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This study investigates the self-reported experiences of students participating in a Galician language and culture course. Galician, a language historically spoken in northwestern Spain, has been losing ground with respect to Spanish, particularly in urban areas and among the younger generations. The research specifically focuses on informal linguistic interactions available beyond the classroom that are usually a defining characteristic of language study abroad programs. Student interviews and surveys reveal the kinds of difficulties faced by students, but they also point to ways in which programs in minoritized languages might to some extent compensate for the general lack of immersion provided by the social context. For students of marginalized languages such as Galician, linguistic immersion will never be as easy as it is for majority languages. Program designers and learners will need to pay more attention to the role of student agency in the creation of contexts for micro-immersion as part of the language-learning experience.
