Is Being There Enough? The Effects of Homestay Placements on Language Gain During Study Abroad  

Oleh:

Rivers, William P.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Foreign Language Annals (Full Text; di PROQUEST 2004 - terbaru) vol. 31 no. 4 (1998), page 492-500.
Fulltext: 31_04_Rivers.pdf (709.01KB)

Isi artikel

The Second Language Acquisition community has long held the homestay environment as the sine qua non of language study abroad @avidson 1995; Brecht, Frank, Rives, 1998a). Implicit in this view of the homestay environment is that a continuous immersion environment provides far greater authentic Target Language input than dormitory placements with non-native speakers of the Target Language. In turn, this increased quality and quantily of input should lead to greater language gains during study abroad than those achieved by students in dormitory placements. An evaluation of these hypotheses is now possible: the 19 761996 American Council of Teachers of Russian Student Records Data Base, which contains pmficiency and background data on over 2500 studyabroad participants, in both dormitory and homestay placements. Standard statistical techniques were used to compare gains made in Speaking, Listening, and Reading by dormitory and homestay participants. The following results obtain: homestay participants were slightly less likely to gain in speaking proficiency (mean rankdOm,F 547; mean rankhomesta4F3 1; 2=27.26 pc0005), were likely to gain less in Listening (mean rankdomstay9=6 9; mean rankhomesta1F1 32; f=21.585; p<0005) and more likely to gain in Reading (mean rankdomstay9=6 9; mean rankhOmst,1~ 1 28; f=20.713; p c0 005) than dormite ry participants. These results stand counter to the intuition that greater auditory Target Language input would result in greater gains in Listening and possibly Speaking. Recent ethnographic research aimed at a description of the homestay environment (Frank 1996) and at learner behavior during study abroad Precht and Robinson 199.5; Pellegrino 1997) provides an initial explanation for the “Homestay Effect. ” Student preparation has a particularly strong influence on learning behaviors: experienced language learners may be more adept at managing the ceaseless flow of Target Language input than inexperienced learners. The results of the current investigation, along with recent work in Self-Directed Language Learning and Immersion, suggest that students in homestay environments may benefit from training in the management of linguistic input.

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