Abstract
As international borders closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, study abroad programs struggled to send students back to their home countries and to maintain academic continuity by transitioning from in-person to remote instruction. Afterwards, university administrators found themselves in the unenviable position of having to make decisions based on limited information regarding the feasibility and safety of allowing students to travel abroad. Uncertain mobility and visa processes, limited flights, health risks, and lack of preparedness for managing students abroad in a pandemic contributed to cancellations. Some programs remained open by reinventing their programming and procedures. In the meantime, those responsible for study abroad, both on home campuses and on international sites, began to examine different ways to provide opportunities to interact with first language (L1) speakers without physical proximity. This chapter focuses on how interaction has been redefined and adapted to limited in-person, hybrid, and virtual study abroad.
TopLanguage Acquisition And Study Abroad
Language acquisition takes place in many different contexts, and most people experience more than one context during the time that they spend on the acquisition process. Over the past two decades, research related to learning a language in a place where the language is used has increased as study abroad and international programs have become more accessible and professionalized. Streitwieser et al. (2012, p. 10) point out that the “striking increase in dissertations on international education and study abroad appears to indicate that this has become an especially interesting research area for young scholars over the last decade”. Although the need for much more research is evident, a report by the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs (NAFSA) Association of International Educators titled “Independent research measuring the impact of study abroad” lists five ways that study abroad exerts a positive influence:
- 1.
Study abroad improves completion, retention, and transfer rates.
- 2.
Study abroad improves grade point averages.
- 3.
Study abroad improves language learning.
- 4.
Study abroad fosters intercultural understanding, provides a global. context, and builds enlightened nationalism.
- 5.
Study abroad increases employability and career skills.
Points 1, 2, 4 and 5 are important with regard to the overall contribution that study abroad has been found to have on whether or not a student stays in college (completion, retention, and tranfer), how a successful a student is in college (grades), and what happens after students are out of college (intercultural understanding and employability). For the matter at hand, this chapter will focus on point number 3, the positive influence that study abroad has on language learning.
Research on study abroad and language acquisition really began to flourish in the last decade of the twentieth century. However, only a part of international education and study abroad research targets actual language acquisition. Pinar (2016) lists some of the research specifying the areas of language:
Over the last decade, many researchers have continued analyzing the influence of study abroad in the acquisition of linguistic knowledge, especially in fluency (Allen & Herron, 2003; Llanes & Muñoz, 2012; Segalowitz & Freed, 2004), in the knowledge of grammar and vocabulary (Collentine, 2004; Dewey, 2008; Isabelli & Nishida, 2005), in the development of written skills (Freed, So, & Lazar, 2003; Sasaki, 2009), or in learning strategies (Adams, 2006). (p. 84)
Key Terms in this Chapter
Social/Affective Strategies: Social/affective strategies are what a learner uses to learn language by interacting socially and/or applying affective ways to achieve learning goals.
Linguistic Function (ling): Linguistic functions, also referred to as communicative functions, are the aspects of language that a person uses to transmit messages or to manage social situations.
Language acquisition: Language acquisition is the process of learning a first language and all other languages after.
Intake: Intake is the part of input that learners process and can recall when needed.
Language Proficiency: The level at which a learner knows how to apply rules in the use of a language.
L2: Refers to a second language usually assumed to be learned after a first language. It also is used as a non-native language in a community where there is a different official language.
Cognitive Strategies: Cognitive strategies are what a learner uses to convert material to be learned into learnable pieces.
Metacognitive Strategies: Metacognitive strategies are what a language user applies to communicative situations whereby they need to identify the task involved, and how to achieve successful communication based on previous experience.
L1: Refers to a first language usually assumed to be acquired as a child. It also may be the preferred language in a multilingual situation.
Interaction: Interaction consists of how people exchange messages thereby constructing discourse.
Homestay: A homestay refers to a private residence where an international student lives while abroad.
Negotiation of Meaning: In any communicative situation where there is interaction, interlocutors engage in a constant process of attempting to arrive at a mutual understanding of meaning. This is especially important for language learners when they lack essential knowledge of the target language to manage the situation.