| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 英國語文學系 === 105 === This study aims to reveal the advantages and challenges that early study abroad students face through exploring the positioning of two Taiwanese students who studied abroad at a young age at different stages of their lives. The study adopts a qualitative research method with written narratives, oral narratives and semi-structured interviews as data and the data collected is analyzed using a holistic-content approach. The research findings indicate that the two early study abroad students positioned themselves and were positioned positively after they returned to their own country and enjoyed various privileges, such as peers’ admiration and teacher’s encouragement for their superior English skills, ample opportunities to participate in many English-related activities in school, freedom granted by teachers in English classes, and less schoolwork burden in university or graduate school. Nevertheless, the participants also face unique challenges. Both of the participants suffer from great frustration at the beginning of their study abroad experiences and were not used to the test-oriented English education after returning to Taiwan. In Jessica’s case, difficulties in learning the Chinese subject and troubled interpersonal relationships also existed. The findings also reveal the importance of parents’ role in facilitating these early study abroad students’ sustained English development. Suggestions for teachers, parents, early study abroad students and implications for future research are provided at the end of the thesis.
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