The Ins and Outs of Erasmus Study Abroad

On 16 April 2018, Carmen Pérez Vidal, Acredited Professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, conducted a three-hour seminar about "The Ins and Outs of Erasmus Study Abroad: The Researchers' and the Students' Perspectives". The session was consisted of three parts: 
(i) Contextualisation of the Erasmus Study Abroad Programme. Pérez Vidal gave an overview of the language learning policies and the importance given to multilingualism in the European Union and the Council of Europe, highlighting, amongs other topics, the so-called "1+2 formula". She also discussed key terminology such as Study Abroad (SA), Formal Instruction (FI), English-Medium Instruction (EMI), and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL).
(ii) The Researchers' Perspective. Pérez Vidal explained in detail the background of the SALA Project (The Study Abroad and Language Acquisition Project), of which she is Principal Investigator, with regard to the existent literature review when the project was set out, the research questions behind the project, the methodological principles, and the factors under investigation. We can highlight, for instance, the programme features under research, such as syntactic complexity, fluency, phonetic accuracy, oral perception, and oral production.
(iii) The Students' Perspective. Pérez Vidal presented a longitudinal study carried out by the SALA research team over a three-year period with university students, showing quantitative as well as qualitative results. She also showed a number of videos to illustrate the real experience of the Erasmus Study Abroad students that took part in the study. These are available at the SALA Project website: http://intclass.upf.edu/intclass/