The effects of study abroad and classroom contexts on the acquisition of Spanish as a second language: From research to application

Study-abroad (SA) contexts have traditionally been assumed by language professionals, school administrators, and students (and their parents) to be the best environments in which to acquire a foreign language and understand its culture. In the United Kingdom the "year abroad" had its origin in the "grand tour" of Europe by aristocratic children of means, who spent time abroad to attain the level of cultural knowledge (of Western civilization) that their status required. For many years American university administrators and foreign language instructors believed that a "junior year abroad" experience living with host families from the target culture would help students broaden their cultural horizons and become "fluent" speakers of the target language (L2), with more improved L2 pronunciation, grammar (morphosyntactic) usage, vocabulary knowledge, and discursive abilities than those possessed by learners who acquired the target language in the classroom at home.¹.