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A Longitudinal Analysis of the Effects
of One Year Abroad
Raquel Serrano, Elsa Tragant, and A
`ngels Llanes
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to analyze the progress of 14 Spanish-
speaking learners of English during a period abroad from a longitudinal per-
spective. Oral and written data were collected three times during an academic
year at a British university. These samples were analyzed in terms of fluency,
syntactic complexity, lexical richness, and accuracy. The results of the statisti-
cal analyses indicate that, while a few months abroad might be sufficient for
some gains in oral performance to occur, improvement in written production
is slower and does not seem to take place until students have spent more than
one semester abroad. In addition, it was observed that the type of interaction
experienced abroad and some attitudinal features can partly explain language
development in some areas.
Keywords: attitudes,oral development, study abroad, written development
Re
´sume
´: Le but de cette e
´tude e
´tait d’analyser, dans une perspective longitu-
dinale, les progre
`s de 14 apprenants d’anglais hispanophones au cours d’un
se
´jour d’e
´tude a
`l’e
´tranger. Des donne
´es orales et e
´crites ont e
´te
´re
´colte
´es a
`
trois reprises au cours d’une anne
´e universitaire passe
´e en Grande-Bretagne.
L’e
´chantillon ainsi recueilli a e
´te
´analyse
´sous les angles de la fluidite
´,dela
complexite
´syntaxique, de la richesse lexicale et de l’exactitude. Les statis-
tiques obtenues montrent que si une pe
´riode de quelques mois peut suffire a
`
augmenter le
´ge
`rement la performance a
`l’oral, l’ame
´lioration de la production
e
´crite est plus lente et ne semble pas se produire avant que les e
´tudiants aient
passe
´plus d’un trimestre a
`l’e
´tranger. On a observe
´en outre que le type
d’interaction avec les gens a
`l’e
´tranger, ainsi que certains traits psychologiques
peuvent expliquer partiellement le de
´veloppement langagier observe
´dans
certains domaines.
Mots cle
´s: attitudes,renforcement de l’oral, se
´jour linguistique a
`l’e
´tranger,
de
´veloppement des compe
´tences a
`l’e
´crit
Literature review
Learning context has been an important focus of second language
acquisition (SLA) research during the past decade (Collentine, 2009;
Freed, 1995,1998;Freed, Segalowitz, & Dewey, 2004;Freed, So, &
Lazar, 2003;Llanes, 2011). This interest in learning context has grown
in tandem with the popularity of study abroad (SA) experiences.
©2012 The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des langues vivantes,
68, 2 (May / mai), 138–163 doi:10.3138/cmlr.68.2.138
According to the Institute of International Education (2012) and the
European Commission for Higher Education (2011), which report data
regarding SA participation in the US and Europe, respectively, the
number of students studying abroad has increased dramatically dur-
ing the past decade (see Figures 1 and 2). Similarly, Canadian univer-
sities are becoming more and more interested in sending their
students abroad, and an increasing number of these students (up to
17,850 in 2006, three times more than in the year 2000) are taking
advantage of this opportunity according to the Association of Univer-
sities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC, 2007).
It has been documented that SA has an impact on several areas of
second language development, both in non-linguistic aspects, such as
motivation (Allen, 2010) and affective and cultural factors (Ismail,
Figure 1: Number of US students staying abroad
Figure 2: Number of participants in Erasmus programs in Europe
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 139
©2012 CMLR/RCLV, 68, 2, 138–163 doi:10.3138/cmlr.68.2.138
Morgan, & Hayes, 2005), and in linguistic ones. The effects of SA on
the participants’ linguistic development in particular have been
widely documented. The most investigated domain in relation to
learning context is oral production, especially oral fluency, as it is be-
lieved to be the most sensitive to learning context (Freed, 1995;Freed,
Segalowitz & Dewey, 2004;Lennon, 1990;Llanes & Mun
˜oz, 2009;
Segalowitz & Freed, 2004;Yager, 1998). Vocabulary development is
another important domain that has been reported to be different
between SA and traditional instructional settings.
Lennon’s (1990) and Llanes and Mun
˜oz’s (2009) studies analyzed
the oral fluency of a group of learners who spent time abroad and
found that time abroad was crucial for the improvement of second
language (L2) fluency. Freed’s (1995) study also examined oral pro-
duction using both objective measures and rating scales through
which native speakers judged the native-likeness of learners’ speech
samples. The results obtained on both sets of measures revealed that
the SA context led to greater gains than the at home (AH) context.
Similarly, Yager (1998) found that after the SA experience, participants
were perceived to be more fluent. Further evidence for the benefits of
SA on participants’ oral production comes from Segalowitz and Freed
(2004), who examined oral fluency using a series of objective measures
and attempted to relate the gains that participants achieved to their
cognitive abilities. These authors concluded that cognitive abilities
also play a role in the oral fluency improvement that participants
experienced.
