Identification of salient linguistic and metalinguistic variables in the prediction of oral proficiency gain at the advanced-level threshold among adult learners of Russian

The present study investigates predictors of oral proficiency gain for the Advanced level resulting from immersion study abroad. Existing survey research indicates that Advanced and Superior level proficiencies are typically required to function adequately in professional settings, however for English base-language learners of Russian, the transition from Intermediate High to Advanced level in speaking proficiency is difficult to achieve within the traditional classroom environment.;The data consists of 22 pre-immersion Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI) of students who participated in semester immersion programs in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Based on the students' post-program proficiency scores, subjects were grouped according to those learners who crossed the Advanced-level threshold (gainers or high gainers), and those who did not (nullgainers). The interviews were transcribed and coded using the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES).;This study utilized linguistic predictor variables identified in the previous research (Brecht, Davidson and Ginsberg, 1993), as well as introduced a set of metalinguistic variables as delineated in Bialystok's Metacognitive Model of Language Skills (Bialystok, 1985), which provided a theoretical framework for the present study.;An empirically based model constructed for this study included five variables that were found as best predictors for the Advanced-level threshold gain. These included both linguistic (grammar, vocabulary, percentage of errors) and metalinguistic (self-corrected errors and sentence repair) variables.;Questions for further research are posed and implications for teaching, metacognitive skill training and self-managed learning are discussed.