Assessing learners' changes in foreign accent during Study Abroad

The present study aims to contribute to the field of Study Abroad (SA) research by exploring the under-investigated interface between SA and the measurement of pronunciation gains in terms of improvement in degree of foreign accent (FA). It is an exploratory study which analyzes changes in FA measures as a result of a short-term, 3-month SA program preceded by a Formal Instruction (FI) period. Data were collected from a group of non-native speakers (NNSs) consisting of 8 undergraduate, upper-intermediate learners of English as a second language (L2) with Catalan and Spanish as first languages (L1s), and from 3 undergraduate L1 English native speakers (NSs), who served as controls. Data from the NNSs were collected at the beginning of their degree (T1), after an 80-hour FI period (T2), and upon their return from SA (T3); data from the NSs were collected only once (T0). Thirteen L1 English listeners rated the speech samples from the NSs and the NNS for degree of FA by means of a rating experiment using a Likert scale. Analyses failed to yield a significant effect of SA on FA ratings and did not reveal a significant difference in FA ratings following SA as compared to FI. These findings are in line with the inconclusive and mixed results which are often reported for L2 pronunciation in short-term SA contexts