Equally in relation to fluency, Freed (1995), in a study of American
students studying in France, found that these students spoke more and at a faster rate. They had fewer pauses and the students who lived abroad had
less likelihood of small clusters of dysfluencies than those who had not
studied abroad. In addition, their uninterrupted or fluent speech runs
were longer. Laudet (1993) found that Irish students of French for
Business had a substantial increase in fluency as a result of residence
abroad. The native-like quality of the students’ speech was enhanced by a
reduction in pauses, appropriate native sounding “drawls” for hesitations.
She suggests that these are used as a strategy which allows the learner
additional time for thought and language processing. Lafford (1995)
found that learners of Spanish L2 who study abroad develop a broader
range of communicative strategies for initiating, maintaining and terminating
a communicative situation, while their speech is more rapid and
contains more repairs. Towell (1995) finds evidence for the crucial importance
of residence abroad to the development of fluency in the second language.
Walsh (1994) finds gains in fluency in learners of German L2 during
a stay abroad, and the Canadian school-level studies report improved
fluency after a stay in the speech community (Clement 1978, Gardner et
al. 1978). Again the evidence from the sociolinguistic studies would seem
to bear out the findings on fluency in general.