The effects of short-term study abroad experiences on...
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The Effects of Short-term Study Abroad Experiences on Willingness to Communicate in a L2 Adrian Leis Miyagi University of Education Slides can be downloaded at adrianleis.weebly.com @adrianleis Adrian Leis [email protected] adrianleis.weebly.com
Transcript of The effects of short-term study abroad experiences on...
The Effects of Short-term Study Abroad Experiences on !
Willingness to Communicate in a L2
Adrian Leis!Miyagi University of Education
Slides can be downloaded at adrianleis.weebly.com
@adrianleis
Adrian Leis
adrianleis.weebly.com
Today’s Menu❖ Literature Review!
❖ Study Abroad!❖ Willingness to Communicate!
❖ This Study!❖ Research Questions!❖ Participants!❖ Materials & Procedure!❖ Results!
❖ Conclusions!❖ Acknowledgements
Literature Review (Study Abroad)
Number of Japanese students studying abroad
(MEXT, 2013; Educational Tour Institute, 2012)
Number of Japanese schools taking students abroad
Literature Review (Study Abroad)
(MEXT, 2013; Educational Tour Institute, 2012)
At least one university semester is needed
Increase in students’ willingness to communicate
Success depends on teachers’ guidance
Freed (1990) and Sasaki (2013) suggest that no significant change in
students’ motivation will be seen unless students
stay abroad for at least one university semester.
Willingness to communicate is a characteristic especially
necessary for Japanese students. Those with high
WTC will have more successful experiences while studying abroad (Yashima, et al., 2004; Yashima & Zenuk-
Nishide, 2008)
Increasing students’ language learning
motivation is possible after a short-term study abroad
program, but only with support from teachers upon
returning to their home country (Leis, 2013; 2014)
Literature Review (Study Abroad)
L1WTC !(McCrosky & Richmond, 1987; McCrosky, 1992 )
• How eager humans are to initiate conversation
L2WTC !(e.g., MacIntyre &
Charos, 1996; Yashima, 2002)
• L2 WTC is more complex than L1 WTC (e.g., communicative competence, intergroup issues, social and political implications)!
• International Posture (Yashima, 2002)
Literature Review (WTC)
(Yashima, 2002. p. 61)
Literature Review (WTC)
This Study (Research Questions)
1. Is a short study abroad program effective in increasing the motivation of students to study English?!
!2. Is a short study abroad program effective in decreasing
the amount of anxiety students feel in their ability to communicate in English?!
!3. Does a short study abroad program have a positive
effect on the international posture of participants?
80 75 ( 52 23 )!
Junior high school 3rd year (9th year of schooling)!
16% (i.e., 12 students) had been abroad!
4% (i.e., 3 students) had been to an English
speaking country
This Study (Participants)
This Study (Materials & Procedure)
88-item Questionnaire (Yashima 2002)
One week before departure
Ten days in Sydney, Australia
One week after returning home
88-item Questionnaire (Yashima 2002)
!• Compulsory!• Home stay!• English classes!• Cultural exchange
This Study (Results)
Category Reliability Time M 95%CI
MI α = .923 Before 3.96 [3.67, 4.26]
After 4.10 [3.78, 4.41]
DLE α = .867 Before 4.34 [4.08, 4.61]
After 4.37 [4.08, 4.66]
Note. N = 75; MI: Motivational Intensity; DLE: Desire to Learn English; Max. = 7; Min. = 1.
1. Is a short study abroad program effective in increasing the motivation of students to study English?
Like previous studies (Freed, 1990; Sasaki, 2011; Leis, 2013; 2014) ten days proved to be too short to see immediate significant changes in students’ L2 learning motivation.
1. Is a short study abroad program effective in increasing the motivation of students to study English?
Do students tend to
overuse their mother
tongue in school trips
abroad? (Trentment, 2013)
This Study (Results)
2. Is a short study abroad program effective in decreasing the amount of anxiety students feel in their ability to communicate in English?
Category Reliability Time M 95%CI
CA α = .901 Before 63.59 [59.15, 68.03]
After 55.57* [50.86, 60.27]
PC α = .915 Before 35.31 [31.60, 39.03]
After 38.93 [34.40, 42.97]Note. N = 75; CA: Communication Anxiety in L2; PC: Perceived Communication Competence in English; Max. = 100; Min. = 0; * F (1, 148) = 6.11, p = .015, η2 = .040.
This Study (Results)
2. Is a short study abroad program effective in decreasing the amount of anxiety students feel in their ability to communicate in English?
