via Zoom
Organizer:
Dr Zeynep Köylü
From second language learning to long-term retention: An overview of the LANGSNAP project
In this presentation I will provide an overview of the Languages and Social Networks Abroad Project (LANGSNAP: http://langsnap.soton.ac.uk), a longitudinal mixed-methods study that began in 2011 to examine the linguistic, personal, and social benefits of study abroad, and which has since evolved into the first major study of foreign language maintenance in the field of SLA. At the start of the project, the participants were British university students completing degrees in either French or Spanish who were required to spend an academic year abroad. They graduated in 2013, yet many ended up working in fields requiring little to no use of their L2s. As part of the study, they completed a variety of language assessments (e.g., an oral proficiency test, an oral interview, a vocabulary knowledge test) and interviews in English at multiple times over an eleven-year period, nine years of which were post-instruction (2016, 2019, 2022). In addition to describing the design of the on-going project and the resulting learner corpus, I will discuss recent findings related to the role of two important variables in long-term retention of L2 skills (continued exposure and peak instructional attainment) and how that relates to participants’ career trajectories.
Please contact Zeynep Köylü to register for the event.
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