Vocabulary acquisition is another commonly researched aspect of
learning-context studies. Dewey (2008) examined the receptive vocab-
ulary of American undergraduates learning Japanese in three learning
contexts: AH, IM (domestic immersion), and SA. Dewey found that
participants in the SA group scored higher than participants in the IM
group, who in turn scored higher than participants in the AH group.
Foster (2009) compared the L2 vocabulary of learners in different con-
texts, AH and SA, and also included data from native speakers of the
L2. She found that SA participants’ L2 use was closer to native speak-
ers’ use of the language than AH participants’ L2 use. Other studies
such as Ife, Vives, and Meara (2000),Llanes and Mun
˜oz (2009), and
Milton and Meara (1995) examined the L2 vocabulary development of
participants who spent some time abroad, but they did not offer a
comparison group. The studies reported analyzed vocabulary use in
different ways; however, they have all concluded that staying abroad
is beneficial for the participants’ lexical development.
Although not as commonly investigated as oral fluency and vocab-
ulary, other language skills have also been the subject of learning-
140 Serrano, Tragant, and Llanes
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context studies. Some evidence has been provided in the literature for
the advantage of the SA context for the development of listening
skills (Cubillos, Chieffo, & Fan, 2008;Dyson 1988;Llanes & Mun
˜oz,
2009), reading comprehension skills (Dewey, 2004;Lapkin, Hart,
Swain, 1995), writing skills (Sasaki, 2004,2007,2009), and also gram-
mar (Guntermann 1995;Howard, 2005,2006). An interesting finding
is that no benefits have been reported for the SA context in terms of
pronunciation (Dı
´az-Campos, 2004;Mora, 2008). In relation to socio-
linguistic appropriateness, Regan (1995, p. 261) claims that ‘the effect
of the year abroad is very striking in the acquisition of the vernacular
grammar and sociolinguistic competence.’ Regan corroborated her
own claim in her 2005 study, in which she examined the deletion of
the particle ne (‘no,’ ‘not’) in French (L2) by a group of five Irish un-
dergraduates who spent an academic year in France. The author col-
lected data at three different points (pre-test, post-test, and delayed
post-test) and found that, between the pre- and post-test, participants
deleted the particle ne more frequently (i.e., showing more native-like
sociolinguistic patterns) and that the ne deletion rates attained after
their year abroad were still maintained one year after their return
from France.
It must be borne in mind, however, that not all the empirical evi-
dence in terms of learning context suggests significant differences in
favour of students going abroad over students receiving classroom
instruction. Some studies have reported no differences between learn-
ing contexts or no significant improvement after a period abroad (Col-
lentine, 2004;DeKeyser, 1991;Dewey, 2004;Dı
´az-Campos, 2004;Mora,
2008). Similarly, studies examining different linguistic areas do not
necessarily find advantages in all of these areas for the SA context
(Freed et al., 2003).
The fact that the SA context has not been found uniformly more
beneficial for language development than classroom L2 learning –
despite the popular belief that the best (or even the only) way to learn
a language is by spending time abroad – can be due to the different
factors that determine whether students will take advantage of the
opportunities they supposedly have abroad. One such factor is the
length of stay abroad. It has been shown that, in general, students
who stay abroad for a whole academic year tend to show significantly
greater gains than those who stay for only one semester (Dwyer, 2004;
Ife et al., 2000). Other variables that can have an impact on the type
and rate of L2 development that occurs abroad include initial profi-
ciency level (Brecht, Davidson, & Ginsberg, 1995;Freed, 1990,1995;Ife
et al., 2000;Milton & Meara, 1995), language contact while abroad
(Freed et al., 2004;Juan-Garau & Pe
´rez-Vidal, 2007;Segalowitz &
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 141
©2012 CMLR/RCLV, 68, 2, 138–163 doi:10.3138/cmlr.68.2.138
Freed, 2004), personality (Kinginger, 2008), or even gender (Brecht
et al., 1995;Polanyi, 1995;Regan et al., 2009).
The present study aims to investigate language gains in an SA
context from a longitudinal perspective, which is not a commonly
adopted design in the literature (with a few exceptions, such as
Regan, 2005). The same group of participants was followed at differ-
ent time points during their stay abroad and their oral and written
production was assessed over time. The learners’ progress was exam-
ined through different data collection points after a few months
abroad and after a whole academic year. This design allows us to
analyze whether L2 development in an SA context is linear in the dif-
ferent areas of oral and written production under examination and
whether oral and written production develop in tandem. In addition,
a longitudinal design also facilitates the possibility of examining
whether there are L2 areas that develop more quickly than others. In
addition to the longitudinal development of students’ oral and written
production, we have also considered two factors for analysis that we
thought might affect language progress in the SA context: attitudes
toward the L2 and its speakers, which has been claimed to affect
SLA in general (Masgoret & Gardner, 2003), and language interaction
while abroad.
More specifically, this study aims to answer the following research
questions:
1. Does L2 proficiency in oral and written production develop at the
same pace while abroad, or is improvement in one modality faster
than in the other?
2. Can learners’ individual variables, such as attitudes or chances to
interact abroad, explain certain aspects of language development
in oral and written production?
