32.2291, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Howard (2021)

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Subject: 32.2291, Review: Applied Linguistics; Language Acquisition: Howard (2021)

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Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2021 17:54:30
From: Rachel Poulin [Rachel.poulin at utexas.edu]
Subject: Study Abroad and the Second Language Learner

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/32/32-375.html

EDITOR: Martin  Howard
TITLE: Study Abroad and the Second Language Learner
SUBTITLE: Expectations, Experiences and Development
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
YEAR: 2021

REVIEWER: Rachel B Poulin, University of Texas at Austin

SUMMARY 

“Study Abroad and the Second Language Learner: Expectations, Experiences and
Development,” edited by Martin Howard, brings together insights from a variety
of sub-fields which all intersect at the heart of study abroad (SA),
including: second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and international
education among others. Although the authors present research focusing
specifically on language learners, the editor begins the introduction by
acknowledging that the SA experience is far from homogeneous, as many students
go abroad for a variety of reasons, not necessarily to improve one’s
proficiency in the ambient language. The editor ties this point to the
ill-informed ubiquitous folklore which equates studying abroad to guaranteed
proficiency gains without taking into account such varying factors as
individual differences in motivations, experiences, personalities, and age, as
well as the social circles that may be more easily accessible as a result of
any combination of these factors. Naturally, it is this gamut of variables
that leads to the observed differences in linguistic and overall learning
outcomes of the SA experience. As such, in each chapter, the authors naturally
converge upon the need to achieve a better understanding of why some students
are more linguistically successful while studying abroad and how to better
support all students in their sojourns abroad, regardless of these
differences. Throughout this edited volume, the authors underline that
proficiency gains are not guaranteed and thus, it requires the careful
planning and intentional social network building and scaffolding to be
implemented at various levels: from the administrators back at the home
institution to the individual students that will ensure that their time abroad
will be worthwhile. This volume provides both practical advice and necessary
correction to the often-touted claim that studying abroad will lead to better
proficiency than had the student remained at the home institution, taking
comparable language courses. In doing so, this volume provides invaluable
direction for program coordinators and students alike in bridging the gap
between the myth of guaranteed language proficiency and the reality that
students face while studying abroad. 

Chapter 1, “The Legal Framework of Study Mobility: How Public Law Makes the
Erasmus Programme Possible” by Luca Galli 

This initial chapter discusses how the Erasmus program came about as a result
of a public lawsuit — specifically the landmark Gravier case in which a French
student argued that, due to her status as a European national, she should
receive equal rights and treatment as any Belgian citizen, so as to be allowed
to take an art class for the same tuition as the Belgian students, providing
the basis and precedent of the Erasmus program. Furthermore, this chapter
offers both the historical and logistical perspectives of the framework and
efforts made to establish and run this program, which has allowed millions of
European students to study abroad. In addition to this, the author focuses on
certain cases in which this tenet was not upheld and gives the reader a better
understanding of the inner workings of the Erasmus program and the legal
negotiations and ramifications being continually challenged to this day. 

Chapter 2, “Should I Stay or Should I Go? Factors that Influence One’s
Decision to Participate in a Student Mobility Programme” by Katarzyna
Ożańska-Ponikwia and Angélica Carlet 

This chapter investigates certain psychological and linguistic factors among
university Spanish and Polish students learning English in order to understand
why some students elect to study abroad, while others opt to remain at the
home institution. This study approaches this question with a quantitative
approach and investigates a variety of factors including second language (L2)
proficiency, emotional intelligence, and individual differences with regards
to personality traits. This study found that personality traits partially
explained the data such that those who scored higher on measures of
extraversion were more likely to self-select to study abroad, providing useful
insight into which factors influence students in making their decision to
study abroad. 

