Effects of Study-Abroad Experiences on Chinese Students ’ L2 Learning Activities and Study-Abroad Motivations

2.1 Defining Key Terms

In this study, overseas exchange experiences refer specifically to the semester-long exchange experiences where Chinese students lived and learned in a foreign nation, like the UK and Russia. Most of the exchanges were supported by their university.

Language learning activities in this study refer to those which Chinese students will attend in order to study the foreign language, English in most cases. Through participating in these activities, the students will also have interaction with their peers or native speakers, as will be shown in this study. Here are the activities reported by the participants in this study: watching L2 TV, reading L2 newspapers, reading L2 novels, listening to L2 songs, reading L2 magazines, watching L2 movies or videos, talking with native speakers, emailing in L2, volunteering/serving-learning/internship, and other L2-speaking activities. As can be expected, the types and frequency of learning activities the students join in may have an impact on their foreign language learning outcomes as well as their life.

In this study, instead of only exploring the Chinese sojourners ’ language learning motivation for going abroad, “study-abroad motivations” is used to cover all the motivations that lead them to go abroad for study, as summarized below：

1. To enhance knowledge and skills in my discipline/major

2. To enhance my proficiency in a second or foreign language

3. To enhance my critical thinking skills

4. To add diversity to my academic program

2.2 Related Studies on the Effect of Study-Abroad Experiences

To date, many scholars have conducted research on the impact of long-term or shortterm overseas learning experiences on exchange students. Most note-worthy is Jane Jackson, who has conducted extensive research on the issue (e. g., Jackson, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2017). In particular, she and her colleagues have explored the effect of one-/two-semester-long study-abroad on the learners ’ language use, language attitude, and cultural identity among others, revealing the difficulties, obstacles, and challenges that students may encounter, how the study-abroad experiences contribute to personal, linguistic, and intercultural development of the sojourners in a foreign country, and how factors such as language attitudes, motivation, and agency have an impact on the development. In addition, she also discusses the validity of methods such as using the IDI (Intercultural Development Inventory) and semi-structured interviews for doing related research.

Regarding language learning, research that compares students with study-abroad experiences and those without it shows that the former are more proficient in at least some aspects of language use. For example, it has been found that long overseas experience has a positive influence on students ’ oral proficiency (e.g., DeKeyser, 1991; Dyson, 1988; Freed et al., 1997; Isabelli-García, 2003; Möhle & Raupach, 1983; Segalowitz & Freed, 2004), listening comprehension (e.g., Dyson, 1988) and vocabulary development (e.g., DeKeyser, 1991; Ife et al., 2000; Meara, 1994; Milleret, 1990; Milton & Meara, 1995).

However, some studies have reported negative effects of short-term study-abroad experiences. Day (1987) argues that in short exchange programs, participants might have superficial contact with the host culture, inadequate language practice, a group orientation that may isolate them from the host culture, and a vacation mentality that works against an academic atmosphere. Moreover, Wilkinson (1998) suggests that students with cultural and linguistic assumptions prefer less interaction in the foreign language in the overseas environment and may have unpleasant experiences with native speakers. In addition, it has been found that exchange students may find it challenging to adjust themselves to the new environment (Jackson, 2014; Parris-Kidd & Barnett, 2011). Whereas students from Western culture in institutions of higher education are used to Socratic dialogic practices where the classroom is student-centered (Barnes et al., 1994; Jackson, 2017), most Chinese students are more accustomed to a didactic teaching style (Cortazzi & Jin, 2011). Jackson and Chen (2018) look into Chinese international students ’ view on discussion-based pedagogy and the challenges they face in L2 discussion in the host country. Through a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews, they show that exchange students are not well accustomed to a discussion-based classroom. They recommend that teachers back in the home country needed to give detailed instructions on the teaching pedagogy to students who are going abroad on exchange programs.

