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INITIAL PROFICIENCY AND L2 GRAMMAR DEVELOPMENT DURING SHORT-TERM IMMERSION ABROAD

CONCEPTUAL AND METHODOLOGICAL INSIGHTS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2020

Janire Zalbidea Open the ORCID record for Janire Zalbidea [Opens in a new window] ,
Bernard I. Issa Open the ORCID record for Bernard I. Issa [Opens in a new window] ,
Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg Open the ORCID record for Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg [Opens in a new window]  and
Cristina Sanz
Janire Zalbidea*
Affiliation:
Temple University
Bernard I. Issa
Affiliation:
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Mandy Faretta-Stutenberg
Affiliation:
Northern Illinois University
Cristina Sanz
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Janire Zalbidea, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Temple University, Anderson Hall 413, 1114 W. Polett Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19122. E-mail: janire.zalbidea@temple.edu
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Abstract

The first goal of this study was to examine how individual differences in initial L2 proficiency help explain L2 grammar development in oral production during short-term immersion abroad. The second goal of the study was methodological, and evaluated challenges that can result from operationalizing learners’ initial L2 proficiency as pretest performance on outcome measures (as opposed to independent proficiency measures) in analyses of L2 change. L2 Spanish learners participating in summer study abroad completed an elicited imitation task and two oral production tasks. Production data were analyzed for changes in relevant grammatical complexity and accuracy dimensions. Results indicate that learners with higher initial L2 proficiency experience greater L2 grammar advancement from short-term immersion, and that pretest performance can be an unreliable operational estimate of initial proficiency when analyzing L2 gains. We discuss findings following cognitive accounts of SLA, and highlight methodological implications for further research in immersion contexts and beyond.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 239 - 267
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

The experiment in this article earned Open Data and Open Materials badges for transparent practices. The data and materials are available at https://osf.io/nca3m/?view_only=2f238b3cec1b471797c9a89bdaa98d6f

This research was partially funded by a Professional and Scholarly Development Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. We are grateful to Alfonso Hernanz, Lauren Jones, Helen Spader, Fermin Luna, and Kyrie Miranda for their assistance with various aspects of this research. We would also like to thank the SSLA editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. All errors are our own.

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