Twenty-eighth International Conference on Learning

Abstract

How can undergraduate students of world languages authentically develop their linguistic competencies when study abroad is not an option? How can we provide these same students who find themselves geographically removed from where the language is spoken with an opportunity to engage in learning experiences that allow them to go beyond the typical ‘authentic’ manner of interacting with native speakers? This paper details the framework, challenges, and outcomes of a 2019, fourth-year undergraduate course in French Sociolinguistics at Western Washington University (Washington State). This course required students to remotely conduct a collective, IRB approved research project with Acadians (native French speakers of Atlantic Canada) on the issue of language attitudes and language borrowings from English. Over the course of ten weeks, fifteen students collectively worked in French as a team and developed their skills in leadership, statistical/qualitative analysis, technology, transcription, and registers of communication as they ‘became’ sociolinguists. In addition, these students established and created a network of study participants from across the continent and were able to discover, through surveys, questionnaires, and telephone/Facetime interviews, the impact of the English language on a French-speaking cultural minority. Not only did students strengthen their own cohort community through this joint learning experience, the results of their sociolinguistic study and their interactions with the Acadian participants allowed them to reflect forge new friendships, mentorships, and directions for future academic/life pursuits.