The number of students embarking on a study abroad experience continues to grow steadily. A new setting for study abroad in English has developed recently where students may be studying in an environment where English is used as a lingua franca but is not an official language of the country. This setting is referred to as English as a lingua…

This study utilizes social network analysis to characterize a typology of study abroad sojourner experience, detailing the relationship of social experience types to second language (L2) proficiency growth and study abroad program design. In contrast with previous research, the study performs a quantitative analysis of structural and compositional…

This study examines the second language (L2) development of variable /s/-weakening in the spontaneous speech of L2 learners of Spanish who studied abroad in either Dominican Republic, where /s/-weakening is widespread, or central Spain, where /s/-weakening is much less common. Learners' realizations of /s/ were coded impressionistically and…

Evidence suggests that short-term study abroad experiences can help advance various dimensions of second language (L2) learners' linguistic competence. However, the extent to which gains following a brief sojourn are durable and maintained after immersion remains an open question. The present study examined both the immediate and sustained…

This study examines the role of language proficiency and other individual factors (attitudes, input) in the acquisition of language-specific [ð] and dialect-specific [Ø] allophones of Spanish intervocalic /d/ in the /ado/ context by L2 and heritage Spanish speakers during a short-term study abroad in Sevilla, Spain. Twenty L2-intermediate, 10…

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…

This paper describes an experiential education course designed to enhance student learning while abroad. Studies have shown that students studying abroad need specific interventions in order to profit fully from the immersive experience. The article describes a sequence of task-based interventions designed to prompt students to engage with the…

Many college students set out on Study Abroad Programs to other countries in which the variant of the foreign language spoken in the region differs from the variant to which learners have been exposed. This study explores the perception of L2 Western Andalusian Spanish aspiration of word-final /s/ by L1 American English listeners, in relation to…

Empirical research on L3 teachers' beliefs has gained momentum in the last decade since teacher cognition is paramount for understanding teaching practices in multilingual settings. Yet, many of these works deal with experienced language practitioners (e.g. [Otwinowska, A. (2017). English teachers' language awareness: Away with the monolingual…

This is an empirical study which aims to examine the profile of Spanish university students in bilingual degree programs that employ English as a medium of instruction by utilizing the bilingual section of the teaching degree course at the University of Granada as a sample. To this end, a questionnaire was applied to 216 students. While 75% of the…

This article addresses the benefits of audio-visual input for learning second language (L2) vocabulary and grammatical constructions. Specifically, it explores the role of frequency, the effects of subtitles and captions, and the mediating role of learner proficiency on language gains in two longitudinal studies. Study 1 targets vocabulary…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine parental and students' decisions regarding participating in K-12 level study abroad programs in Manitoba, Canada. Design/methodology/approach: The study reports on data collected through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 18 international students and 14 parents. Findings: The…

While there is ample evidence that study abroad (SA) enhances oral fluency in a foreign language, the effects of different types of learning context on other aspects of oral skills, such as vocabulary use, have not received much attention in academic research and are less clear. The present study tries to fill this void by investigating lexical…

Previous studies have shown that study abroad has a positive effect on second language (L2) learning outcomes for students who spend at least a semester abroad. It is unclear, however, whether a short-term experience also has a measurable impact on L2 development. The present study examines the relationship between speaking proficiency gains made…

This article reports on the results of undergraduate students that studied abroad (SA) and primary underlying factors behind their successful language study. The 189 participants were undergraduate students that studied abroad (Spain, Peru, and Honduras) in one of three advanced Spanish language semester-long programs through a Midwest four-year…