In comparative studies focusing on context of learning, the main contexts under investigation hav... more In comparative studies focusing on context of learning, the main contexts under investigation have been study abroad (SA), at-home formal instruction (AH), and domestic immersion (IM). With the global status of English and its burgeoning popularity as a medium of instruction in countries where English only holds the status of a lingua franca, a new SA context has emerged. This study compares the L2 learning of English in this new English as a lingua franca study abroad (ELFSA) context to Anglophone SA and AH in terms of oral and written complexity, accuracy, and fluency gains. Participants’ perceptions of contextual differences concerning the amount of language contact, use, development, and their views toward English are also explored qualitatively. Apart from indicating equal development on most CAF measures after a semester, the qualitative findings highlight ELFSA as providing a low-anxiety atmosphere that helps sojourners gain ownership of English. Thus, ELFSA emerges as an app...
This chapter presents empirical evidence on the acquisition of a late-acquired form, the French s... more This chapter presents empirical evidence on the acquisition of a late-acquired form, the French subjunctive, collected from two elicited production tasks and a timed grammaticality judgement task. The study examined the influence of differences in L2 oral proficiency and local syntactic context (affirmative, adverbial and negative constructions) on the acquisition of the French subjunctive by English speaking university learners of French L2. The results suggest that L2 oral proficiency significantly affects the acquisition of the subjunctive, with high group learners performing more accurately than low group learners across a variety of different tasks. No clear effects of local syntactic context on the acquisition of the subjunctive were found.
The “year abroad” is a longstanding component of British university degree programmes in language... more The “year abroad” is a longstanding component of British university degree programmes in languages. As noted by other commentators (Coleman, 1997 and this volume; Collentine, 2009), the British “year abroad” is typically undertaken by language majors with several years’ prior language study and a relatively advanced proficiency level in their target language(s). It is a common requirement for programme completion, to spend two academic semesters abroad. However students can have considerable latitude in how the time abroad is spent, and assessment by the home institution is relatively “light touch”, typically involving e.g. a substantial project or long essay. Today, languages students typically undertake one of three placement types: as English language teaching assistants, on other forms of work placement, or as Erasmus exchange students following relevant academic programmes at a partner university. Numbers of U.K. languages students undertaking the classic university student exc...
Anglophone students abroad: Identity, social relationships and language learning presents the fin... more Anglophone students abroad: Identity, social relationships and language learning presents the findings of a major study of British students of French and Spanish undertaking residence abroad. The new dataset presented here provides both quantitative and qualitative information on language learning, social networking and integration and identity development during residence abroad. The book tracks in detail the language development of participants and relates this systematically to individual participants’ social and linguistic experiences and evolving relationship. It shows that language learning is increasingly dependent on students’ own agency and skill and the negotiation of identity in multilingual and lingua franca environments.
The current study investigated advanced L2 learners’ linguistic development before, during, and a... more 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 programme. Oral data were collected six times over 21 months to trace development and change in complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexis. 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...
This chapter describes a new longitudinal corpus of L2 Spanish, which includes spoken and written... more This chapter describes a new longitudinal corpus of L2 Spanish, which includes spoken and written data from the same learners, and was gathered in a residence/ study abroad setting. The corpus was created as part of the Languages and Social Networks Abroad project (LANGSNAP) which traced the learning of both French and Spanish during an academic year's residence/ study abroad by British Anglophone university students majoring in languages. Parallel longitudinal learner corpora totalling 300,000+ words were collected in each language. In this chapter we first describe the main features of the L2 Spanish corpus and then illustrate how we have been using the corpus to investigate questions about language development, taking as an example the longitudinal development of lexical diversity (Jarvis 2013).
ABSTRACTThis study examined the extent to which first language (L1) fluency behavior, cross-lingu... more ABSTRACTThis study examined the extent to which first language (L1) fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency can predict second language (L2) fluency behavior over time. English L1 Spanish (n= 24) and French (n= 25) majors completed a picture-based oral narrative in the L2 before and after 5 months residing abroad and later in the L1 after returning home. Data were coded for seven measures of speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. The results from multiple regressions indicated that L1 fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency differentially contributed to explaining L2 fluency behavior prior to and during immersion. These findings suggest that when investigating L1–L2 fluency relationships considerations of mitigating factors such as cross-linguistic differences are necessary, and it is worthwhile to focus on how the contributions of these factors shift during development.
