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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

language gains, foreign language housing, study abroad environments

College

Humanities

Department

Spanish and Portuguese

Abstract

When it comes to learning a foreign language, study abroad contexts have generally been assumed to produce the best results. However, with rising program costs it becomes necessary to evaluate alternate options as well. The three main language learning contexts are classroom, foreign language housing (domestic immersion) and study abroad. While many studies have analyzed language gains in these settings independently of each other, little research has actually compared the gains across these three environments. I chose to conduct this research with learners of Italian, so I started by finding participants in each of the three contexts. The classroom learners consisted of university students currently enrolled in Italian classes of various levels. The domestic immersion group were students currently living in BYU’s foreign language student residence (FLSR), with varying levels of Italian. Lastly, the study abroad group were students with varying levels of Italian participating in BYU’s study abroad program in Siena, Italy. Since the majority of previous studies have analyzed language improvements over several months or even years, I decided to examine a much shorter period: 7 weeks.

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