In an effort to understand better how and why accuracy in speaking develops during study abroad, a group of 16 U.S. students of Spanish as a second language were followed during their 6-week program in Argentina. They were interviewed in Spanish at the beginning and the end of their stay, each time followed by a stimulated recall session. They…

This article adds to the limited body of research on study abroad for experienced world/foreign language teachers. It describes a 3-week institute sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities that took place in Lyon, France, during summer 2007. The study examines the institute's impact on a wide spectrum of the professional lives of the…

With its focus on the use of language forms in cultural context, the study of pragmatics can be a valuable component in a program that prepares students to learn both language and culture in study abroad. The goal of the present study is to propose a model for pragmatic instruction in study abroad that fosters both intercultural competence and…

This study addresses the development of the request strategies used in two service encounter scenarios by 31 nonnative speakers of Spanish spending 4 months living and studying in Valencia, Spain. The main method of data collection was an open role-play in which participants interacted with a Spanish native speaker. Results show that while there…

This study measures and analyzes improvements in students' oral proficiency during a study abroad semester in Germany. Oral proficiency interviews were conducted with participants before and after the program during three consecutive years. All interviews were assigned official ratings. Usage of two specific grammar structures associated with the…

The goal of this study is to describe the acquisition rate for gender acquisition in Spanish and to show whether individual variability and language contact may affect this rate. The participants were intermediate second language Spanish (first language English) learners in the study abroad and at-home contexts over a 4-month period. The…

Although much attention has been given in recent literature to the teaching of Spanish as a heritage language (HL), few studies have been published on specific Spanish HL programs, especially in states such as Utah that have only recently seen a large increase in the number of heritage students of Spanish. This study reports the results of a…

Efforts to fund the teaching of critical languages, along with increasing enrollments in less commonly taught language (LCTL) classes, have evidenced a renewed interest in LCTL pedagogy. While much is known about enrollment trends, materials development, and professional training, far less research has compared LCTL and commonly taught language…

This research describes a method applied in a third-year Russian language course designed to push students' writing proficiency to the Intermediate/Advanced threshold and beyond and the findings associated therewith. The approach centered around argumentation and debate, a subject usually designed to improve students' command of logic and…

The Modern Language Association report and "Profession" issue from summer 2007 (Geisler et al., 2007) are highly indicative of the increasingly debated concerns in the profession surrounding (1) the traditional division of foreign language curriculum between "language" and "literature" and (2) the instruction of textual analysis (or practice of…

This study investigates students' attitudes toward native and nonnative speaking instructors of Spanish. A quantitative questionnaire was administered to 292 students enrolled in three different levels of undergraduate Spanish courses at a U.S. university. Participants were asked to rate Likert scale items related to native versus nonnative…

As part of a larger summative evaluation of a foreign language department and a two-year foreign language core competency, the researcher investigated fourth-semester student self-efficacy (a person's belief, rooted in experience, that they can do something) and future expectancy of second language use. In effect, this was also an evaluation of…

Stating and supporting opinions are important speech acts for language learners to develop. This article examines how speakers of Japanese as their first language (L1) state and support their opinions. Performances of second language (L2) learners of Japanese were also examined to identify the language abilities that L2 learners may need to…

This article reports on the implementation of diagnostic assessment in an advanced Spanish language program at the university level. Particular attention is given to the use of dynamic assessment practices as a way to assess language abilities, intervene in learning, and document learners' growth. Dynamic assessment is conceptually based on…

Despite the lack of empirical evidence, the term "foreign language learning disability" (FLLD) has become popular in the learning disabilities (LD) and foreign language literature. I contend that there is not a unique "disability" for foreign language learning and suggest instead that foreign language skills run along a continuum of very strong to…