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摘要：This article is part of a longitudinal study of American college students studying Mandarin in China. Its main data are drawn from monthly speaking events (four sessions with each student) conducted in Chinese with each of 29 participants in a study-abroad program in China. The study yielded these results: (a) Students made significant progress in their fluency development, especially during the first month; (b) speaking Chinese both inside and outside of class helped fluency; (c) students who consistently spoke Chinese in class and out of class made more progress than those who did not; and (d) time on task, the amount of time that students spent using Chinese, was the most important factor in determining fluency development. The quantitative analysis that is the focus of this article is supplemented by qualitative data from individual students, reflecting the position that only a combination of quantitative and qualitative data can reveal a complete picture of the nature of language acquisition during study abroad. The article concludes with implications for the design and conduct of programs in China.

摘要：This is a yearlong ethnographic case study of 2 study abroad South Korean families' language socialization practices in their home. It explored how these parents', particularly the mothers', future visions of their returning community in South Korea influenced their home language socialization practices. As their future vision, it employed the notion of "imagined communities" (ICs) (Anderson, 1991; Kanno & Norton, 2003; Norton, 2001; Norton & Pavlenko, 2007). The data from interviews and participant observations revealed that these 2 mothers not only created different ICs, but also aligned themselves differently with their ICs. I argue that each family's unique negotiation of multiple memberships among communities they left behind, local ones, and ones they hoped to become part of in the future caused that diversity, which led to their divergent practices and attitudes toward different languages in their home. Furthermore, having membership renewal as the main goal in their IC, these families strived to maximize their language learning opportunities overseas and at the same time imposed constraints on their daily practices through language ideologies brought from their ICs. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study examines the effects of learning context and age on second language development by comparing the language gains, measured in terms of oral and written fluency, lexical and syntactic complexity, and accuracy, experienced by four groups of learners of English: children in a study abroad setting, children in their at-home school, adults in a study abroad setting, and adults in their at-home university. Results show that the study abroad context was superior to the at-home context, and more advantageous for children than for adults in comparative gains, although adults outscored children in absolute gains. The interaction between learning context and age suggests that studying abroad was particularly beneficial for children, who also had more opportunities for oral language practice.

摘要：The American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Colloquia, held at the AAAL Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 6, 2010, is highlighted. The colloquium aimed to "update professional appreciation of language learning in study abroad, with special reference to projects illustrating contemporary interest in the socially situated nature of this phenomenon." Adapted from the source document

摘要：The current study explores closely how using a combined modalities of asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) via blogs and face-to-face (FTF) interaction through ethnographic interviews with native speakers (L1s) supports autonomous learning as the result of reflective and social processes. The study involves 16 American undergraduate students who participated in blogs to develop their intercultural competence over the course of one-semester study abroad. The results show that blogs afforded students the opportunity to work independently (e.g., content creation) and reflect upon cross-cultural issues. Critical reflection, however, relied on the teacher's guidance and feedback, as most of the students were cognitively challenged by not being able to clearly articulate different points of view. It is likely that students were not accustomed to reflecting. The findings also indicate that task type fostered autonomy in different ways. While free topics gave students more control of their own learning, teacher-assigned topics required them to critically think about the readings. Lack of access to Internet at the host institution and family also contributed to a limited level of social interaction. The study concludes that well-designed tasks, effective metacognitive and cognitive skills, and the accessibility to Internet are essential to maximize the potentials of blogs for learner autonomy and intercultural communication. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This cross-sectional study examined the effect of general proficiency and study-abroad experience on pragmatic comprehension in second-language English. Participants were 25 native English speakers and 64 Japanese college students of English divided into three groups. Group 1 (n= 22) had lower proficiency and no study-abroad experience. Group 2 (n= 20) and Group 3 (n= 22) had higher proficiency than Group 1 but differed in their study-abroad experience. Group 2 had no study-abroad experience, but Group 3 had a minimum of 1 year of study-abroad experience in an English-speaking country. They completed a pragmatic listening test measuring their ability to comprehend conventional and nonconventional implicatures. Group performance was compared for the comprehension accuracy scores and response times. There was a significant effect of proficiency on response times but no effect of study-abroad experience. Comprehension accuracy scores revealed mixed findings. It was advantageous for students to have study-abroad experience in the comprehension of nonconventional implicatures and routine expressions but not in indirect refusals.

