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ELIA 17, 2017, pp. 273-282
273 Christina Isabelli-García
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2017.i17.12
KEY CONCEPTS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS/CONCEPTOS
CLAVE DE LA LINGÜÍSTICA APLICADA
Second Language Acquisition and Study Abroad Learning
Environments //
La adquisición de una lengua extranjera y los entornos de aprendizaje
en el extranjero
Christina Isabelli-García
Gonzaga University, USA
isabelli@gonzaga.edu
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2017.i17.12
In the eld of second language acquisition (SLA), much research
has focused on university language-learners. This is due to the numerous
learners that study abroad and the ease of collecting data from subjects
in which there is much development to measure. It is common practice
to recommend students to complement their traditional language learning
experience with an immersion experience in a more naturalistic environment.
In this learning environment, there are numerous opportunities to engage
with native speakers in various contexts and, as a result, improve their
Estudios de
lingüística inglesa aplicada
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Key concepts in applied linguistics
communicative competence. These immersion environments include study
abroad (SA) and to attain “advanced levels of L2 ability...the operative
factor may not so much be location...as the nature and breadth of learning
opportunities” (Brynes, 2009, p. 3). This belief is reected in the effort at
many universities to internationalize their curricula and in the number of
students that go abroad each year to learn and acquire a second language.
One expected consequence to this trend is to assess the benets
of the SA environment and analyze what aspects of the experience lend
themselves to provide opportunities to improve students’ language systems
in all that it entails (syntactic, morphological, phonological, semantic,
pragmatic, cultural, to name a few) and to examine what the successful
language learners are doing in the immersion context that may explain their
development. One of the goals is to learn what learners do differently abroad
and how it may affect their acquisition/learning of the target language.
Most frequently, SA research focuses on the intermediate language learner
and the factors that explain the jump they make from learning the language
(langue) to using the language (parole) and, moreover, how they come to
be advanced speakers of the target language. This is a frequent issue U.S.
educators see in third- and fourth-year language classes as well as program
managers of university language departments. According to Lord and
Isabelli-García (2014), one of the more difcult language learning goals
to reach is the advanced competency level that is “typically assumed to be
present in the language learner in order to be a functioning, professional
member of a second-language, global, workplace” (p. 157). The authors
also note that SA is commonly thought to provide the high-impact
practice (AAC&U, 2013) of experiential learning, and help to meet the
Modern Language Association’s (MLA, 2007) call for transcultural and
translingual competence.
Given the stakes of SA, the scale of the enterprise, and the signicant
involvement of interested parties, there is a clear need for strategy, informed
by data on a number of empirical questions (Ginsberg & Miller, 2000). To
measure what is learned abroad entails measuring the progress in language
acquisition of students who spend a signicant amount of time studying
a language while immersed abroad and compare it to SLA in traditional
language classes. Freed’s (1995) seminal publication sparked research
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275 Christina Isabelli-García
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2017.i17.12
attempting to answer her question concerning the linguistic benets of
time spent abroad, “Is it improved accent, greater use of idioms, improved
accuracy, expanded discourse strategies, greater improved listening
comprehension, improved oral or written communication, greater syntactic
complexity, or broader sociolinguistic range?” (p.17). Recent research
has extended beyond the linguistic development of the learner to include
“changes in learner identity and agency and student perspectives about
language learning that inform development of intercultural/transcultural
competence (e.g., MLA 2007; Jackson 2010, 2013; Beaven & Spencer-
Oatey 2016)” (Isabelli, Bown, Plew, & Dewey, in press).
Successful integration into their new surroundings is important to
the SA students because it is in this situation that they can take advantage of
the opportunity to hone their language skills with meaningful interactions
with members of the host culture, in a way promoting SLA. These
interactions, which frequently occur in informal relationships contracted by
the learner (referred to as social networks [Milroy, 1987]), may inuence
the acquisition process. In other words, to know what promotes SLA
means understanding how impenetrable our students nd the new culture
to be, the strategies they use to create, maintain, and expand their social
networks, and the impact their efforts have on their language acquisition
at the more advanced level. Within a language socialization framework,
studies have documented that learners experience different ease of access
or acceptance to these informal relationships (see Norton & McKinney,
2011). Alternatively, they may be embraced by new communities but “not
be fully invested in learning particular community ways…or they may want
to retain an identity that is distinct from a particular community (Bronson
& Watson-Gegeo, 2008)” (Duff & Talmy, 2011, pp. 97-98). SA students
must learn strategies to build new social networks and share opinions within
that group of acquaintances, a vital aspect of maintaining a network. These
interactions within extended, or meaningful, social networks provide little
opportunity to avoid certain topics that are difcult to express in a second
language. Participating in interactions with native speakers encourages
the development of second language knowledge and communicative
competence. Because of the difculty for students to create networks with
native speakers of the target language abroad, accessing appropriate input
becomes a signicant barrier (Bryam & Feng, 2006; Collentine, 2009;
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Key concepts in applied linguistics
Isabelli-García, 2006; Pérez-Vidal, 2017). Therefore, to successfully
measure SLA we need to understand the transcultural experiential learning
situation in which the students nd themselves.