The brief review of related studies indicates that there have been inconsistent findings regarding the effect of (short-term) overseas exchange experiences. More relevantly, while previous researchers have primarily explored the effect of overseas learning experiences on the development of L2 proficiency and adaptation to L2 cultures of learning and instruction, they have seldom investigated whether and how other aspects of L2 learners, such as L2 learning activities and study-abroad motivations, have changed as a result of such experiences. Thus, the present study tries to fill these gaps by focusing on a group of Chinese overseas sojourners.

3.1 Research Questions

This section reports the design of a study that examines the influence of semester-long exchange experiences abroad on Chinese university students ’ language learning activities and study-abroad motivations. While the study may involve many issues, it focuses on the following questions:

1. Does the semester-long experience of overseas exchange have any influence on Chinese students’engagement in L2 learning activities? If it does, how is students’engagement in L2 learning activities affected?

2. Does the semester-long experience of overseas exchange influence the students ’study-abroad motivations? If it does, how are students ’study-abroad motivations affected?

3.2 Participants

The participants of the present study consist of 123 undergraduates (97 female and 26 male) from a renowned university in China. Among them, 115 (93.5%) spoke Putonghua (Mandarin) as a first language and 8 (6.5%) a Chinese dialect. Their average GPA (out of 5) was 4.25, placing their grades above average. All the students were ethnic Han Chinese.

Before joining in the exchange program, 63 students (51.2%) had never ventured outside China, while 52 (42.3%) had some international travel experiences (e.g., a few days or weeks in other Asian countries or regions). Fifteen (12.2%) had studied abroad; in most cases, they were involved in a summer language immersion program. For the semester-long sojourn, the participants went to various foreign countries or regions.

While abroad, all of them studied an L2, with a majority (96 of the 123 participants, accounting for 78%) doing all or nearly all of their coursework in English. Forty-nine (39.8%) lived on campus, 51 (41.5%) off-campus, and 22 (17.9%) in a homestay.

To gain a more in-depth understanding of their international experiences, the data collector randomly invited 30 students to participate. Finally, out of the 30 invited, 19 agreed to and were available for interview before and after the semester-long sojourn. All of the interviewees were born in China. (See Table 1 for the code number and profile of each interviewee).

When the sojourn took place, 2 (10.5%) of the interviewees were in their second year of studies, 15 (78.9%) in their third, and 2 (10.5%) in their fourth. As Table 1 shows, they came from diverse areas of study. Among the interviewees, 9 (47.4%) sojourned in the U. K., 6 (31.6%) in the U. S., 3 (15.8%) in Australia, and 1 (5.3%) in France. While abroad, all did coursework in English. Several English majors who studied in an English-speaking country also took a language enhancement course (S9 taking French, S10 Japanese, and S12 German). For the sojourn, 11 of the interviewees (57.9%) lived on campus, 4 (21.1%) off-campus, and 4 (21.1%) in a homestay.

3.3 Data Collection

Before going abroad, all of the participants completed a Chinese version of the Pre-International Exchange Questionnaire (Jackson, 2015). The instrument covered many topics, including their engagement in L2 learning activities and study-abroad motivations. While most of the items in the questionnaire were closed, several open-ended questions were included to gain more insights into the respondents ’ experiences and perceptions concerning issues such as their aims, expectations, L2 learning activities, and motivations, which are the concerns of this study. For example, nine events (including volunteering/service-learning internships) were listed in the questionnaire. The students were also asked to provide other activities in the questionnaire, if any.

Before departing for the host country, students from different disciplines took part in individual semi-structured interviews conducted in Putonghua. The average length of these sessions was 82 minutes. While the interviews included many topics, some questions were directly related to their motivations and L2 learning activities.

Immediately after their semester abroad, the group of subjects was invited to complete the Post-International Exchange Questionnaire in Chinese, which gathered information about their sojourn experiences (Jackson, 2015). This in-house instrument solicited information about their sojourn learning experiences, primarily consisting of closed questions with a few open-ended ones. To facilitate the assessment of their learning experiences, many items were similar to those in the Pre-International Exchange Questionnaire. Again, many topics were asked, including issues such as learning activities and motivations dealt with in this study.