Chapter 3, “Study Abroad Marketing and L2 Self-efficacy Beliefs” by Emre
Güvendir, Meltem Acar-Güvendir and Sinem Dündar

The authors investigate how SA online marketing materials impact students’
self-efficacy with regard to their perceived ability in the target language.
Their findings demonstrate that marketing materials displaying previous
students describing their success in SA with the target language, led to
overall higher self-efficacy beliefs in the participants who were exposed to
the marketing material in comparison to those who were not. Specifically,
these materials led to the students’ higher L2 projected self-efficacy skills
of speaking and listening. The authors continue by explaining how pre-sojourn
marketing should be realistic and cover a wide range of individual differences
in the form of SA experience instead of cherry-picking success stories. The
authors argue for this shift in marketing techniques, as such positively
biased marketing leads to elevated, unrealistic self-efficacy beliefs. Such
inflated self-efficacy beliefs can have a deleterious effect on the students
who are to face disappointment as they struggle to use the language with
native speakers, creating a mismatch with their perception of their language
proficiency and the struggle to negotiate meaning that they will undoubtedly
face while living abroad. This chapter has important ramifications for those
creating marketing materials and working to recruit students to their SA
programs. 

Chapter 4, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Quantity, Type, and Quality of
Language Contact During Study Abroad” by Jessica Briggs Baffoe-Djan and Siyang
Zhou 

Chapter 4 marks a shift in focus from pre-departure to the experience of study
abroad itself, specifically looking into the question of whether studying
abroad and receiving an increase of target language exposure provides adequate
input to see proficiency gains. The authors provide an overview of empirical
studies that have examined this question, and unsurprisingly, the researchers
argue that it is not simply quantity but the quality of the input that matters
most to the participants’ linguistic success. The authors further discuss how
to best measure and operationalize language quality and provide suggestions
for best practice in measuring such language contact in future research. 

Chapter 5, “Study Abroad for Secondary and Higher Education Students:
Differences and Similarities in their Interaction with the Learning
Environment” by Sofía Moratinos-Johnston, Maria Juan-Garau and Joana Salazar
Noguera

The authors qualitatively compare students’ SA experiences at different stages
of their education (secondary vs. university level) in order to determine how
this might impact their experience abroad. This study demonstrates how those
at different stages of life may experience varying difficulty in integrating
into the target culture, language, and social circles. For example, the
authors discuss that university students may have to make more of an effort in
comparison to those in secondary school who in this study, experienced an
almost immediate social integration by staying with a host family as they were
integrated into their host siblings’ social circles. This finding suggests
that living with a host family may offer an ease of integration into the
target culture and provide more opportunities to benefit from the
pre-established social networks of their host family. 

Chapter 6, “Assessing the Impact of Educational Support Abroad on Sojourners’
Interactional Contacts, L2 acquisition and Intercultural Development” by Ana
Maria Moreno Bruna, July de Wilde, June Eyckmans and Patrick Goethals 

Here, the authors examine how an online pedagogical intervention impacted
students’ SA experience with a focus on their linguistic and intercultural
capacities as well as uncovering how students viewed these tasks in terms of
the tasks’ popularity and usefulness. Findings demonstrated that there were no
significant gains for the intervention group vs. the control group, as there
were reported significant learning gains for both groups. The authors found in
response to their second research question that the tasks that were deemed
less popular, mostly those which required interaction with native speakers of
the language, were often considered more useful, indicating that students may
be reluctant to engage in activities outside of their comfort zone despite
acknowledging that such tasks can be more useful for their language learning
goals. The authors also describe the digital application which they have
created to offer support to students abroad by integrating tasks that develop
their L2 language skills and intercultural competence while other tasks
provoke self-reflection. Although not explicitly stated, the findings in this
chapter have far reaching potential for study abroad program directors and
provide a unique view into students’ perceptions of different types of
assignments while studying abroad. 

Chapter 7, “The Complex Challenges of Delivering a University-wide
Intercultural Mentoring Programme for Study Abroad Students” by Susan Oguro
and Annie Cottier 

In this chapter, the authors discuss the difficulties of implementing an SA
mentoring program which was created in response to previous research that has
demonstrated a need for mentoring pre, during, and post study abroad
experience to aid in students’ acquisition of cultural competence. The authors
focus on these challenges as their overall feedback has been largely positive
from participants. Thus, as a next step, they focus on the challenges that
other institutions might face in implementing such a program. This chapter
highlights the difficulties and continuous efforts that the university must
make in order for such a program to be successful, providing preparation and
guidance for other institutions hoping to implement similar resources.    

