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Article published In:
Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 28:1 (2015) ► pp.199–212

Does listening comprehension improve as a result of a short study abroad experience?

| Universitat de Lleida
| Franklin and Marshall College

The need to function in multilingual environments and the fact that study abroad (SA) is believed to be one of the most efficient language learning contexts (Collentine, 2009) have boosted the popularity of SA programs. While numerous recent studies have examined the SA impact on oral fluency, vocabulary or writing, among others, certain areas, such as listening skills (Llanes, 2011), have yet to receive substantial attention. In an attempt to address this issue, a pretest-posttest design study was conducted to gauge the listening skills of 12 college students at the beginning and the end of a 5-week SA experience in Costa Rica. Results from non-parametric tests revealed that despite the brief duration of the program, participants’ overall listening comprehension improved significantly. Individual analysis revealed that significant gains emerged in exit tasks in which the topic of conversation was kept consistent, suggesting that contextualization plays a crucial role in input comprehension.

Keywords: study abroad, listening comprehension, instructed learners, learning context, receptive skills
Published online: 10 September 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/resla.28.1.09lla
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Cited by 4 other publications

Borràs, Judith & Àngels Llanes
2021. Re-examining the impact of study abroad on L2 development: a critical overview. The Language Learning Journal 49:5 ► pp. 527 ff. DOI logo
Dewey, Dan P.
2017. Measuring social interaction during study abroad: Quantitative methods and challenges. System 71 ► pp. 49 ff. DOI logo
Llanes, Àngels
2016. The influence of a short stay abroad experience on perceived foreign accent. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education 1:1 ► pp. 88 ff. DOI logo
Xu, Jian & Xuyan Qiu
2023. Study abroad experiences count: Motivational profile of EFL listeners and its impact on top-down and bottom-up processing. Applied Linguistics Review 14:1 ► pp. 145 ff. DOI logo

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