The long-term impact of a study trip abroad on the acquisition of regional Spanish vocabulary incidentally

Abstract

This quantitative study investigated the possible gains in the acquisition of regional vocabulary as a result of incidental learning after studying abroad for one semester. Five college students took courses at a language institute in Madrid (Spain) while living with a host family during a semester, while a control group with five participants continued their studies at XXXX, in the US. They took a survey online that contained forty vocabulary items exclusive to Spain (majo, mola, guay and similar) three times: at the beginning and at the end of the program and after three years. Results indicated that the group who traveled to Spain improved from a 21% to a 54.5% accuracy rate in the regional vocabulary items. This acquisition remained quite stable after a few years, lowering to 45%, but always maintaining around twice the scores obtained in the initial test.