Interpreting Research on Language Learning in Study Abroad

Abstract

As a seasoned language educator, looking back on my own study abroad in France I see a period of intense language socialization. At work on the Lunes’ family farm, my only opportunity to use English was in attempting to translate the lyrics of a Patti Smith album for one of the farmhands, a would-be punk rocker. Once, someone mentioned some Anglais who had purchased a summer home on the other side of the mountain, but we never went there. The Lunes owned the sole telephone in the village, used mostly by the elder villagers who shouted into it as if it were a tin can on a string. I entertained voluminous correspondence by letter with my parents and long-term friends, but called home only once that year, after standing on line at the post office, to make sure no one had been injured or sickened by radiation leaks from the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. If I wanted something, most of the time I had to figure out how to ask for in French. If I wanted to eat, it was going to be celeriac remoulade ox pot au feu and not peanut butter or salsa. If I wanted to know what was going on in the news, I had to rely on local media sources. If I wanted to interact with most of the people around me, I had to craft a French-mediated identity based on what I had observed through close contact with French people.