Methodology
Participants
The participants in this study are 14 Spanish-speaking students from
Spain who were enrolled in a UK university for one year as part of
the Erasmus European Exchange Programme, which is the most pop-
ular program for college students to study abroad in Europe. The
participants were all young adults between the ages of 20 and 24,
with a mean age of 22. There were nine females and five males. The
participants studied different majors in Spain, seven of them related
to English studies or translation, six in scientific fields, and one in
history. The students also differed in terms of their current academic
year at their universities of origin: two were in their second year,
142 Serrano, Tragant, and Llanes
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eight were in their third or fourth year, and four were writing their
undergraduate thesis. For all of the students the SA period was
optional and for six, or roughly half, this was their first time abroad.
In terms of their previous experience with the English language
in formal settings, all of the students had received instruction at
school beginning at ages 6–10. Apart from this, eight students had
also taken extra-curricular courses in language schools, while six
students did not have this experience. When they were asked about
their perception of their English proficiency in reading, writing,
speaking, and listening, they all rated themselves between lower
intermediate and advanced, and this rating corresponded with stu-
dents’ actual proficiency level as determined by their performance
on the pre-test.
Instruments
The instruments that were used in this study were designed to exam-
ine students’ oral and written production on the one hand and stu-
dents’ background information, referring to language attitude and
language use, on the other.
Students’ oral production was elicited by means of an oral narrative
(‘The Picnic Story,’ Heaton, 1966). To the authors’ knowledge, this
task was first used for research purposes by the Barcelona Age Factor
Project (see Mun
˜oz, 2006), and since then it has been used in a variety
of studies (Collins & White, 2011;Llanes & Mun
˜oz, 2009;Serrano,
2011;Tavakoli & Foster, 2008). The participants were shown six pic-
tures representing two children going on a picnic with their dog (see
Appendix A). The interviewer allowed the students to become famil-
iar with the story before they were asked to narrate it.
To assess students’ written production descriptive essays were eli-
cited. The students were asked each time to write a description of a
person, who, in their first essay was ‘their best friend,’ in their second
essay ‘someone they admired,’ and in their third essay ‘their best
friend in the study abroad context.’ For each individual essay, the stu-
dents were given 15 minutes and were asked to write approximately
150 words.
Self-reported data, in the form of a written questionnaire, were
used to obtain biodata, including information about participants’ lan-
guage learning history, as well as attitudinal data and information
about different aspects of their stay abroad. The present study will
focus on the questions that elicited information about students’ atti-
tudes toward English people and the English language as well as lan-
guage contact while abroad (see Appendix B for some examples of
key questions).
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 143
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Procedure
The data collection took place in situ, that is, in the study abroad con-
text. Most studies that analyze gains after an experience abroad tend
to assess students’ competence when they have returned to their home
country. We believe that analyzing students’ language production
while they are still abroad provides a better reflection of the actual
language gains that take place abroad compared to examining their
skills once they have returned back home. First of all, the students are
still in contact with the L2 and should have less interference from the
first language (L1) and more automatic production of the L2 than
when they are in a setting in which the L1 is dominant. Also, depend-
ing on how long students are in their home country again before their
language production is examined, some of the gains that occurred
while abroad might not be as apparent as in the SA context (especially
those referring to procedural knowledge, to use DeKeyser’s [2007]
terminology).
Longitudinal data were collected at three time points. The pre-test
(time 1) took place toward the beginning of the stay abroad (the last
week of September). The data collection at time 2 occurred in Decem-
ber, before the students returned to their home country for the Christ-
mas holidays. Finally, the data at time 3 were collected in the month
of May. Even though the time lapse is longer from time 2 to time 3
than from time 1 to time 2, it should be borne in mind that the Easter
break occurs between time 2 and time 3 and most students travel dur-
ing that break, often to their home country.
The same procedure was followed for all three data collection
points by the same researcher (one of the authors of this study). The
researcher met with the students either individually or in pairs on uni-
versity premises. They first completed the oral task, which was re-
corded in a quiet room with the presence of the researcher only. The
students then performed the written task, and the questionnaire was
completed at the end of the session. The students spent an average of
20–25 minutes to finish all the tasks.
Analysis
Measures
Oral and written production
The same measures were adopted to analyze oral and written produc-
tion, except for the case of fluency, for which syllables per minute
(SPM) was adopted for oral fluency, while words per T-unit (W/T)
was used for written fluency. The T-unit was adopted as the produc-
tion unit except as otherwise noted.
144 Serrano, Tragant, and Llanes
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The T-unit is defined as ‘one main clause with all subordinate
clauses attached to it’ (Hunt, 1965, p. 20). Hunt developed the T-unit
as an alternative to the sentence, the latter being subject to the learn-
er’s knowledge and command of the punctuation system of a specific
language. The T-unit was considered appropriate for this study for
the same reason.
