Grammatical and Lexical Development During Short‐Term Study Abroad: Exploring L2 Contact and Initial Proficiency

Abstract

This study examined linguistic development among both intermediate and advanced college-level second language (L2) learners during short-term study abroad summer programs in Spain. Participants completed a measure of overall proficiency, as well as assessments of receptive grammatical (morphosyntactic) and lexical (semantic) abilities at the beginning and end of their programs. They also reported their use of and exposure to the target language on a weekly basis while abroad. Analyses explored (a) whether learners in each group made gains in these receptive abilities, and (b) to what extent contact with the L2 and/or initial proficiency accounted for variability in linguistic development across all learners. Results indicated that learners in both groups evidenced significant linguistic gains, in both morphosyntactic and lexical domains for the intermediate-level learners, and in the lexical domain for the advanced learners. In analyses across all learners, L2 contact did not account for variability in either morphosyntactic or lexical development, whereas higher initial proficiency facilitated some morphosyntactic and lexical development. Results suggest that learners at both intermediate and advanced levels can experience linguistic gains during short-term study abroad, and that initial proficiency plays a limited role in explaining variability in gains among these learners.

The Effects of L2 Spanish Proficiency and Length of Exposure Abroad in the Expression of Imprecise Quantities

“…Increased opportunities to interact in the target language have often been considered as a catalyst for facilitating oral production development (Llanes 2011). Regarding lexical gains, it has been shown that increased L2 contact can result in more native-like lexical use (Foster 2009) and that even short term intensive L2 immersion can be beneficial for lexical and semantic acquisition (e.g., Cubillos et al 2008;Issa et al 2020;Llanes 2011;Llanes and Muñoz 2009;Pliatsikas and Chondrogianni 2015).…”

“…For example, research on long-term study abroad has found that the learners' productive skills in the target language benefit significantly from this experience. For example, gains in language production can be seen in higher fluency (e.g., Segalowitz and Freed 2004;Mora and Valls-Ferrer 2012;Segalowitz and Freed 2004), grammar accuracy (e.g., Collentine 2004;Issa et al 2020), better pronunciation (Nagle et al 2016;Wright and Zhang 2014), and more a stable intonation (Henriksen et al 2010;Craft 2015). In addition, accelerated rates of lexical development seem to be one of the most significant gains of study abroad (Milton and Meara 1995;Collentine 2004), which have been attested in increased lexical fluency (e.g., Kim et al 2015), pronunciation (e.g., Díaz-Campos 2004;Lord 2006), as well as complexity and richness (e.g., Serrano et al 2011Serrano et al , 2012.…”

“…Long-term study-abroad programs typically last from a semester to a year (Hamad and Lee 2013); however, there are short-term programs (usually in the summer) that last from six days to six weeks (Evans and Fisher 2005;Issa et al 2020;Grey et al 2015), which have also been found to provide learners with significant opportunities for linguistic improvement. For example, in the lexical domain, research has found that short-term exposure reduces lexical errors (Issa et al 2020;Llanes and Muñoz 2009) and increases accuracy and speed (Grey et al 2015). Pérez-Vidal (2014), and Kinginger (2013) posited that learners who take part in a study abroad have the opportunity to enhance their language proficiency and gain first-hand exposure to the target culture and practices.…”

“…For RQ2, the hypothesis is that the level of L2 proficiency will affect the range and frequency of APs produced, as lexical competence increases in tandem with language proficiency (Tanaka 2012). For RQ3, the hypothesis states that an increased time abroad will correlate with a more frequent and native-like use of APs, as lexical knowledge is prone to accelerated rates of development when learners receive naturalistic exposure to the target language (Grey et al 2015;Issa et al 2020;Llanes and Muñoz 2009).…”

At the Intersection of SLA and Sociolinguistics: The Predictive Power of Social Networks During Study Abroad

“…As demonstrated by the studies in the previous section, interactions with TL speakers, such as those that occur during SA, are critical to the L2 acquisition of stylistic and regional variation; however, quantifying and characterizing interactions between learners and TL speakers remains a complex task for researchers in SLA and LVC alike. For example, a number of studies on L2 acquisition during SA have sought to capture total language contact (speaking, reading, writing, listening) during SA using the Language Contact Profile (LCP; Freed et al., 2004), but most have not been able to establish a significant correlation between the LCP score and proficiency gains during SA (Isabelli–García, 2010; Issa et al, 2020; Magnan & Back, 2007; Segalowitz & Freed, 2004; cf. Hernández, 2010).…”