The ERASMUS sojourn: does the destination country or pre-departure proficiency impact oral proficiency gains?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the influence of pre-departure proficiency on English as a second language (L2) oral development after a semester studying abroad in two distinct learning contexts. The data analysed were collected from tertiary level students (N = 33) who undertook an ERASMUS exchange semester in a European country where English was either the official language (e.g. England) or used as a lingua franca in the university context (e.g. Germany). Each participant completed an oral elicited imitation test and a free oral response task pre-departure and on their return. The results of quantitative analyses indicate that the type of the study-abroad context had no significant impact on oral proficiency gains as all participants were found to perform significantly better on the elicited imitation test after the semester abroad. Despite strong to medium statistical correlations identified between pre-departure proficiency, and gains in oral fluency, lexical diversity, and syntactic complexity, pre-departure oral proficiency was only found to significantly influence syntactic complexity development as pre-intermediate and upper-intermediate participants outperformed intermediate students in both contexts.