Fluency was examined in terms of words per T-unit (W/T), which
is a frequently used ratio. The total number of words in a sample was
divided by the total number of T-units. Several studies have claimed
that W/T is a good measure of development in L2 writing (Larsen-
Freeman, 2006;Larsen-Freeman & Strom, 1977;Wolfe-Quintero, Ina-
gaki, & Kim, 1998). It must be indicated that W/T has sometimes been
assumed to measure grammar complexity more than fluency (Norris
& Ortega, 2009;Ortega, 2003). Nevertheless, as Cooper (1976) and
Wolfe-Quintero et al. (1998) suggest, longer does not necessarily mean
more complex. Some evidence for the fact that longer T-units do not
need to include more complex clauses is found in Casanave (1994),
who observed that many of her students produced longer and more
accurate T-units after some hours of instruction, though they were less
complex. Fluency in oral production was examined by means of SPM,
since this measure is generally considered more appropriate for oral
fluency than W/T (Griffiths, 1991). For our study, the syllable count
did not include false starts, repetitions, self-corrections, unfinished
sentences, or words in a language other than English.
To analyze syntactic complexity, the T-unit complexity ratio
(clauses per T-unit [C/T]) was adopted in this study, and within the
term ‘clauses,’ both finite and non-finite clauses were considered. The
total number of clauses in a sample was divided by the total number
of T-units. Wolfe-Quintero et al. (1998) claimed that the majority of
the studies they reviewed ‘do support the usefulness of the clauses
per T-units measure’ (p. 86).
Lexical richness was examined using Guiraud’s Index of Lexical
Richness: word types divided by the square root of the word tokens
(Types/Tokens). Some studies have shown that this measure is one of
the most adequate for analyzing lexical richness in L2 learners’ pro-
ductions (van Hout & Vermeer, 2007;Vermeer, 2000). In her review of
the most commonly used measures of lexical richness in spontaneous
speech data, Vermeer (2000) concludes that Guiraud’s Index is highly
reliable, while the traditionally used Type/Token ratio lacks validity
and reliability due to its dependence on text length.
The measure errors per T-unit (Err/T) was adopted in this study to
examine learners’ accuracy. Err/T was obtained by dividing the total
number of errors by the total number of T-units. The errors that were
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 145
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considered included lexical, morphological, and syntactic errors.
Mechanical or pronunciation errors were not taken into account.
It should be emphasized that the accuracy scale works in the oppo-
site direction from the other measures described above. While a higher
number of W/T, SPM, C/T or a higher Guiraud’s Index would indi-
cate improvement over time, in the case of Err/T the opposite pattern
occurs: fewer errors would indicate more accurate performance over
time.
The Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN) program (Mac-
Whinney, 2000) and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS, 2007) were used for the coding and analyses of the writing sam-
ples. Three different researchers (the three authors of this study)
coded the data for the more objective measures (W/T, C/T, SPM).
Inter-rater reliability was calculated for the division of the oral and
written samples in T-units and clauses as well as for errors. In the first
two cases, percentage agreement reached 100% (on 15% of the data,
coded by all three researchers). For accuracy, which is usually more
problematic, two researchers were in charge of the coding. Inter-rater
reliability was calculated on 30% of the data, reaching 95% agreement.
After all the samples were coded, analyses were performed using
SPSS.
Questionnaire
Attitudinal data included six items related to attitudes toward English
people and four items related to attitudes toward the English lan-
guage. All of the items used semantic differential five-level scales. The
bipolar adjectives regarding English people included sociable/unsoci-
able,friendly/unfriendly, open-/narrow-minded, humble/snob, honest/false,
reliable/unreliable. The adjectives regarding the English language in-
cluded simple/complex, beautiful/ugly, well-/bad-sounding, easy/difficult to
learn.
Regarding language contact, students were asked to state the type
of accommodation they had chosen as well as a maximum of four peo-
ple they had most contact with in their place of residence while
abroad (either in their residence hall or apartment/house) – a variable
that is referred to as interaction in this article. Students were asked to
indicate the language of communication and nationality of each per-
son. Students who were living with British families were excluded
from the analysis since they were too few (n= 2). Students were also
asked if there was someone from Spain with whom they spent consid-
erable time while in England. For this interaction variable, two values
were calculated, one for the number of reported Spanish-speaking
roommates and one for the number of reported English-speaking
146 Serrano, Tragant, and Llanes
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roommates. The data obtained through the questionnaire were also
analyzed using SPSS.
Statistical analyses
To analyze the language progress from time 1 to time 2 and from time
2 to time 3, Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests were performed with the dif-
ferent measures of fluency, complexity, and accuracy as dependent
variables, first for the oral production task and then for the written
production task. Non-parametric tests were preferred because of the
low number of participants (n= 14 in written production; n=13in
oral production).
In the analysis of the self-reported data, the Mann–Whitney U test,
also a non-parametric test, was used. Because of the small sample, the
exact sig. value (instead of the asymp. sig (2-tailed) value) was used to
determine the level of significance of the results, as recommended by
Field (2005). Independent variables with more than two levels in the
original questionnaire were transformed into two levels because of the
small size of the sample.
