The Effects Of One-year Study Abroad Experiences On Self-efficacy:Evidence From Chinese University Learners Of Thai And Vietnamese

Since the 1990 s,study abroad(SA)has increased rapidly and has been considered as a crucial part in the fields of second language acquisition and applied linguistics.A bulk of research has extensively explored the impacts of long-term or short-term study abroad on learners’ linguistic gains,pragmatic development and intercultural competence.However,the majority of previous studies have focused on study abroad experiences of English learners,little attention has been paid to that of less commonly taught language learners.The research on the effects of SA experiences on Chinese undergraduates students’ self-efficacy in learning less commonly taught languages(LCTLs)such as Thai,Burmese and Vietnamese is scarce.Therefore,this current study intended to explore the effects of SA on self-efficacy of Chinese university learners of Thai and Vietnamese,the underlying points of students’ self-efficacy apart from the four-skill factors,as well as the factors that influenced the levels of their self-efficacy after one-year study abroad experiences.To achieve this aim,both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted in this study to examine the research questions.A total of 418 students majoring in Thai and Vietnamese in Yunnan province were chosen as participants,who were recruited from eight universities and all had one-year study abroad experiences in Thailand or Vietnam.14 of them volunteered to participate in the semi-structural interviews after the administration of questionnaire.SPSS 25.0 was used to analyze the data through the descriptive statistics,exploratory factor analysis,independent sample t-Test and One-Way ANOVA.The interview transcripts were evaluated through text analysis.The results of this study revealed that: 1)the self-efficacy of Thai and Vietnamese major students’ after one-year study abroad experiences were at an advanced level in the use of the target languages;2)two newly factors namely“production self-efficacy(PSE)” and “comprehension self-efficacy(CSE)” were found in their self-efficacy other than previous four-skill dimensions(i.e.listening,speaking,reading,and writing);3)one-year study abroad experiences enhanced Thai and Vietnamese learners’ self-efficacy in various aspects such as intercultural communication competence and cultural tolerance;4)after one-year study abroad experiences,the self-efficacy of Vietnamese language learners was slightly higher than that of Thai language learners both in general and listening,speaking,reading,and writing.In other words,different foreign languages that students major in influenced the level of self-efficacy after studying abroad;5)students in different universities in Thailand and Vietnam had different self-efficacy for listening and self-efficacy for speaking after study abroad experiences,and students’ self-efficacy would indeed vary from school to school.In other words,there was a significant correlation between listening self-efficacy and speaking self-efficacy in different universities.Based on the research findings,this study provides pedagogical implications for LCTLs teaching and learning and second or foreign language acquisition.The thesis ends with the limitations of the present study and recommendations for future research.