Social Network Development, Language Use, and Language Acquisition during Study Abroad: Arabic Language Learners’ Perspectives

Language learners and educators have subscribed to the belief that those who go abroad will have many opportunities to use the target language and will naturally become proficient. They also assume that language learners will develop relationships with native speakers allowing them to use the language and become more fluent, an assumption Pellegrino (Pellegrino, 1997, 1998) found to be held by study abroad participants. However, recent research has shown that students do not always use the language to the expected degree and that they often fall back on social relationships with native speakers of their found that study abroad participants used more English than French in their daily interactions during study abroad in France, and that study abroad learners used less French than students at home in an intensive language immersion setting. Learners in France were exposed to opportunities to use French but tended to speak with their fellow study abroad participants in English instead. Wilkinson (1998b) noted similar patterns and suggested, " The spontaneous formation of home culture 'islands' may actually have been the most efficient way for the students to keep from drowning in the French 'ocean' while they began to process the barrage of cultural differences and linguistic challenges faced on a daily basis " (p. 32). In contrast, James Coleman notes, " While L1 groups provide a secure base from which to risk-take linguistically, and a rest from L2 use, they may also pose the danger of reinforcing and concretizing what would otherwise be