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Effects of Study‐Abroad Experiences on EFL Writers: A Multiple‐Data Analysis
Author(s) -
SASAKI MIYUKI
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the modern language journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.486
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1540-4781
pISSN - 0026-7902
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4781.2007.00625.x
Subject(s) - study abroad , fluency , psychology , mathematics education , linguistics , pedagogy , philosophy
This study was a comparison of the changes in English writing behavior of 7 Japanese university students (the study‐abroad group) who spent 4 to 9 months in English‐speaking countries with those of 6 counterparts majoring in British and American studies (the at‐home group) who remained in Japan. The study aimed at confirming the results of Sasaki (2004), who investigated similar students' English‐writing behavior over 3.5 years. After a 1‐year observation period, (a) both groups improved their general English proficiency; (b) only those in the study‐abroad group improved their second language (L2) writing ability and fluency; (c) unlike Sasaki's participants, the study‐abroad group made more local plans and the at‐home group fewer; (d) at the end of the study, both groups translated their ideas into the L2 as often as they did at the beginning of the study; and (e) only the study‐abroad group became more motivated to write better L2 compositions.