Chapter 8, “Tapping into Self-regulation in Study Abroad: A Pilot Study” by
Kata Csizér, Miroslaw Pawlak, Vanda Szatzker, and Kitti Erdö-Bonyár 

Chapter 8 focuses on an instrument which the authors developed to measure how
a variety of factors impact self-regulation throughout the study abroad
sojourn. They examine groups of students studying abroad in Hungary and Poland
and aim to determine the validity of this instrument with regard to measuring
teacher-based, learner-based and technology-based means of self-regulation
pre, during and post SA. The researchers found a lack of reliability among the
items on the instrument, demonstrating that some of the definitions and scales
needed to be improved upon before moving forward. However, they also found
contextual differences between the students in Hungary and Poland, suggesting
that the environment of one’s SA context (i.e., a city vs. a more rural
locale) may play a role in their learning self-regulation. Overall, this
chapter provides a clear view into how research is accomplished and
demonstrates the often-overlooked process of instrument development, as the
authors explain where their pilot study and instrument fell short, and how
they will begin to improve this in the future. 

Chapter 9, “Structure and Agency in the Development of Plurilingual Identities
in Study Abroad” by Josep M. Cots, Rosamond Mitchell and Ana Beaven 

Here, the authors delve into the concept of language identity, specifically
that of the plurilingual identity in contrast to limiting this investigation
to the L2 identity. The authors argue that adopting a plurilingual lens is
necessary due to the globalized nature of the world in which we live and how
individuals integrate a wide array of linguistic resources to make meaning.
The authors argue that these plurilingual identities have an impact on
language choice, by integrating one’s beliefs and attitudes, ultimately
impacting one’s overall communicative process. They review empirical studies
regarding this topic, and ultimately conclude that those in this line of
research must consider the social structure as an influence on the experience
abroad. 

Chapter 10, “Learning Multiword Expressions in a Second Language during Study
Abroad: The Role of Individual Differences” by Klara Arvidsson 

This chapter focuses on multiword expressions such as c’est ça ‘that’s right’
(French) as these are only ever slowly acquired and pose difficulties to
language learners. This study investigates which factors impact a student’s
success by examining the role that psychological individual differences play
in acquiring such expressions. Their findings suggest that students who were
“high-gainers” spent their time taking part in target language mediated
activities, although not necessarily with L1 speakers of the target language.
Interestingly, the psychological orientation of the high-gainers demonstrated
a more overt goal of language learning while the low-gainers demonstrated a
less motivated orientation. The authors also suggest that they may have been
more successful due to having a stronger sense of self-efficacy and
self-regulatory abilities. Finally, the researchers’ qualitative analysis
uncovered that those who were high-gainers tended to notice things in the
target language, suggesting that a heightened awareness of the linguistic
constructions may have aided these students in their linguistic pursuits. This
chapter again bolsters the premise that simply living abroad in the target
language does not guarantee linguistic gains. Instead, this research
highlights how the language acquisition process must be considered from a more
holistic perspective, accounting for individual differences and learner
profiles. 

Chapter 11, “When in One’s New Country: Examining Native-like Selections in
English at Home and Abroad” by Victoria Zaytseva, Imma Miralpeix and Carmen
Pérez-Vidal 

The authors examine colloquial native-like selections (NLS) longitudinally, by
observing Catalan and Spanish speaking students learning English beginning
during a period of formal instruction at the home institution and continuing
through their study abroad experience. Findings indicate a slow but
significant improvement in students’ spoken language which is demonstrated by
their implementation of fewer false friends and more nativelike expressions.
When considering their written language, these students used more impersonal
and colloquial expressions as well as idiomatic intensifiers over time. The
major findings from this study underline how it is neither simply study abroad
nor formal instruction but the combination of different forms of input and
opportunities of language use that allows for the most linguistic proficiency
gains. 

Chapter 12, “The Role of Transparency in Grammatical Gender Marking among Stay
Abroad Learners of Spanish and French” by Amanda Edmonds and Aarnes Gudmestad

The researchers investigate British students studying abroad in France and
Spain to determine how their written production of grammatical gender evolves
pre, during, and post SA. The authors discuss how Spanish is marked by a
higher degree of gender marking transparency on nouns in comparison to French
as a result of more consistent morphology. Crucially, the authors found that
classroom input was sufficient for Spanish learners to achieve a high degree
of accuracy with written gender markings, while the French learners seemed to
benefit more from the SA context by greatly improving their accuracy of gender
agreement post sojourn. This finding bolsters French instructors’ insistence
that their students study abroad, as even though these students had on average
10.45 years of experience in French in comparison to the 5.3 years on average
for the Spanish students, the French students’ accuracy of gender was far
below the Spanish students who already demonstrated target-like gender
accuracy pre-study abroad. Obviously, this study is limited to a single
grammatical feature and does and should not be generalized to the entire
linguistic system. However, it does emphasize the importance of considering
the language pairs at play and how best to prepare students for their time
abroad as well as to encourage learners of certain languages to study abroad
if they hope to attain native-like proficiencies. 

