Similarly, Siegal studied two Western women in their everyday
interactional encounters while abroad, both of whom had equally large
amounts of exposure to native speaker input. Lapkin, Hart and Swain
studied over a hundred English-speaking adolescents from three Canadian
provinces who spent three months in Quebec as participants in a federally-
sponsored bilingual exchange program. They stayed in the homes of
francophone “twins” whom they had hosted the previous autumn, also for
three months. The exchange students were integrated into the target culture by living in their twins’ homes and attending their secondary schools,
where, however, no special programming was provided for them. In relation
to context of acquisition the learners in this study were similar to
those in Marriott’s study. These students were placed in a similar immersion
situation. These learners, like those in the Marriott study, were also
adolescents. Like the students of Japanese, no special instruction for foreigners
was provided. The fact that they lived in an integrated way in the
host community meant that, unlike many older learners in a study abroad
situation, they had no difficulty interacting with native speakers. Students
in a study abroad program frequently have difficulty accessing native
speakers due to the fact that the learners have to live in university residences
or in homes where there are other non-native speakers. The only
opportunity for interaction may be at mealtimes. Like Marriott’s learners
of Japanese, the Canadian interprovincial exchange students had one-onone
contact with native speakers and generally a relatively intense contact
with the host community. The data analysed were both quantitative and
qualitative (test results and questionnaire findings) as in the Marriott
study.