Results
The results of the different statistical analyses will be presented first
for the oral production data, followed by the written production data,
and lastly the results of the self-reported data.
Oral production data
The descriptive statistics for the mean scores obtained by the partici-
pants in the oral production task appear in Table 1. This table also con-
tains information about the standard deviations in parentheses and
the median scores.
Table 1: Descriptive statistics (oral production)
Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Fluency: syllables/minute
Mean (standard deviation) 119.89 (25.81) 146.22 (30.48) 152.45 (33.57)
Median 122.42 145.61 147.25
Syntactic complexity: clauses/T-unit
Mean (standard deviation) 1.69 (0.20) 1.77 (0.30) 1.81 (0.27)
Median 1.64 1.72 1.74
Lexical richness: Guiraud’s Index
Mean (standard deviation) 5.66 (0.91) 6.13 (0.83) 6.16 (0.59)
Median 5.83 5.92 6.11
Accuracy: errors/T-unit
Mean (standard deviation) 1.45 (0.94) 1.23 (0.72) 0.51 (0.33)
Median 1.07 1.29 0.50
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 147
©2012 CMLR/RCLV, 68, 2, 138–163 doi:10.3138/cmlr.68.2.138
The results of the Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests performed for each
of the measures comparing times 1–2, times 2–3, and times 1–3 appear
in Table 2. After the significance value, we also include Cohen’s dfor
effect size.
In view of these results, it appears that one semester abroad was en-
ough for significant progress to occur in certain areas of oral produc-
tion, namely, fluency and lexical richness. The effect size of these
differences is large in the case of fluency and medium-large in the
case of lexical richness. In contrast, the progress that the students
experienced between the end of the first semester and the end of the
second semester was not significant except in accuracy. In this area,
the effect size of the difference between time 2 and time 3 was large.
Considering the whole stay, all the areas of oral production under
examination experienced a significant improvement (with the effect
size of the differences from time 1 to time 3 being large), with the
exception of syntactic complexity.
Written production data
Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics, including the mean, median,
and standard deviation, for the scores obtained by the students at
each data collection time for all the measures of written production.
The results of the Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests as well as the effect
sizes appear in Table 4.
Unlike the results for oral production, there was no significant
progress by the students in terms of written production during their
first semester abroad. Some significant progress begins to occur from
the end of the first semester to the end of the second semester in terms
of accuracy and syntactic complexity, and the effect size of these
Table 2: Inferential statistics and effect size (oral production)
Time 1–time 2 Time 2–time 3 Time 1–time 3
Fluency
(syllables/minute)
Z=−3.18
p= .001*
Cohen’s d=0.93
Z=−1.01
p=.311
Cohen’s d=0.10
Z=−2.90
p=.004
Cohen’s d=1.08
Syntactic complexity
(clauses/T-unit)
Z=−0.80
p=.424
Cohen’s d=0.31
Z=−0.31
p=.753
Cohen’s d=0.14
Z=−1.64
p=.101
Cohen’s d=0.50
Lexical richness
(Guiraud’s Index)
Z=−2.48
p=.013
Cohen’s d=0.54
Z=−0.25
p=.807
Cohen’s d=0.04
Z=−1.99
p=.046
Cohen’s d=0.65
Accuracy
(Errors/T-Unit)
Z=−1.25
p=.209
Cohen’s d=−0.43
Z=−2.34
p=.019
Cohen’s d=−1.28
Z=−2.55
p=.011
Cohen’s d=−1.33
*Significant differences are noted in boldface.
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differences is large. However, the most significant development in
terms of written production occurs between times 1 and 3, that is
when initial and final performance is compared. All four areas under
analysis (fluency, syntactic complexity, lexical richness, and accuracy)
show significant growth and the effect size of the differences between
the two time points is large (or medium-large in the case of lexical
richness).
Comparing oral and written production
As can be seen from the descriptive and inferential statistics, the prog-
ress experienced by students abroad during the first and second
semester in oral and written production differs. Some significant prog-
ress in oral production was already apparent in the first semester, but
Table 3: Descriptive statistics (written production)
Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Fluency: words/T-unit
Mean (standard deviation) 10.85 (2.43) 11.91 (2.00) 13.60 (2.49)
Median 10.57 11.76 13.13
Syntactic complexity: clauses/T-unit
Mean (standard deviation) 1.94 (0.38) 1.87 (0.31) 2.26 (0.39)
Median 1.93 1.92 2.26
Lexical richness: Guiraud’s Index
Mean (standard deviation) 7.50 (0.95) 7.78 (0.84) 8.07 (1.02)
Median 7.50 7.64 8.32
Accuracy: errors/T-unit
Mean (standard deviation) 1.09 (0.72) 1.01 (0.79) 0.46 (0.28)
Median 1.08 0.68 0.44
Table 4: Inferential statistics and effect size (written production)
Time 1–time 2 Time 2–time 3 Time 1–time 3
Fluency (words/T-Unit) Z=−1.60
p= .109
Cohen’s d=0.47
Z=−1.85
p= .064
Cohen’s d=0.75
Z=−2.60
p= .009*
Cohen’s d=1.11
Syntactic complexity
(clauses/T-unit)
Z=−0.22
p= .826
Cohen’s d=−0.20
Z=−2.41
p= .016
Cohen’s d=1.10
Z=−1.99
p= .046
Cohen’s d=0.83
Lexical richness
(Guiraud’s Index)
Z=−0.91
p= .363
Cohen’s d=0.31
Z=−1.16
p= .245
Cohen’s d=0.31
Z=−2.04
p= .041
Cohen’s d=0.58
Accuracy
(errors/T-unit)
Z=−0.53
p= .594
Cohen’s d=−0.10
Z=−2.04
p= .041
Cohen’s d=−0.92
Z=−2.16
p= .030
Cohen’s d=−1.15
*Significant differences are noted in boldface.
