Among educators, students, parents and policy makers, study abroad is routinely interpreted as a prime context for language learning. In effect, evidence can be found to show that student sojourns abroad can be beneficial for all aspects of language development but that they are especially useful for fostering the social-interactive and pragmatic capacities least amenable to classroom instruction. Taking these findings as a point of departure, in this presentation I will argue for the value of in-country language learning as a multimodal and multisensory process in which learning is contextualized within the intercultural encounters of everyday life. We will first consider a number of studies documenting the effects of study abroad on socio-pragmatic abilities, as this research generates questions about how these abilities emerge from experience. Secondly, we will focus on the emerging literature examining contextualized processes of learning in study abroad contexts, including homestay mealtimes, residence halls, and service encounters. Next, we will consider some of the ways in which these processes can be constrained such that students and hosts may not profit maximally from their encounters. In conclusion, I will argue that everyday intercultural encounters may be intensified in study abroad, but they can also be and become characteristic of other learning contexts. I will also suggest some avenues for future research and pedagogical intervention.

Bio

Celeste Kinginger is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University (USA), where she teaches basic courses in second language acquisition and education as well as seminars on a variety of topics, most recently, Narrative Approaches to Multilingual Identity, Student Mobility and Language Learning, Second Language Pragmatics, and Approaches to Language in Use. She is affiliated with the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research, funded by the United States Department of Education, and with the Center for Language Acquisition in the University’s College of Liberal Arts. Her research has examined telecollaborative, intercultural language learning, second language pragmatics, cross-cultural life writing, teacher education, and study abroad. Her current work includes research on the learning opportunities afforded to Chinese language students during mealtime interactions with host families in China, the design and testing of a model study abroad program for heritage learners of Spanish, and planning for a study of political discourse among hosts and student guests in France.