摘要：This study examines the self-perceived speaking proficiency development of 204 learners of Japanese who studied abroad in Japan and analyzes connections between self-reported social network development, language use, and speaking development. Learners perceived that they gained the most in areas associated with the intermediate and advanced levels of the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Speaking Proficiency Guidelines and the least in novice and superior-level abilities, largely because of a ceiling effect -- learners were highly capable of novice-level tasks before study abroad and therefore had little to gain. Regression analysis indicated that self-reported pre-departure proficiency level, dispersion (number of social groups in which a learner participated), time spent in Japan, total time spent speaking Japanese, time spent speaking with native-speaker friends, and time spent speaking English with native speakers of Japanese predicted 44.6% of the variance in the perceived gains of study abroad in speaking proficiency. Self-reported pre-departure proficiency level and time spent speaking English with native speakers of Japanese were negative predictors. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The purpose of this study is to analyze the progress of 14 Spanish-speaking learners of English during a period abroad from a longitudinal perspective. 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 statistical 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. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Research demonstrates that study abroad can have a positive impact on every domain of language competence, and that it is particularly helpful for the development of abilities related to social interaction. However, some results suggest that study abroad intensifies individual differences in achievement: Certain students thrive while others founder. Qualitative studies provide insight into the sources of these differences both in the stances that students adopt toward their host communities and in the ways in which they are received. Overall, the research points to a need for language learners' broader engagement in local communicative practices, for mindfulness of their situation as peripheral participants, and for more nuanced awareness of language itself. This article offers a rationale, based on the current state of the art in research, for including the expertise of language educators in the choice and design of study abroad programs. Students will benefit from programs specifically designed to foster language learning through observation, participation, and reflection. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study examines the development of interactional competence (Hall, 1993, 1995) by English-speaking learners of Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) in a study abroad setting, as indexed by their use of the interactionally significant particle "ne." The analysis is based on a comparison of (a) 6 sets of conversations between JFL learners and native Japanese peers during the first week of the study abroad program, and (b) 6 sets of conversations between the same pairs of speakers during the fifth week of the program. Although there is great variability in efficiency of interactional competence acquisition among JFL cohorts, JFL learners on the whole seem to have enhanced their interactional competence by using more "ne" alignments. This study supports the argument that a study abroad program provides a valuable developmental experience that can accelerate JFL learners' acquisition of interactional competence. Adapted from the source document

摘要：By looking into a group of 13 Chinese master's in business administration students' study abroad experience in the United States, this study contends that being situated in the second language (L2) communicative context does not guarantee international students complete access to language and cultural resources in the host society. Due to limited communicative skills and cultural competence in the target language and culture, L2 learners are at a disadvantage to negotiate symbolic power in the host country, which may mediate their opportunities to gain learning resources and academic recognition. How the students negotiate in the academic contexts to balance and counterbalance unequal power relationships strongly influences their access to already limited host culture language resources. The study addresses the issues in communicative difficulties encountered by the international students, and proposes recommendations on what can be done to facilitate the students' academic and sociocultural adjustment. Adapted from the source document