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 149
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significant improvement in written production did not manifest itself
until the second semester. The progress in each of the areas analyzed
(fluency, syntactic complexity, lexical richness, and accuracy) is repre-
sented in Figures 3–6. In the case of fluency (Figure 3), the scores for
written fluency (W/T) have been multiplied by 10 to have a similar
scale to SPM, which makes the relationship more apparent in the
visual representation. Also, as explained above, the accuracy measure
(Err/T) is the only one in which lower scores indicate improvement
(fewer errors = more accuracy).
Figure 3 shows that even though students’ development of fluency
can be said to be linear in both oral and written production, the prog-
ress in oral fluency during the first semester is more significant than
during the second semester. The opposite is true for written fluency,
for which the second semester seems to be more significant. In the
case of syntactic complexity (Figure 4), development is apparent in the
case of oral production. However, for written production, syntactic
complexity declined at the end of the first semester but improved by
the end of the second semester. Figure 5 also shows that the lexical
richness of oral production improved more than written production
Figure 3: Fluency
*indicates significant differences
Figure 4: Syntactic complexity
*indicates significant differences
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©2012 CMLR/RCLV, 68, 2, 138–163 doi:10.3138/cmlr.68.2.138
during the first semester. Finally, Figure 6 indicates that significant
development in accuracy did not occur until the second semester.
Self-reported data
To examine the relationship between attitudes and linguistic gains,
students’ answers to the questionnaire at time 3 and students’ gains
from time 1 to time 3 were examined as it was expected that attitudes
would have more impact on language gains after a longer period. Out
of the six scales related to attitudes toward English people, significant
differences were found in two of the six bipolar adjectives in the ques-
tionnaire. The students who rated English people as more sociable
than unsociable made more gains in accuracy in their written produc-
tion (U= 8, n1 = 7, n2 = 7, Z=−2.11, p= .04). The same is true for stu-
dents who rated English people as more humble than snobbish (U=5,
n1 = 9, n2 = 5, Z=−2.33, p= .02). The effect size in both tests was
large (Cohen’s d=0.59 and 0.65, respectively).
Out of the four scales related to attitudes toward the English lan-
guage, significant differences were found in one of the four bipolar ad-
jectives in the questionnaire. The students who rated English as more
complex than simple made more gains in the lexical measure both
in their written (U= 9, n1 = 8, n2 = 6, Z=−1.94, p= .05) as well as
Figure 5: Lexical richness
*indicates significant differences
Figure 6: Accuracy
*indicates significant differences
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 151
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their oral production (U= 6, n1 = 6, n2 = 7, Z=−2.14, p= .03). In both
tests, the effect size was medium-large (Cohen’s d=0.52 and 0.59,
respectively).
In examining the relationship between language contact and learn-
ing gains, gains from time 1 to time 3 were used in the analyses of two
variables that remained constant throughout the academic year:
accommodation and contact with a close Spanish friend during the
academic stay. Gains from time 1 to time 2, time 2 to time 3, and time
1 to time 3 were used in the analysis of the variable that was more lia-
ble to change between semester 1 and semester 2 – that is, the linguis-
tic profile of the people with whom students had more contact in their
residence hall or apartment. As regards accommodation, it was found
that there were significant differences between students who were liv-
ing in an apartment/house and those living in a residence hall, with
the former having more gains in lexical richness (oral production)
between time 1 and time 3 (U= 3, n1 = 4, n2 = 7, Z= 2.08, p= .04; Co-
hen’s d= 0.63). Results also indicated that students who generally did
not have someone from Spain with whom they did almost everything
experienced more gains in lexical richness (written production; U=4,
n1 = 5, n2 = 8, Z=−2.34, p= .02) and accuracy (oral production; U=5,
n1 = 5, n2 = 8, Z=−2.03, p= .05). The effect size in both tests was
medium-large (Cohen’s d=0.62 and 0.72, respectively). Whether stu-
dents were living with only English-speaking people or with one or
more Spanish-speaking people turned out to be significant in the lexi-
cal richness measure (of written production) between time 2 and time
3(U= 7, n1 = 6, n2 = 7, Z=−2.0, p= .05; Cohen’s d= 0.5), with those
living with only English-speaking people experiencing more gains.
