Examining the effects of study abroad on L 2 Chinese development among
This study tracked ten third year English students learning Mandarin Chinese as a second language (L2) at a UK university, to examine changes in L2 Mandarin during an eight month period spent studying abroad (SA) We used three writing tasks and four speaking tasks as measures of writing and speaking proficiency, to assess total output, grammatical accuracy, lexical development, pronunciation and fluency, repeated before and after SA in China. Overall mean oral proficiency scores improved significantly (p .05) especially speech rate (p .01) supporting the claim that SA favours fluency development (Freed et al. 2004) although the measures highlighted difficulties in clarifying precisely how to assess oral proficiency. Written proficiency showed fewer marked improvements: only one writing test (an untimed short essay) significantly improved in length (p .05) and increased complex grammar (use of de relative clause morphemes, p .001) A sub group (n=7) provided quantitative data on L2 Mandarin use at different times during SA, showing clear individual differences, highlighting the value of capturing details of students' experiences during SA (Regan et al. 2009) We also note the lack of standardised linguistically informed measures for tracking development in L2 Mandarin (Freed et al. 2004; Pallotti 2009; De Jong et al. 2012) Further research is therefore much needed to identify systematic linguistic development in L2 Mandarin, and also to bridge theory and practice in L2 Mandarin language teaching to clarify the interconnecting factors that affect L2 Mandarin language development. We gratefully acknowledge the support of Newcastle University (HASS Faculty Board) for funding this research, also Linda Cheng of the School of Modern Languages for collecting the data, and Dr Alex Ho Cheong Leung of Northumbria University and Dr Chi Wai Lee of Newcastle University for assistance with data analysis. We are also most grateful to colleagues from Newcastle University and to this journal's reviewers, for their support, advice and comments.