No abstract available – please click through to the short article.
L2: Volume 08 Issue 2
- L2 Main
- Volume 13 Issue 1
- Volume 12 Issue 3
- Volume 12 Issue 2
- Volume 12 Issue 1
- Volume 11 Issue 2
- Volume 11 Issue 1
- Volume 10 Issue 3
- Volume 10 Issue 2
- Volume 10 Issue 1
- Volume 09 Issue 2
- Volume 09 Issue 1
- Volume 08 Issue 4
- Volume 08 Issue 3
- Volume 08 Issue 2
- Volume 08 Issue 1
- Volume 07 Issue 4
- Volume 07 Issue 3
- Volume 07 Issue 2
- Volume 07 Issue 1
- Volume 06 Issue 1
- Volume 05 Issue 2
- Volume 05 Issue 1
- Volume 04 Issue 2
- Volume 04 Issue 1
- Volume 03 Issue 2
- Volume 03 Issue 1
- Volume 02 Issue 1
- Volume 01 Issue 1
- French
Introduction to the Special Issue: Study Abroad in the Twenty-first Century
In the recently released Open Doors report, the Institute of International Education (2015) issued an overview of changes in the study abroad population since the turn of the twenty-first century. At first glance, the numbers are encouraging in many ways: More than twice as many American college students study abroad today compared to fifteen years ago …
“I Thought That When I was in Germany, I Would Speak Just German”: Language Learning and Desire in Twenty-first Century Study Abroad
We live in a time of unmatched global mobility and correspondingly, the number of U.S.-American students studying abroad continues to increase. For years now, applied linguists have displayed an increased interest in study abroad students’ perspectives and desires about second language (L2) learning and use while abroad. Yet few studies have analyzed how these students’ beliefs and desires are shaped by the broader discourses regarding monolingualism and diversity that surround them. This paper thus investigates the experiences of two U.S.-American students during their year abroad in Marburg Germany, considering …
Politicizing Study Abroad: Learning Arabic in Egypt and Mandarin in China
This paper examines ideologies of American study abroad in politically and culturally “non-Western” countries. Drawing from the theory of orientalism (Said, 1978), we analyze how American public discourse on study abroad for learners of Mandarin and Arabic manifests an orientalist thinking, and how such macro discourse both produces multilingual subjects (Kramsch, 2010) and considerable tensions with the micro discourses of these subjects. Our findings show …
An Activity Theoretical Approach to Social Interaction During Study Abroad
This case study examines the orientation to social interaction by one study abroad student who spent a semester in Spain. Using an activity theoretical approach, the findings indicate that the student did not only view social interaction with his Spanish host family and a expert-Spanish-speaking age peer as an opportunity for second language (L2) learning, but also had other goals for the interactions such as relationship building and enjoyment. The analysis further highlights …
Echoes of Postfeminism in American Students’ Narratives of Study Abroad in France
In qualitative research on Americans in study abroad contexts, female gender often emerges as problematic, with young women portrayed as hapless victims of sexual harassment. The assumption underlying interpretation of these studies appears to maintain that female students are victimized because they find themselves in places where inherently superior American discourses of gender equity do not prevail. Meanwhile, however, scrutiny of participants’ stories reveals deeper mysteries, to do with gender trouble from home that students bring to their experiences abroad. This paper adopts a narrative approach to interview and journal data from a previous study in which …
Becoming Global Elites Through Transnational Language Learning?: The Case of Korean Early Study Abroad in Singapore
Since the late 1990s, early study abroad (ESA) in English-speaking countries has been a popular educational strategy for pre-university Korean students to acquire important language skills such as global English, which is imagined to help them prepare for the competition in global educational and occupational market. However, as ESA, commonly known as jogi yuhak, became a prominent educational strategy among Korean middle class Korean, the destination for Korean Study Abroad began to diversify, showing significant increase of Korean Study Abroad in non-Western countries. For instance, Singapore has emerged …