No significant differences were found in the oral production measures
between times 1 and 2 or between times 1 and 3.
Discussion
In answer to the first research question, our results seem to suggest
that L2 proficiency in oral and written production while abroad
develop in somewhat different ways. The longitudinal design made it
possible to observe that the 14 English learners examined in this study
made significant progress in some areas of oral production (namely
fluency and lexical richness) at the end of the first semester abroad,
while no parallel improvement was registered in terms of written pro-
duction. It is especially interesting that the areas that seem to improve
the most after one semester abroad coincide with what most studies in
the literature seem to suggest as being the areas for which spending
time abroad could be especially beneficial, namely, oral fluency
(Freed, 1995;Lennon, 1990;Llanes & Mun
˜oz, 2009;Segalowitz &
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Freed, 2004;Yager, 1998) and vocabulary (Ife et al., 2000;Milton &
Meara, 1995). Similarly, the findings from this study, concerning
development from time 1 to time 2 in terms of writing, are in line with
results reported by other researchers in which the SA context is not
found to be particularly helpful for the development of written pro-
duction (Freed et al., 2003). Indeed, most of the studies from the litera-
ture that report advantages in written production for SA students
seem to analyze long periods of time (Sasaki, 2004,2007,2009). To our
knowledge, there is only one study (Pe
´rez-Vidal & Juan-Garau, 2009)
that shows significant improvement in some aspects of written pro-
duction after a relatively short experience abroad (three months).
However, the improvement was observed on only two of the five mea-
sures considered to analyze fluency, complexity, and accuracy.
It is from time 2 to time 3 that students’ oral accuracy improved. It
seems as if the students benefited first from the SA context in terms of
fluency and lexical richness, and only later does this progress extend
to accuracy. The period between time 2 and time 3 is also when accu-
racy in written production develops significantly. The implications
from these findings are that for L2 accuracy to develop, longer stays
might be necessary in some cases, which could also explain why some
studies focusing on accuracy in short-term stays have found little or
no improvement (DeKeyser, 2010). It might also be the case, as has
been found in previous studies, that other areas (or sub-systems) need
to develop before a development in accuracy can occur (Caspi, 2010).
Considering students’ progress throughout the whole academic
year (time 1–time 3), the results reported in this study are quite hope-
ful for the SA experience as significant improvement occurs in almost
all of the areas of oral and written production under analysis. These
results could imply that the reason a clear advantage has not been
unanimously reported in the literature might be related (among other
possible factors, of course) to the short-term stays that tend to be ana-
lyzed (usually one semester or less).
Another objective of this study was to analyze whether some attitu-
dinal and interactional factors were associated with the progress the
students experienced abroad. In answer to the second research ques-
tion we can say that several factors appear to have a certain relation
with language development. We have found that some attitudes
toward the L2 (‘English is a complex language’) or the people who
speak it (‘English people are sociable and humble rather than snob’)
were associated with gains in accuracy and lexical richness. The rea-
son why ‘sociable’ and ‘humble’ were key adjectives could be that
those students who considered English people sociable and not snob-
bish might have interacted more with them, which contributed in turn
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 153
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to language gains. It is also interesting that those who found the
English language more complex were the ones who made more gains
in lexical richness. Probably, these learners paid more attention to com-
plexity, were challenged by this feature of the language, and as a result
their production was more complex in terms of vocabulary. Neverthe-
less, it should be emphasized that not all attitudes toward the English
language or English people under analysis were associated with lan-
guage gains. This could be because the choice of adjectives (which
were selected through an Internet search of stereotypes of British peo-
ple by foreigners) may not have been exhaustive enough or because
some of the adjectives included may have referred to attitudes that had
less effect on L2 learners’ use of the language. More studies should
analyze attitudes in a more detailed way to establish a clearer relation-
ship between this variable and language gains abroad, as the present
study has demonstrated that this is an area worth exploring in depth.
Moreover, our results suggest that living arrangements also seemed
to have a role in the progress experienced by students. Similarly, those
students who did not spend most of their time with a Spanish student
improved their lexical richness more than those who did. In fact,
these two situations likely lead to more possibilities for interaction in
the L2, and such use/practice is probably responsible for the language
improvement.
Although the current study was not designed within the Dynamic
Systems Theory (DST), the results that are reported here can be ex-
plained using some of the major tenets of this theory (de Bot, 2008;
Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008;Verspoor, de Bot, & Lowie, 2011).
Indeed, from a DST perspective, language development is seen as the
interaction between a wide variety of internal and external factors that
can be grouped in different levels and sub-levels (Lowie, Verspoor, &
de Bot, 2009). Among these levels, Lowie et al. highlight the social,
psycholinguistic, cultural, and linguistic levels. In the present study,
we consider all of these levels and how they interact – we have exam-
ined how the learning context (which encompasses socio-cultural fac-
tors) may be related to language development. In addition, we have
analyzed different sub-systems within the linguistic level: fluency,
syntactic complexity, lexical richness, and accuracy, both in oral and
written mode. Our findings certainly demonstrate that there is an
interaction between the different levels and sub-levels.