Students feel anxiety about making mistakes at school (Covington, 1992).!!This study:!• Anxiety = 63.59!• Only 4% had been to an English speaking country
Although the short trip abroad was not long enough to
see any significant increase in perceived communicative
competence, it did bring about a decrease in anxiety.
This Study (Results)
3. Does a short study abroad program have a positive effect on the international posture of participants?
Category Reliability Time M 95%CI
IFO α = .878 Before 4.43 [4.12, 4.73]
After 5.07* [4.76, 5.37]
AAT α = .884 Before 4.15 [3.87, 4.44]
After 4.57** [4.31, 4.84]
IVA α = .759 Before 4.22 [3.93, 4.51]
After 4.44 [4.16, 4.72]Note. N = 75; IFO: Intercultural Friendship Orientation; AAT: Intergroup Approach Avoidance Tendency; IVA: Interest in International/Vocation Activities; Max. = 7; Min. = 1; * F (1, 148) = 8.79, p = .004, η2 = .056; ** F (1, 148) = 4.57, p = .034, η2 = .030; Due to low reliability (α = .242) Interest in Foreign Affairs was not included in the data analysis.
This Study (Results)
3. Does a short study abroad program have a positive effect on the international posture of participants?
Participants’ feelings as members of the international society (i.e., international posture) significantly improved. This may have been due
to communicative experiences with home stay families and cultural exchanges during the program.!
!Interest in international/vocational activities did not change. This may have been to due to the young age of the participants. Older students
may show more interest in foreign affairs.
This Study (Results)
Conclusions
International Posture and confidence in L2
seem to be a key both to promoting L2
learning and communication in the
Japanese context. (Yashima, 2002. p. 63.)
Conclusions
Study abroad programs less than one university semester can be beneficial for students. Therefore, institutions should
incorporate more such programs into their curricula.
Like previous studies, it seems that ten days is not long enough abroad to see statistically significant changes in students’ L2 learning motivation!Ten days abroad was long enough to significantly lower students’ L2 communication anxiety, but not increase their confidence. !Significant increases were observed in students’ feelings of being members of the international society, i.e., International Posture. These were, however, limited to friendship.
Acknowledgements
This project was supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists B (N.o. 25770200).!
!The author would like to thank Tomoko Yashima for granting permission to use the questionnaire
for this study.
ReferencesCovington, M. (1998). The will to learn. New York: Cambridge University Press.!Educational Tour Institute. (2012). Heisei23nenndo (2001). zenkokukoushiritsukoutougakkoukaigai shuugakuryokou ! kaigaikenshuu (shugakuryokougai) jisshijoukyouchousahoukoku [A report on the current state of school trips and ! study trips abroad in Japanese private and public high schools in 2011]. Retrieved from the Educational Tour ! Institute website http://shugakuryoko.com/chosa/kaigai/2011-01-hyoushi.pdf on September 12, 2013.!Leis, A. (2013). Effects of studying abroad on the motivation and metacognition of high school students. Papers of ! Foreign Language and Studies at Miyagi University of Education 7，31-58. !Leis, A. (2014). The effects of a study abroad experience on the L2 Motivational Self and metacognitive skills: A study of ! a junior high school trip abroad. Bulletin of Miyagi University of Education, 48.!MEXT. (2013). Nihonjinnokaigairyuugakujoukyou [The current state of Japanese citizens studying abroad]. Retrieved ! from MEXT website http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/ 25/02/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2013/02/08/1330698_01.pdf ! on September 12, 2013.!Sasaki, M. (2011). Effects of various lengths of study-abroad experience on Japanese EFL students’ L2 writing ability and ! motivation: A longitudinal study. TESOL Quarterly, 45 (1), 81-105.!Trentman, E. (2013). Arabic and English during study abroad in Cairo, Egypt: Issues of access and use. The Modern ! Language Journal, 97 (2), 457-473.!Yashima, T. (2002). Willingness to communicate in a second language: The Japanese EFL context. The Modern ! Language Journal, 86 (1), 54-66.!Yashima, T., & Zenuk-Nishide, L. (2008). The impact of learning contexts on proficiency, attitudes, and L2 communication: ! Creating an imagined international community. System, 36, 566-585.!Yashima, T., Zenuk-Nishide, L. & Shimizu, K. (2004). The influences of attitudes and affect on willingness to communicate ! and second language communication. Language Learning, 54 (1), 119-152.
