Problematizing heritage language identities

Heritage speaker identities have traditionally been a relevant topic of inquiry among scholars of heritage language pedagogy. Nevertheless, there is little research on Spanish heritage language identities in a study abroad context. Additionally, most existing studies on this topic focus on heritage speakers of Mexican descent studying in Mexico (e.g., de Félix & Cavazos Peña, 1992; McLaughlin, 2001; Riegelhaupt & Carrasco, 2000). This study examines heritage language identities in a non-heritage context by exploring the experiences of three heritage speakers of Mexican descent studying in Mendoza, Argentina. By focusing on a non-heritage context, we move away from the presumption that all heritage speakers seek to (re)claim a specific ethnic identity through language study (see Leeman, 2015). Instead, our qualitative analysis illustrates the diverse ways heritage speakers in a non-heritage context construct, contest, and negotiate their identities with respect to linguistic awareness, negotiation between varieties, and perceptions of their abilities.

Fluctuations in mental well-being during Study Abroad

This mixed-methods study focuses on the effect of Study Abroad (SA) on the mental well-being of 33 Anglophone students who spent between four and twelve months in Francophone countries. It investigates the relationship between well-being and personality traits. Statistical analyses revealed no significant change in well-being between the start, the middle and the end of the SA. A closer look at individual patterns showed large fluctuations, with half of participants scoring higher and the other half scoring lower between the start and the middle of the SA. The narratives of three participants whose well-being scores increased most were not very different from the three participants whose well-being scores decreased most, and only (lower) Emotional Stability was linked with the increase in well-being. At the group level, well-being was not significantly linked to personality traits. The apparent stability of well-being during SA seems to be the result of upward and downward patterns cancelling each other out.

Advanced learners of Spanish abroad

This study examines the progress made by a group of ERASMUS students in their use of the Spanish Preterite and Imperfect during a stay abroad. Advanced learners of Spanish (N = 12) and native speakers (N = 12) completed an impersonal narrative-based forced-choice test (INT) and an explicit knowledge questionnaire (EKQ). Results from the INT partially confirm the findings of previous studies which indicate that the expression of grounding distinguishes learners from native speakers. Our data show that only the foreground clearly distinguishes between the two groups, not the background. Responses to the EKQ reveal that learners use a variety of mechanisms for their selection of past tense morphology: formal instruction, translation into their L1, knowledge of other L2s and conversation with native speakers. This article suggests further research be undertaken to examine the impact of the learning context on students’ use of past tense morphology.

Investigating the impact of a semester-long study abroad program on L2 reading and vocabulary development

This study investigates the impact that a semester-long study abroad program has on the L2 reading and vocabulary development of a group of Catalan/Spanish bilinguals learning English as an L2 (n = 30). Another objective is to determine whether gains in participants’ vocabulary and reading – if any – are related to their initial L2 proficiency and L2 vocabulary level. Participants were administered (1) a reading text, (2) the Updated Vocabulary Levels Test, (3) a written essay, (4) a placement test and (5) an online questionnaire before and after their SA experiences. The results suggest that the sojourn was positive for participants’ reading comprehension, receptive vocabulary and lexical accuracy, but not for reading fluency, lexical fluency, lexical density and lexical sophistication. It was also found that the students’ initial L2 vocabulary and proficiency level were related to gains in receptive vocabulary and reading comprehension.

Who do you hang out with?

Social interactions that take place during study abroad in linguistically rich settings are important for oral proficiency development; however, few studies have explicitly examined the underlying network structure of students’ social experiences in study abroad contexts and its role in oral proficiency development. This mixed-methods research examined the relationship between self-reported social network structures and self-perceived English oral proficiency gains among 88 Chinese international students at a UK university. While the majority of participants’ networks consisted of Chinese-speaking peers, most of them managed to develop strong and frequent relations with English-speaking peers. Students reported gains in oral proficiency, especially in areas related to language use that require higher levels of proficiency. Diverse networks with significant and high-frequency English-speaking relationships were more likely to be associated with L2 oral proficiency gains, while dense networks with only frequent and strong in-group relationships could potentially limit L2 development.

Social contact and speech act strategies in a Chinese study abroad context

This study examined the relationship between reported amounts of social contact and speech act strategies among 70 learners of Chinese enrolled in a study abroad program in Beijing. The participants completed a computer-delivered spoken discourse completion task (spoken DCT) eliciting three speech acts: requests, refusals, and compliment responses. Speech act strategies were compared between two groups of learners who reported different amounts of social contact (high and low social contact) as assessed via a self-report survey. Results showed that both high and low social contact groups favored using similar strategies to achieve the three speech acts. However, the high social contact group produced speech acts in a more sophisticated way: with a wider variety of request strategies, multiple refusal strategies used in combination and more deflecting strategies in compliment responses, compared with the low social contact group. The findings suggest that social contact helped learners expand their pragmalinguistic repertoire and employ more varied speech act strategies.

A change of setting

Though study abroad (SA) is becoming an increasingly popular educational avenue for second-language (L2) learners, there is little knowledge of what factors create a successful learning experience. One methodological approach is to consider the amount of time students use their L2 while abroad, and subsequently consider what factors (linguistic, personal, or social) might lead to increased or diminished L2 use. The current study examines data collected in 2010, in which 27 learners from an intensive overseas-immersion program in Spain completed the Language Contact Profile (LCP). Throughout the program, the learners were bound to a language commitment, pledging to speak, read, and write only in their L2. The results presented here, both quantitative and qualitative, suggest that the language pledge was largely followed, reflecting high levels of L2 use; the results also allude to some advantages and disadvantages of using the LCP to track language use.

Writing development during study abroad

Previous research on the benefits of study abroad (SA) has mainly focused on oral communication skills and L2 English, while written communication and other foreign languages have received far less attention. This study addresses this gap by investigating writing development in L2 German. It also aims to further the discussion about methods to assess writing development by combining different types of data. The writing gains of 30 Belgian students in L2 German were investigated after one semester abroad. Pre- and post-SA writing samples were analysed using linguistic and task-related assessment criteria. The results are triangulated with data about self-perceived language gains, on the one hand, and self-reported language contact and social networks during SA, on the other. The results indicate a correlation between self-report writing gains, language contact, and social networks.

No longer a wacky foreigner

This study focuses on language socialization during study abroad and specifically second language learning in communities of practice. Based on oral interviews in French and English, written journals, and weekly surveys, this study examines one participant’s second language (L2) learning during a semester abroad during which he became a member of two communities of practice: his host family and a local gaming group. The participant negotiated and became more confident in his L2 identity and learning over time and increasingly solidified his membership within these groups. This study analyzes the steps taken by the participant using the framework of legitimate peripheral participation and considers identity and learning that develop within a community of practice.

The impact of a short-term stay abroad on L2 Spanish syntactic complexity development in narratives

Given the notable increase in participation in short-term (e.g., eight weeks or less) study abroad, especially in the US, recent empirical work on the role of context in second language (L2) learning has sought to investigate the impact of a short-term stay abroad on language development. The present study examined English-speaking learners’ syntactic complexity development in oral narratives after a four-week stay abroad. With regard to three measures of syntactic complexity (length of analysis of speech [AS]-units, number of clauses per AS-unit, length of clause), findings revealed that the study abroad group demonstrated no statistically significant change over the study period. However, individual-level analyses revealed that over half of the study abroad learners increased complexity in narratives in terms of clause length. Further, half of the study abroad learners exhibited increases in syntactic complexity on at least two of the three syntactic complexity measures examined.