In comparative studies focusing on context of learning, the main contexts under investigation hav... more In comparative studies focusing on context of learning, the main contexts under investigation have been study abroad (SA), at-home formal instruction (AH), and domestic immersion (IM). With the global status of English and its burgeoning popularity as a medium of instruction in countries where English only holds the status of a lingua franca, a new SA context has emerged. This study compares the L2 learning of English in this new English as a lingua franca study abroad (ELFSA) context to Anglophone SA and AH in terms of oral and written complexity, accuracy, and fluency gains. Participants’ perceptions of contextual differences concerning the amount of language contact, use, development, and their views toward English are also explored qualitatively. Apart from indicating equal development on most CAF measures after a semester, the qualitative findings highlight ELFSA as providing a low-anxiety atmosphere that helps sojourners gain ownership of English. Thus, ELFSA emerges as an app...
This chapter presents empirical evidence on the acquisition of a late-acquired form, the French s... more This chapter presents empirical evidence on the acquisition of a late-acquired form, the French subjunctive, collected from two elicited production tasks and a timed grammaticality judgement task. The study examined the influence of differences in L2 oral proficiency and local syntactic context (affirmative, adverbial and negative constructions) on the acquisition of the French subjunctive by English speaking university learners of French L2. The results suggest that L2 oral proficiency significantly affects the acquisition of the subjunctive, with high group learners performing more accurately than low group learners across a variety of different tasks. No clear effects of local syntactic context on the acquisition of the subjunctive were found.
The “year abroad” is a longstanding component of British university degree programmes in language... more The “year abroad” is a longstanding component of British university degree programmes in languages. As noted by other commentators (Coleman, 1997 and this volume; Collentine, 2009), the British “year abroad” is typically undertaken by language majors with several years’ prior language study and a relatively advanced proficiency level in their target language(s). It is a common requirement for programme completion, to spend two academic semesters abroad. However students can have considerable latitude in how the time abroad is spent, and assessment by the home institution is relatively “light touch”, typically involving e.g. a substantial project or long essay. Today, languages students typically undertake one of three placement types: as English language teaching assistants, on other forms of work placement, or as Erasmus exchange students following relevant academic programmes at a partner university. Numbers of U.K. languages students undertaking the classic university student exc...
Anglophone students abroad: Identity, social relationships and language learning presents the fin... more Anglophone students abroad: Identity, social relationships and language learning presents the findings of a major study of British students of French and Spanish undertaking residence abroad. The new dataset presented here provides both quantitative and qualitative information on language learning, social networking and integration and identity development during residence abroad. The book tracks in detail the language development of participants and relates this systematically to individual participants’ social and linguistic experiences and evolving relationship. It shows that language learning is increasingly dependent on students’ own agency and skill and the negotiation of identity in multilingual and lingua franca environments.
The current study investigated advanced L2 learners’ linguistic development before, during, and a... more 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 programme. Oral data were collected six times over 21 months to trace development and change in complexity, accuracy, fluency, and lexis. 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...
This chapter describes a new longitudinal corpus of L2 Spanish, which includes spoken and written... more This chapter describes a new longitudinal corpus of L2 Spanish, which includes spoken and written data from the same learners, and was gathered in a residence/ study abroad setting. The corpus was created as part of the Languages and Social Networks Abroad project (LANGSNAP) which traced the learning of both French and Spanish during an academic year's residence/ study abroad by British Anglophone university students majoring in languages. Parallel longitudinal learner corpora totalling 300,000+ words were collected in each language. In this chapter we first describe the main features of the L2 Spanish corpus and then illustrate how we have been using the corpus to investigate questions about language development, taking as an example the longitudinal development of lexical diversity (Jarvis 2013).
ABSTRACTThis study examined the extent to which first language (L1) fluency behavior, cross-lingu... more ABSTRACTThis study examined the extent to which first language (L1) fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency can predict second language (L2) fluency behavior over time. English L1 Spanish (n= 24) and French (n= 25) majors completed a picture-based oral narrative in the L2 before and after 5 months residing abroad and later in the L1 after returning home. Data were coded for seven measures of speed, breakdown, and repair fluency. The results from multiple regressions indicated that L1 fluency behavior, cross-linguistic differences, and proficiency differentially contributed to explaining L2 fluency behavior prior to and during immersion. These findings suggest that when investigating L1–L2 fluency relationships considerations of mitigating factors such as cross-linguistic differences are necessary, and it is worthwhile to focus on how the contributions of these factors shift during development.
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