For many US-based undergraduate students, International Education is realized through studying abroad. There is an enduring belief on the part of parents, students, language educators and program directors alike, that students benefit enormously from studying abroad. People strongly believe that time spent abroad benefits students both culturally and linguistically. This belief has motivated a significant amount of research in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), which has been devoted to understanding more about the role of the study abroad context in language learning. In this colloquium, we will briefly discuss the history of study abroad research and two recent studies that have explored this rich and complex context for language learning.

Presenters Wenhao Diao and Ashley Henery of Carnegie Mellon University will briefly discuss the history of study abroad research and two recent second language acquisition studies (based in China and France) that have explored this rich and complex context for language learning. Abstracts for the presentations are below.

For more information about this presentation or other presentations in our Colloquium Series, visit http://www.linguistics.pitt.edu/research/talks.php or contact nam56@pitt.edu.