摘要：An increasing number of families have gone abroad to help their school-aged children and youth gain international education credentials and provide an opportunity for them to gain English as a global language at a young age. Early study abroad before college (ESA) has been popular in traditional Expansing Circle countries and takes various forms: (1) family-accompanied, long-term stays in Inner Circle countries or relatively short-term stays in English-speaking countries of the Outer Circle; or (2) children-alone study abroad programs in boarding schools or home stays. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The present study investigated the effects of varying lengths of overseas experiences on 37 Japanese students' English writing ability and motivation over 3.5 years. The students were observed at the beginning of their first year and in the middle of their second, third, and fourth years at their university. During the 3.5-year observation period, 28 of the 37 students spent 1.5 to 11 months in English-speaking countries. The results revealed that (1) students' second language (L2) writing ability did not change in a linear way; (2) over the 3.5 years, students who spent some time abroad significantly improved their L2 writing ability whereas those who stayed in Japan did not; (3) many of those students who went abroad formed L2-related imagined communities that possibly motivated them to improve their L2 writing ability; (4) those students who spent more than 4 months abroad improved their L2 writing ability significantly more than the other students; and (5) only those students who spent more than 8 months abroad became intrinsically motivated and voluntarily practiced to improve their L2 writing. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study examines to what extent L2 gains obtained during a study abroad (SA) experience are durable. Participants were 16 Catalan/Spanish bilingual children, learning English as an L2, who were distributed into two groups depending on their learning context (SA vs. at home [AH]). Participants completed a pre-test before the SA participants' departure to the L2 country, a post-test on their return from the L2 country (2 months after the pre-test), and a delayed post-test 12 months after the post-test. Results indicate that SA participants scored significantly higher in the post-test and that their results were even higher (although not significantly so) in the delayed post-test for most of the measures. Moreover, size effects in the post-test were large for all the oral measures and small for the written ones, and several size effects were still large or moderate in the delayed post-test. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：Framed in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (SCT) of mind, this paper explores second language (L2) learning beliefs in study-abroad (SA) contexts. Previous research on learner beliefs has relied mostly on survey methods, while regarding belief as a static, internal representation of experience that is resistant to change. Due to the concern regarding the prevalence of a cognitive orientation, this qualitative research examines two L2 learners' belief changes and their impact on motivated L2 behaviors from an SCT perspective. The data were collected mainly through pre- and post-SA interviews and monthly-collected journals with other triangulating methods such as L2 learning autobiographies and stimulated recall tasks. The findings suggest that 1) a learner's L2 beliefs are constantly evolving in accordance with his or her goals and SA experiences, and 2) the learner's L2 belief changes capture a remediation process that leads to qualitatively different L2 learning actions. This paper challenges the common assumption that L2-rich exposure through SA is the optimal way to improve L2 proficiency. Rather, it shows that the learner's internalized L2 beliefs aligned with meaningful L2 environments can exert crucial influences on the success of SA learning. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of explicit interventional treatment on developing pragmatic awareness and production of spoken requests in an EAP context (taken here to mean those studying/using English for academic purposes in the UK) with Chinese learners of English at a British higher education institution. The study employed an experimental design over a 12 week period with 26 students assigned to either an explicitly instructed group or a control group receiving no instruction. Performance was measured based on a pre, immediate and delayed post test structure using Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs). The findings firstly revealed that explicit instruction facilitated development of pragmatically appropriate request language, although this was not noticeably maintained after a six week period. Secondly, despite the potential advantage that the second language environment affords to pragmatic development, this was not necessarily instrumental in enhancing competence. Finally, study abroad (ESL) (taken here to mean those studying English in an English speaking country as opposed to EFL learners studying English in their home country) learners found pragmatic instruction valuable, which suggests practitioners should consider incorporating this at the pre departure stage in order for learners to be more adequately prepared for communicating in similar EAP contexts. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

摘要：This study examines the second language (L2) written and oral performance of three groups of Spanish-speaking university students after being exposed to English in different contexts. One group of learners was spending some time abroad (Erasmus students in the UK), and two groups were following classroom instruction in two different types of intensive courses in Spain: "intensive" and "semi-intensive". The learners' L2 written and oral production were analyzed at different time points through different measures of fluency, syntactic and lexical complexity, and accuracy. The main objective of this study was to compare the performance of the students abroad with each of the two intensive programmes. According to the results of the statistical analyses, after an equivalent period of exposure to the L2 in the two contexts, the students abroad outperformed the learners in the "at home semi-intensive" programme in the post-test in some of the variables under study, namely fluency and lexical complexity. Nevertheless, the students' written and oral performance after an intensive course at home and after the equivalent time abroad was similar. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]