We compared the acquisition of various dimensions of fluency by 28 students of French studying in three different learning contexts: formal language classrooms in an at home (AH) institution, an intensive summer immersion (IM) program, and a study abroad (SA) setting. For the purpose of oral data collection, students participated in oral interviews (similar to the Oral Proficiency Interview) at the beginning and the end of the semester and provided information regarding language use and interactions. Analyses included comparisons of gain scores as a function of the learning context and as a function of the time reported using French outside of class. The main findings that reached statistical significance include: (a) The IM group made significant gains in oral performance in terms of the total number of words spoken, in length of the longest turn, in rate of speech, and in speech fluidity based on a composite of fluidity measures. When compared to the AH group, the SA group made statistically significant gains only in terms of speech fluidity but fewer gains than the IM group. The AH group made no significant gains. (b) The IM students reported that they spoke and wrote French significantly more hours per week than the other two groups. The SA group reported using English more than French (although the difference was not statistically significant) and reported using significantly more English in out-of-class activities than the IM group. (c) Multiple regression analyses revealed that reported hours per week spent writing outside of class was significantly associated with oral fluidity gains.Appreciation is expressed to a number of organizations and individuals without whom this project would not have been brought to completion. Contributions of funding, technical support and expertise, or both are acknowledged from: ACTFL (Elvira Spender and Robert Vicars); Carnegie Mellon University (The Office of the President and Bonnie Youngs in the Department of Modern Languages); The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; Concordia University (International Initiatives Research Program, Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science); Concordia University (Randall Halter, Eric Buisson, Christine Brassard, Eowyn Crisfield, Nilmini de Silva, Sarah Frenkiel, and Heather Wilcox); Middlebury College (Clara Yu, Michael Katz, Beth Karnes, Kara Gennarelli, Paula Schwartz, Carol Rifelj, Jean-Claude Redonnet, Guy Spielmann, Beverly Keim, Anna Sun, and Alex Chapin). The authors also thank Nicole Lazar for her helpful statistical advice.

Efforts to gather data of various sorts—demographics, language-learning history, contact with native speakers, use of the language in the field—as they relate to participants in SLA research studies are inherent to understanding more about language acquisition and use. Scholars frequently develop questionnaires of their own, which are rarely shared widely in the profession. Consequently, much time and effort is invested in reinventing the process of gathering the types of data that are commonly needed.This research was funded in part by a grant to Barbara F. Freed from the Council for International Educational Exchange (New York), in part by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to Norman Segalowitz, and in part by a grant from the Dean's Office, Faculty of Arts and Science, at Concordia University to Segalowitz.

The aim of this review is to synthesize empirical studies on undergraduate language learners’ experience abroad during a time period of a year or less. To help provide a framework to this synthesis, we begin our review by tracing the recent evolution of empirical mixed-method research on the learner, identifying problems and characteristics that language learners generally encounter in the study abroad (SA) experience. We take a closer look at variables related to individual difference such as anxiety, motivation, and attitudes to more recent views of learner identity in language learning. We highlight the shift to language learner agency, a topic that merits more discussion in SA literature. We then review how the SA learning environments are treated. This review takes a closer look at research informed by socially grounded theories. Finally, we review the role that SA plays in undergraduate language curricula, where the objectives of the experience are aligned with at-home (AH) curricula, a topic that has not been fully discussed in SA literature. The conclusions offer suggestions for keeping pace with the broader field of applied/educational linguistics.

In this paper, we explore language use, social network development, and language acquisition by second learners of Arabic in Jordan and Morocco. Students in these programs reported speaking, listening to, and writing as much English as Arabic during study abroad, but they reported reading more Arabic than English. While patterns indicated similar levels of use of English and Arabic in general, questions focusing on learners' use of language with more familiar friends and acquaintances indicated learners thought they used Arabic more than English with these native friends. Regarding English language use, learners felt that speaking English with natives often created opportunities to interact in Arabic as well. Students’ Arab social networks tended to be small, but there was considerable variation in these networks. The closer their friendships with natives, the more likely students were to report gains in Arabic. English proficiency of friends and acquaintances in one’s social network, degree of friendship, and time spent speaking with people outside of this network predicted language proficiency development.

To investigate the role of context in reading development, a comparison of reading comprehension and processes was conducted between learners of Japanese as a second language in study abroad (SA; n = 15) and intensive domestic (in the United States) immersion (IM; n = 15) contexts. A significant difference was found between contexts in pretest to posttest gains on only one measure of reading comprehension, a self-assessment. Differences on the two other measures of comprehension—free-recall and vocabulary knowledge—were not significant. The self-assessment measure indicated that SA students felt more confident reading the second language than their IM counterparts. In terms of reading processes, think-aloud protocols showed significant differences in changes over time in the amount of monitoring understanding (less for IM than SA) and responding and reacting to text content affectively or emotionally (more for IM than SA). In the IM context, office-hour interaction with teachers influenced students to monitor comprehension less and more efficiently and to respond affectively to text more often. Variability in terms of gains on reading measures and contact with language and culture outside of class was greater for SA than for IM. The controlled IM setting and the open SA context contributed to differences in variability. The need for a variety of new measures designed to capture gains specific to any given context is discussed and specific suggestions for new measures are given.I wish to thank the following individuals for their help: Joe Collentine and Barbara F. Freed for extensive feedback on the manuscript; Barbara F. Freed, G. Richard Tucker, and Isabel Beck for advising on the dissertation that led to this manuscript; the Office of Michael Katz, Dean of the Language Schools at Middlebury College, for facilitating much of the data collection for this study through the Baker Research Fellowship; my former colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University for ongoing input throughout this study; and the two anonymous SSLA reviewers of this paper for their input and suggestions.