To figure out the relationship between the sojourners ’ semester-long overseas experiences and their engagement in L2 learning activities and motivations, they were asked to indicate how much time they had spent doing each of the following activities in the L2 environment. These activities could be used in most of their courses to improve their L2 proficiency during their exchange in the last year. (Scale: 1 = never, 2 = a few times a year, 3 = monthly, 4 = weekly, 5 = daily). They were also to assign values (1 to 5 points) to motivations as followed:

Motivation 1: To enhance knowledge and skills in my discipline/major

Motivation 2: To enhance my proficiency in a second or foreign language

Motivation 3: To enhance my critical thinking skills

Motivation 4: To add diversity to my academic program

The students who were interviewed prior to going abroad were interviewed again individually. The average length of these sessions was 101 minutes. Topics included their overall impression of their international learning experiences, academic and intellectual development, sojourn activities and travel, intercultural contact and adjustment, intercultural communication skills, second language development and usage, and recommendations for the preparation and support of future exchange students/returnees among others.

3.5 Data Analysis

This study employed a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design (Creswell & Clark, 2007; Ivankova & Greer, 2015) with the collection and analysis of quantitative data followed by the interview protocols. In this design, the triangulation of quantitative and qualitative data enables a more robust and complete picture of the learning situations than is possible when only one type of data is assessed (Creswell, 2003; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2010).

The data obtained from the pre- and post-questionnaires were processed using SPSS 19.0 by means of paired sample t-test. To address the research questions, the transcripts of the pre-and post- semi-structured interviews were subjected to open, thematic content analysis, along with the responses to open-ended questions in the questionnaires. The quantitative data were triangulated with the qualitative data to develop a more comprehensive picture of the participants ’ perspectives and experiences. Pre- and post-findings were then compared to get a sense of the impact of the sojourn on the changes in their engagement in L2 learning activities and study-abroad motivations.

The overall Alpha values of the 4 motivation items in the questionnaire answered before and after the students left for the overseas exchange program are . 719 and . 865 respectively (Table 2), showing that the internal consistency of the questionnaire is reliable.

4.1 Effects of the Overseas Experiences on the Chinese Sojourners ’ Engagement in L2 Learning Activities

The average points of each question (learning activity) before and after their exchange programs are presented in Table 3, whereas their statistical comparisons are presented in Table 4.

Tables 3 and 4 show that the mean scores of “talking with native speakers” and “writing English emails” increased significantly, indicating that during their exchange life, students were more frequent to converse and communicate through email with native speakers.

Four reasons might help to account for the changes, as supported by the interview data, as follows,

1. The students had more conversations with native speakers. Student No. 3 shared that her friendship developed with a native speaker during the exchange program. As desk-mates, they talked a lot, becoming friends who shared everything.

2. Homestay increased the need to communicate with native speakers. In the interview, Student No. 4 mentioned that he chose homestay because he wanted more opportunities to communicate with local Americans instead of hanging out with Chinese classmates. He had frequent chats with his host families, which was one of his main methods of English practice.

3. Traveling around provided opportunities to chat with native people. As mentioned by Student No. 5, he spent a lot of time traveling alone in New York. During his city tours, he had many chances to talk with the locals when he was asking for roads or ordering food at restaurants.

4. Classroom groupwork increased discussion with native speakers. Student No. 6 reported that they got more chances to express themselves and discuss with native students in their class. However, when they were back in their Chinese universities, they did not have such chances to speak in English.

Another activity that increased their chances of learning L2 was writing emails. In China, students communicated with teachers and friends through phone calls, short text messages, or online messaging such as QQ and WeChat. They seldom chose email as their first choice of communication. However, in the foreign academic environment, emails played a significant role in students ’ daily life. As mentioned in their interviews, most students used email and affirmed its importance. For example, Student No. 7 mentioned that her teacher always used email to contact her. The content of the emails included advice on PPT making and essay writing correction. By communicating through emails with her teacher, she improved her English writing. Similarly, in Student No.1 ’ s interview, it was noticed that schools tended to use emails to invite students to attend activities. Thus, exchange students had to check and read emails frequently. Generally, they used email to contact their professors and school officials to ask questions or ask for help. Thus, they kept writing emails in English throughout the semester, and that did help improve their English proficiency.

