The goal of this volume is to assess research since Freed (1995) on the effectiveness of study abroad programs on second language learning. An introductory chapter by the editors gives an overview of study abroad research since 1995. This is followed by 10 chapters divided among four sections that focus on pragmatic development, dinner table interaction, a section titled “From Home to School,” and individual and program variables.
Churchill and DuFon divide their chapter into several sections, discussing research on students' linguistic development during study abroad (SA), pragmatic development, individual student differences, learner involvement, role of the host culture, and program variables. In terms of linguistic abilities, SA experience seems to make the most difference in oral proficiency, whereas grammatical development shows less gain from SA than from an intensive program (in any location). In contrast, SA experience seems to advance students' pragmatic abilities more than language courses taken at home. As might be expected, learner traits include several variables, as do host culture traits and program variables, and interaction of these factors tends to be quite complex. As the authors point out, “the research agenda continues to interrogate the popular assumption that the study abroad experience leads to language acquisition” (p. 26).
Chapter 2, based on a diary study by Hassall, provides a rich, personal account of the author's focused learning of leave-taking and preclosing formulas in Indonesian. Hassall's diary entries show a conscious trying out, discarding, and recycling of hypotheses about how one manages exits from conversational interaction. Hassall sees his experience as supporting Schmidt's emphasis on the importance of noticing and Schumann's theory of stimulus appraisal.
In chapter 3, Barron discusses 33 Irish English speakers learning the German second person pronoun system during a 10-month SA. Even at the end of the sojourn in Germany, some learners had not learned the obligatory reciprocity of address form choice between adults and had created nonreciprocal systems, demonstrating that declarative knowledge is hard to acquire and that SA is limited in what it can accomplish.
The first of three chapters that focus on dinner table interaction, DuFon's chapter on SA in Indonesia discusses dimensions of “socialization of taste in a second language and culture” (p. 91). Through diary and journal data and transcripts of dinner table talk, DuFon shows how learners were socialized to understand the Indonesian approach to “food as pleasure” (p. 102) and food preferences as ethnic markers. Cook's chapter on Japanese learners and host families shows how learners might challenge but also coconstruct discourse on Japanese folk beliefs (nihonjinron), which allows all participants to reexamine national stereotypes. Iino's chapter confronts the popular notion that homestays provide learners access to authentic language by showing that host families might use modified codes with foreign students.
A third chapter on learning Japanese focuses on comparing quality and quantity of negotiation in homestays and classroom settings. McMeekin shows that more negotiation takes place in homestays, as host families modify input in response to student requests, but that students modify their own output more in classroom settings. Both settings provide focus on form.
Churchill's chapter describes variation in school organization and pedagogy encountered by Japanese high school learners of English during a 1-month stay in the United States, using data from students' journals, observations, and interviews. Students reacted best when schools took active, welcoming notice of their arrival and when teachers were flexible and inclusive in classroom practices.
In the section on individual and program variables, Isabelli-García ties together learner attitudes and reactions to the host culture with development of social networks in the host country and with gains in proficiency. Only four learners are discussed, but detailed treatment of each learner sparks questions about gendered reactions to the host culture: The female learner seems to have been most alienated by Argentine culture. In the final chapter, Adams builds on the correlation of strategy use and language learning success to correlate strategy use with increase in proficiency during SA. She calls for increased strategy training prior to SA.
The chapters in this volume focus on a range of learners, a variety of programs, and several languages. Most of the chapters critically examine the belief in the efficacy of SA, but, more importantly, most of them indicate ways that program administrators, teachers, and learners themselves can increase the linguistic value of SA experience. This excellent volume should interest readers from all three of these groups.