Furthermore, the results of the present investigation suggest that
some sub-systems develop faster than others in the SA context: glob-
ally, it seems that progress occurs earlier in oral production than in
written production. In the case of oral production, it seems that the
development of accuracy is slower, perhaps requiring other areas to
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develop before it (namely fluency and lexical richness). This finding
is in line with Caspi (2010), whose study suggests that the develop-
ment of both lexical and syntactic complexity precedes the develop-
ment of lexical and syntactic accuracy, which is explained by the
‘nestedness’ and hierarchical structure of dynamic systems (van
Geert, 1995). As Caspi (2010) suggested, these two characteristics
(nestedness and especially hierarchical structure), which are typical
of language development according to DST, can explain why, for
example, vocabulary acquisition is a prerequisite for the development
of syntactic complexity.
For all the above-mentioned reasons, we consider that DST offers an
appropriate framework to investigate language development abroad
and further studies should be conducted to examine the SA context
from a DST perspective, ideally with more data collection points than
the present study and with more information about other variables
and individual development of participants instead of focusing on
group means.
Conclusion
The results that we have reported in this study suggest that the SA con-
text potentially provides an advantageous experience for students to
improve their L2 skills. Nevertheless, the word ‘potentially’ must be
emphasized here since not all learners will necessarily find such a con-
text beneficial, as studies with larger groups of participants and differ-
ent measures of socio-cultural and individual variables may reveal.
According to the findings from this study, length of stay is an influen-
tial variable in terms of the progress that is to be expected for oral and
written skills. More time is necessary for measureable progress in writ-
ten production to occur than for oral production. The findings of this
study are certainly innovative in this respect since they contribute to
the debate on whether the SA context is beneficial for written develop-
ment or not. According to our findings, written development can occur
while abroad; however, a substantial amount of time in the L2 country
(in this study, two full semesters) is necessary before such develop-
ment can take place. Our results also suggest that attitudes and types
of interaction can influence linguistic improvement to a certain extent.
In this study, we have only analyzed three factors that can contrib-
ute to the L2 development in the SA context, namely duration of the
stay, attitudes, and living arrangements. We are also aware of many
other factors that can determine whether the potential of the SA con-
text materializes: initial proficiency level (which according to DeKey-
ser [2007;2010] is crucial), aptitude (DeKeyser, 2010), and motivation
(Dwyer, 2004;Isabelli-Garcı
´a, 2006), to name a few. Future studies
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 155
©2012 CMLR/RCLV, 68, 2, 138–163 doi:10.3138/cmlr.68.2.138
should concentrate on different individual factors and relate them to
the kind of progress that occurs abroad.
More longitudinal studies like the one reported here (and ideally
inclusive of more L2 samples) are also necessary to gain better insight
into L2 development in the SA context. As in the present study, it is
important that longitudinal analyses include a variety of measures that
tap different areas of language proficiency so as to better understand
what L2 aspects are more likely to improve after a stay abroad experi-
ence, and in which order L2 gains should be expected to appear.
Correspondence should be addressed to Raquel Serrano, Departament de
Filologia, Anglesa i Alemanya, Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts
Catalanes 585, Barcelona, 08007 Spain. E-mail: raquelserrano@ub.edu.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Grant FFI2010–18006 and Grant 2009SGR137.
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Laura Collins for their
feedback and insightful comments.
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Appendix A
Oral narrative (Heaton, 1966)
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Appendix B
Sample of key questions included in the questionnaire
(original version in Spanish)
Name ...................... Age .......................
1. How would you classify your level of English in relation to the
following skills?
(1) elementary (2) pre-intermediate (3) intermediate (4) upper-inter-
mediate (5) advanced
listening speaking reading writing
2. Describe very briefly how you’ve learned English until now (start-
ing age, stays abroad, language schools, etc.)
3. When was the last time you followed an English language course?
Where was it? How long did it last?
4. In general, what do you think about English people?
sociable ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ unsociable
friendly ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ unfriendly
open-minded ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ narrow-minded
humble ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ snob
honest ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ false
reliable ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ unreliable
5. And about the English language?
simple ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ complex
beautiful ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ugly
well-sounding ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ bad-sounding
easy to learn ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ difficult to learn
6. Where are you living now?
- Single room in a residence hall
- Shared room in a residence hall
- Shared student apartment/house
- Single room in a private house
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7. Make a list of the four people you’ve had the most contact with
while abroad (at home, university or weekends).
Relationship (classmate,
friend, roommate, etc.)
How much contact have you
had with this person? A little/
some/a lot
Nationality Language used
for interaction
8. Among these people, is there anyone you’ve done almost every-
thing with? If the answer is ‘yes,’ add an ‘X’ next to her/him.
Longtitudinal Analysis of One Year Abroad 163
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