Classroom Instruction During Study Abroad: A Comparative Exploration of Chinese Second Language Acquisition

Exploring the underinvestigated area of instruction during study abroad, this article offers a quantitative study of linguistic development among second language university learners of Chinese during a semester in China. A comparison is made between learners following task-based language teaching and a comparison group following a traditional approach at two proficiency levels. Spoken task data are analyzed within the framework of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Quantitative findings point to enhanced linguistic development on the various measures used over the course of instruction abroad across the groups irrespective of instructional treatment and proficiency level. However, relative differences between the two groups point to an advantage of task-based learning in a study-abroad context. The findings are discussed in relation to the insights they allow into the role of different instructional treatments during study abroad, along with some directions for future research.