Many third level language students will opt to travel abroad to visit a host city in their target language. The aim of the Mobility Programme is to offer students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the target language and acquire as much of the language and culture as possible. Students reach this goal with varying success and this can be frustrating for teachers.
This task presents some research literature that outlines issues such as the strategic behaviours, social networks, and local engagement of successful learners. This literature proposes what can be expected from learners and may help teachers to better support their language acquisition during the course of their stay abroad.
Technology required: Journal and library access
Material and links
- Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context
- The development of social relations during residence abroad
- Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education 1:2
On completion of this task, teachers will be able to access research literature relating to the stay abroad and language acquisition. They will be able to describe the process of language acquisition during the stay abroad.
Procedure
- Write down your thoughts on second language acquisition and the stay abroad:
- How do students acquire language in the immersion context?
- What strategies assist the attainment of language learning aims?
- What characteristics do successful learners display in the stay abroad setting?
- What activities do students engage in?
- Consider how you might manipulate the above topics to develop activities that would not only help the students in a real-world context, but enhance their digital literacies in their target language, and deepen their ICC awareness. For example, an activity such as helping students choose their Mobility Programme destination can support language acquisition through listening and viewing strategies.
- Suggested assessments include asking students to write a short report, create a presentation using online presentation tools, or blog about their host destination, either independently or collaboratively. Assessment criteria should include:
- Participation in and contribution to the collaborative exercise including the usefulness and accuracy of information sourced
- Quality of the target language used to write the report, presentation or blog
- Level of digital literacy acquired displayed, for example, using www.google.fr in French
Other activities on this topic
CPD reference material
- Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, edited by Martin Howard and Anne-Marie Devlin: https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/sar.1.2/main
- Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context, Edited by Barbara F. Freed: https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/sibil.9/main Mitchell, Rosamond (2015)
- The development of social relations during residence abroad. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 9, (1), 1-14.: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/370193/
