Premium
Oral Fluency, Accuracy, and Complexity in Formal Instruction and Study Abroad Learning Contexts
Author(s) -
Mora Joan C.,
VallsFerrer Margalida
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
tesol quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.737
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1545-7249
pISSN - 0039-8322
DOI - 10.1002/tesq.34
Subject(s) - fluency , psychology , period (music) , differential effects , variance (accounting) , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , mathematics education , medicine , physics , accounting , acoustics , business
This study investigates the differential effects of two learning contexts, formal instruction ( FI ) at home and a study abroad period ( SA ), on the oral production skills of advanced‐level Catalan‐Spanish undergraduate learners of English. Speech samples elicited through an interview at three data collection times over a 2‐year period were quantitatively assessed for fluency, accuracy, and complexity. The results reveal robust fluency gains during SA , moderate improvement in accuracy, and lack of gains in complexity. No gains were obtained during FI . Initial fluency scores, rather than post‐ FI scores, accounted for a substantial amount of variance in the fluency scores after SA . These findings provide strong evidence for the positive impact of an SA period on the development of oral fluency.