Beliefs about Language Learning in Study Abroad: Advocating for a Language Ideology Approach

Abstract

Governments, institutions, and students alike have a number of assumptions about the inherent value of the study abroad for language learning (Allen & Dupuy, 2012; Twombly, Salisbury, Tumanut, & Klute, 2012). To date the study abroad literature has conceptualized these assumptions as student-internal beliefs, motivations, perspectives and expectations. This paper proposes a language ideologies perspective as alternative to these learner-centred constructs in order to better recognize students’ beliefs and practices as socially and historically constituted. This paper reviews the main findings from beliefs-focused study abroad research before turning to the theoretical literature on language ideologies. Using illustrative studies to examine the affordances of a language ideology framework, I consider how notions of language ideology might provide new avenues for explaining how expectations become established resources for interpreting the study abroad experience.