EVALUATION 

Overall, this volume achieves the authors’ much-discussed goal of presenting
evidence in support of the heterogeneity of the SA and language acquisition
experience in general and approaches this premise from a variety of angles.
Indeed, regardless of the subfield in which the reader specializes, she is
bound to find something that both interests and convinces her of the authors’
shared starting point: that studying abroad is not the panacea to achieving
high linguistic proficiencies so often touted. In addition, it did not come
across that the authors’ aims were to devalue the SA experience, but instead
present this in a more realistic light so that program instructors and
creators as well as students can do everything in their power to get the most
out of their SA experience. The inverse impact of the breadth of this volume
is that the research presented throughout this work may perhaps not be of
relevance to specialists in different fields. Although, when covering such a
broad topic as SA, such an occurrence is unsurprising and unavoidable, and the
reader should simply be prepared to bypass certain chapters of less relevance
to their own work. 

An additional result of such a broad topic with so many intersecting subfields
is that the authors appeared to consider a variety of readers in terms of
their audience, such that at times the oversimplification of certain terms
that are commonplace in the majority of linguistic research (i.e. qualitative
vs. quantitative research) felt at times like one was reading an introductory
level textbook instead of an edited volume of original research. The benefit
to this approach is that it is truly accessible to a large readership.
Furthermore, this volume had a logical outline, with natural transitions
between chapters, with the exception of the first chapter which had a
historical approach which felt disconnected from the following chapter.
Nonetheless, this chapter served the important purpose of orienting the reader
to the SA context in question being centered on the Erasmus program, and
necessarily equipped the reader with an understanding of the purpose and
history of this program. Indeed, the overall flow of this volume was made
evident in the editor’s introduction in which he explains the organization of
chapters which have been laid out so as to fall under pre-departure, during
study abroad, and post study abroad sections. However, this intentional layout
was only addressed in the prose found in the introduction, and it may have
been helpful had this format been more explicitly and visibly laid out in the
table of contents, as this may have served to better orient the reader in
navigating which chapters would hold the most relevance to her research. 
 
Finally, many of these studies point out direct and natural follow up lines of
research to better answer the authors’ research questions and follow up lines
of research unearthed in these studies. Interestingly, throughout this volume,
it was evident that the authors had direct application in mind at the program
directing level of study abroad as well as at the individual language
instructor level. Not only does this volume provide researchers a jumping off
point at the theoretical level, but it also provides immediate strategies for
language instructors to disseminate this knowledge to their students and
ensure that study abroad programs are taking practical steps to best prepare
their students for their sojourns abroad. For example, while most universities
and colleges have their own study abroad programs with pre and post departure
meetings, few have an elaborate system of mentoring and scaffolding
mid-program and would do well to implement the strategies provided in Chapter
7 of this volume. If such suggestions are incorporated and continually
improved upon, it is possible that the student’s experience studying abroad
will begin to more closely resemble the idealized guaranteed fluency myth of
study abroad that so often gets proliferated. Indeed, instead of the mismatch
from best-case-scenario success stories and what students are actually capable
of achieving throughout their sojourn abroad, it is possible to bridge this
gap and equip students with realistic linguistic and cultural competencies,
that will ultimately make them more engaged students and global citizens. 

REFERENCES

Howard, M. (Ed.). (2021). Study Abroad and the Second Language Learner:
Expectations, Experiences and Development. Bloomsbury Academic.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Rachel Poulin is a doctoral candidate at The University of Texas at Austin.
Her main research interests are bilingualism, psycholinguistics, language
processing, individual differences in bilingualism, cognitive control, and
sociolinguistics. Her dissertation research focuses on how both
psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors influence bilinguals’ variable
outcomes in Stroop task performance as a measure of cognitive control.





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