The learning environment is one of the causal variables in L2 acquisition.
In the US and Europe, classroom research has yielded an increasingly
complete picture of how learning happens. Naturalistic learning has
been investigated in detail by European researchers who have sought to
describe as fully as possible the interaction of learner internal and external
variables in acquisition. This European-based research focuses on SLA
through everyday contacts with the social environment. It ranges from the
Zisa (Zweitspracherwerb Italienischer, Spanischer und Portugiesischer
Arbeiter) Project in the seventies to the Gral (Groupe de Recherche en
acquisition des Langues) in Paris and Aix-en-Provence, the Heidelberg
project, a very strong tradition in Holland, and the European Science
Foundation project. All of these projects focused on immigrant workers.
All were interested in SLA in social context. Now in the 80’s the European
Science Foundation — coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen — is pursuing a further and deeper investigation
of acquisition in context in relation to specific aspects of the
grammar, with the particular aim of shifting interest from product to
process. Ultimately it is an understanding of the interaction of internal
and external variables which will give us the most complete picture of
acquisition, and especially of the area of the year abroad experience.