Tables 3 and 4 also indicate that the mean scores of the remaining seven activities showed varying degrees of decrease, with the mean scores of “watching TV,” “reading novels,” “reading magazines,” and “watching movies and videos” decreasing significantly. For everyone other than Student No. 1, the other six activities only had a slight drop smaller than 0.5. No.1, however, saw a 1 point decrease to 2.59 compared with the pre-sojourn score back in China. It shows that watching TV was not popular among exchange students. By comparison, while in China, the mean frequency score was 3.53, which ranked fourth among all the nine activities. CCTV News, an English news network, is an example of a major channel for learning English. Although our interviews failed to cover such detailed questions, according to other information in our questionnaire, we can see that more than 80% of the students who lived on campus or homestay did not have access to TV (even off-campus rooms may not be equipped with TV). This condition might be able to explain the decrease in using TV as a channel for learning English.

To sum up, the Chinese sojourners ’ overseas experiences did have a significant influence on their choice and engagement in L2 learning activities. For one thing, studying abroad stimulated them to devote more time and attention to participation in interactions with native people, including having communications and writing emails. In such an environment, exchange students had to engage in interpersonal encounters, and the opportunities to use L2 for real-life communications rose significantly, which indirectly helped students to enhance their L2 proficiency. As a byproduct, other types of learning activities were less used by students.

4.2 Effects of the Overseas Experiences on Chinese L2 Sojourners’Study-Abroad Motivations

In order to figure out whether the Chinese sojourners ’ overseas exchange experiences had an influence on their study-abroad motivations, SPSS was used to process the data collected from the two questionnaires for a comparison between their pre- and post-sojourn responses.

As is shown in Table 5, while students tended to give different responses to certain motivations, the standard deviations among them were small. In addition, Table 6 shows that the mean scores of the motivations in the post-sojourn questionnaire had undergone an all-round decrease from the mean scores of motivations in the pre-sojourn questionnaire, with two of the motivation scores having decreased significantly.

Regarding the possible causes for the changes in the sojourners ’ study-abroad motivations before and after the overseas learning program, the analysis of the interview data might give us some hints. In particular, two interview records were related to the weakening of English learning motivation:

Student No. 1 responded that before taking the exchange program, she thought that overseas learning might help improve her English proficiency. However, since English was not her major, she did not treat it as a goal. Instead, she simply focused on her academic course and daily life. Learning English just happened naturally and unintentionally throughout her overseas experience.

Student No. 2 claimed that before he went abroad, he thought English was complicated and would like to make use of the opportunity to improve his English. However, during his days there, he realized that English needed to be practiced. The more he used it, the more proficient he felt. Owing to such a change in his perception about English learning, the motivations to learn English were no longer that important for students like him.

Finally, the motivation to learn English could be weakened by other types of motivations not covered in the list of items for choice, such as the pursuit of career development, the cultivation of personality, and the establishment of a global vision. If a student was motivated by other types of motivations when they arrived in a new environment, the effect of language motivations would naturally decrease. To them, learning English was just a tool to help them fulfill other motivations.

Thus, this study testifies to Thorne ’ s (2000) finding that contexts are closely linked with motivation to learn a second or foreign language. Specifically, the living experiences in the host country could be influential on L2 learning motivations. This study also supports the view of Ushioda (2006, p. 157), who argues that “motivation is never simply in the hands of the motivated individual learner, but is constructed and constrained through social relations with others.” But it is worthy of mention that there was some variation among the participants. Specifically, the strength of M1 and M3 decreased dramatically, while that of M2 and M4 did not change much. Therefore, there is another explanation: with a better understanding of the situation overseas, students began to see M1 and M3 as not important or relevant but continued to see M2 and M4 as important and relevant to them.