ABSTRACT

This study examines the influence of pre-departure proficiency on English as a second language (L2) oral development after a semester studying abroad in two distinct learning contexts. The data analysed were collected from tertiary level students (N = 33) who undertook an ERASMUS exchange semester in a European country where English was either the official language (e.g. England) or used as a lingua franca in the university context (e.g. Germany). Each participant completed an oral elicited imitation test and a free oral response task pre-departure and on their return. The results of quantitative analyses indicate that the type of the study-abroad context had no significant impact on oral proficiency gains as all participants were found to perform significantly better on the elicited imitation test after the semester abroad. Despite strong to medium statistical correlations identified between pre-departure proficiency, and gains in oral fluency, lexical diversity, and syntactic complexity, pre-departure oral proficiency was only found to significantly influence syntactic complexity development as pre-intermediate and upper-intermediate participants outperformed intermediate students in both contexts.

摘要

本研究考察了在两种不同的学习环境下出国留学一个学期后，出发前的熟练程度对英语作为第二语言 (L2) 口语发展的影响。分析的数据是从大专学生那里收集的（N = 33) 在英语为官方语言（例如英国）或在大学环境中用作通用语（例如德国）的欧洲国家/地区进行 ERASMUS 交换学期。每个参与者在出发前和返回时都完成了口头引发的模仿测试和免费的口头反应任务。定量分析的结果表明，出国留学背景的类型对口语能力的提高没有显着影响，因为发现所有参与者在出国学期后的引发模仿测试中表现明显更好。尽管出发前的熟练程度与口语流利度、词汇多样性和句法复杂性的提高之间存在强到中等的统计相关性，