, we compare the use of disfluencies as an indicator of in-class second language proficiency among American students of French who had studied abroad in France for 6 months with that of similar students who had not studied abroad. Despite numerous past studies, the field of second language acquisition has not yet conclusively demonstrated a “linear pattern of development” (Jensen & Howard, 2014) in proficiency among learners on study abroad. Data were collected post-sojourn in three informal small-group discussions with six undergraduate students enrolled in an intermediate French course at a U.S. liberal arts college in 2014. The data were analyzed for the use of filled pauses, silent pauses, and self-repairs. Despite project limitations that call for extended research on the topic, overall results suggest that study abroad decreases learners’ post-sojourn use of all three types of disflu...
Predictors of Foreign Language Gain during Study Abroad. NFLC Occasional Papers
1993
A large-scale statistical study of the predictors of language gain during study abroad is reported. Subjects were 658 American college and graduate students in the Soviet Union between spring 1984 and spring 1990. Variables examined included student characteristics (age, gender, citizenship, country of birth, place and levels of formal education, highest degree taken, major, prior Russian and other second language training and experience, program type, overseas host institution) and a variety of language measures (proficiency tests, program qualifying exams, learning style or aptitude data). Statistical procedures used are outlined, and results are charted and discussed. It was found that certain student characteristics were predictive of language gains abroad, including gender, experience in learning other foreign languages, and col.Aand of grammar and reading skills. Implications are seen for student preparation and selection, in-country program design, and second-language instruction in general. A brief bibliography and author notes are included. (MSE)
Central to research on second language acquisition (SLA) has been the question of the potential effects of learning conditions on rate of acquisition and final attainment, with enough publications to allow for meta-analyses (Norris & Ortega 2000; Spada & Tomita 2010; Li 2010). Typically, the specific learning conditions themselves, whether implicit or explicit, have been motivated either by research on cognitive psychology -memorization vs. rule search, for example -or have been pedagogical in nature -grammar explanation or type of feedback. As of late, however, the field has been reconsidering the breadth of those external conditions to include research on Study Abroad as a special context characterized by an uninstructed (i.e. implicit) component that may or may not combine with an instructed (i.e. explicit) component. With this, research on Study Abroad -the topic of the present volume -has moved to a central place in SLA research. This chapter introduces the SALA Project as an example of the contributions that research on study/stay abroad can make to our understanding of how second languages are learned.
French Learners’ Opinion About the Effect of Study Abroad Experience on Language Learning
Mediterranean Journal of Social & Behavioral Research, 2019
According to the majority of learners and educators, the best way to learn a second language is to live in a country where this language is spoken. To become proficient in a second language, study abroad is admitted as 'sine qua non'. Several studies demonstrated the positive impact of the study abroad experience. However, they usually measured language gains by test scores. Fewer studies consider the value of learners' view of their personal and linguistic development during study abroad. The aim of this study is to enlighten the perceptions of French learners study abroad experience and how a L2 is learned. We used semi-structured interview for collecting data from six students of French Language Teaching Department at Anadolu University. The subjects stayed in France during 2012-2013 academic year, one or two semesters with Erasmus exchange program. Students reported that they have gained fluency and their selfconfidence has developed after the experience.