Research in this eld differentiates studying abroad from other types
of foreign travel in which a second language is typically learned. These
include, for example, those that are working abroad or simultaneously
working and studying abroad. Knowing the learner’s motivation for
being abroad is necessary to forewarn researchers of the varying ways
that learning occurs abroad and suggest that research design be in line
with sojourner characteristics (Badstübner & Ecke, 2009; Laborda &
Bejarano, 2008; Patron, 2007; Pellegrino-Aveni, 2005; Wolcott, 2013).
Mixed-methods research designs have proven to give an ample picture of
how learners’ individual differences play a role in language development
(Briggs, 2016; Jackson, 2016; Kinginger, 2008; McManus, Mitchell &
Tracy-Ventura, 2014; Tracy-Ventura, Dewaele, Köylü, & McManus, 2016).
Theoretical approaches that have been seen more recently in SA research
are those that include a sociocultural perspective and tend to lean more
towards a dynamic systems approach in which SA is viewed as a “social
ecosystem” (de Bot, Lowie & Verspoor, 2007) where dynamic, interacting
factors shape SLA. Researchers applying the approach take interacting,
internal, dynamic subsystems into account to explain the SLA process.
The complex, dynamic systems theory encapsulates this and “allows us
to merge the social and the cognitive aspects of SLA and shows how their
interaction can lead to development” (de Bot et al., 2007, p. 19). This
approach puts into play the fact that students abroad are receiving more
diverse and complex input than their counterparts at home via situated
practice (Bronson & Watson-Gregeo, 2008; Comas-Quinn, Mardomingo,
& Valentiere, 2009; Knight & Schmidt-Rinehart, 2010) as well as via
extended social networks (Dewey, Belnap, & Hilstrom, 2013; Dewey,
Bown, & Eggett, 2012; Dewey, Ring, Gardner, & Belnap, 2013; Duff &
Talmy, 2011; Kurata, 2011; Shiri, 2015).
SLA conclusions collected in the SA learning environment, such as
syntactic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and semantic development, as
well as development in the four language skills, have been inconclusive
(Sanz, 2014). An aspect that is listed repeatedly in publications as an area
ELIA 17, 2017, pp. 273-282
277 Christina Isabelli-García
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2017.i17.12
for further study is in regard to capturing data from the growing number of
students studying abroad to areas besides the popular destination of Europe
in addition to students of diverse ethnic heritages studying abroad in countries
of their ancestry. Also present are suggestions to push forward the SA
research agenda by taking into consideration the host family perspectives,
implementing and assessing suggestions for learners to engage in abroad
as a means to promote gains in communicative competence. Recent studies
have documented the importance of understanding the varied nature of host
family placement (see Lee, Wu, Di, & Kinginger, 2017). They have also
uncovered the role that the decline in U.S. households of “eating dinner
together” may have on the SA experience (Ochs & Beck, 2013, p. 49).
That is, if more and more U.S. students are coming from homes in which
eating meals together is challenging then we may need to reevaluate the
value that is placed on SA host family connections that are expected to be
made during meal times. In addition to the nature of host family placement,
they have underscored the benets of service learning projects apart from
the academic advantages but also as a tool for fostering extended/relevant
interaction with native speakers (Shively, 2013).
With the aid of the aforementioned sociocultural theoretical approach,
SA research has shed light on how study abroad gains may be a result of
characteristics such as the language learner’s personality type, cognitive
abilities, and styles. Sociocultural and sociolinguistics factors such as
gender, stage in the acculturation process, and investment in learning the
target language have also been made. Mendelson (2004) states succinctly
that there is a “need to respect the voices of individual students, beyond
the statistics, in order to better understand their learning process on both
an academic and personal level” (p. 44). Kinginger (2009) also suggests
future researchers to create more robust research designs that include
better control groups or use more reliable means to measure language
gains as well as in the areas of discursive, pragmatic, and sociocultural
competencies. There is a need to continue to cover the multiple facets of
study abroad with the goal to push forward the research agenda as well
as to frame it within particular theoretical perspectives to create robust
research designs.
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Christina Isabelli-García (PhD, Ibero-Romance Philology and
Linguistics, University of Texas - Austin) is chair and professor of the
Department of Modern Languages and Literature at Gonzaga University.
She is the author of Motivation and Extended Interaction in the Study
Abroad Context (Edwin Mellen) and has published a variety of articles on
second language acquisition in the study abroad and domestic immersions
contexts, identifying processes of forming social networks abroad and how
they function as contexts for language learning.
First version received: September 2017
Final version accepted: October 2017