A Study On The Changes Of English Proficiencies Acquired By Chinese Students’ Short-term Learning Experiences In Canada

Currently, governments and educational institutions are increasingly devotingthemselves to offering study abroad programs to second language learners, and arewilling to regard it as one of the primary means of enhancing their cross-cultural andlinguistic abilities. Study abroad is generally considered to provide them with accessto communication with native speakers in a broad diversity of linguistic contexts, andinvolve learners in practical applications with the authentic cultures of the targetlearning country, thus giving rise to a dramatic improvement in language proficiency,cultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence.The purpose of this dissertation is to explore and discover influences and impacts brought bylearning abroad for foreign language learning effects in the process of foreign languageleaning. In addition, it attempts to seek the influencing factors on developing students’language learning competence during their study abroad. The current studies concerningstudy abroad rarely associate learning experiences ofstudents’language abilitywith changingexperiences of cultural sensitivity, and at the same time, cultural sensitivity seems to be themost indispensable influencing force of students’ study abroad. While students’ learningmotivation is a well-known factor to language learning, there is less research about therelations between learning motivation and language cultural learning. Moreover, problemsconsidering the relationship between students and host families in the short-term languagelearning programs have not been studied comprehensively. By analyzing English languageusage, oral fluency, grammatical accuracy, and syntactic complexity obtained from forty-fiveshort-term Chinese overseas students in Canada, this study makes endeavor to find andvalidate what effects will be resulted in by study abroad for language learning, and what mainfactorsaffectthedevelopmentoflearners’languageproficiency.Data were collected over one year at the University of New Brunswick, Canada,adopting instruments including interviews, picture-sequence tasks, and questionnaires. Data analysis is mainly focused on changes in grammatical accuracy, syntacticcomplexity, and oral fluency. The research methodology used in this project allowsfor a qualitative approach, supported by quantitative approach. The process of datacollection also centers on examining how the participants positioned themselves andwere positioned while learning abroad. The main ingredients influencing learners’positioning obtained from the data analysis are the participants’ access to socialnetworks, language learning opportunities, and their overall public identity in Canada.Research results indicate that study abroad can exert an immediate influence onlearners’ oral fluency, but does not necessarily have an obvious impact on theirgrammatical accuracy or syntactic complexity. Results further reveal that studyabroad shows no sign of having a long-term impact on any aspect of languagelearning. The analysis also suggests that the limited amount of English instructionduring study abroad, the learners’English level, and their learning abilities might haveinfluenced these results, and that students who are more culturally sensitive may havean advantage in language learning during study abroad programs. It is furthermoreindicated that study abroad context is more conductive to language learning than thepre-study abroad context because learners have more contact with English andbecause the learning forms are primarily based on communication.These results propose that administrators and teachers in study abroad programsshould not assume learners will make expected gains simply by studying abroad.They also recommend that students with cultural sensitivity may have an advantage inlanguage learning during study abroad programs. Consequently, helping students gaincultural sensitivity can also increase students’language learning outcomes.