tesis licenciatura en la enseñanza del inglés 1
TRANSCRIPT
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UNIVERSIDAD MAGÍSTER
FACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN
CARRERA DE ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS
MEMORIA DE SEMINARIO DE GRADUACIÓN PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE
LICENCIATURA EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS
“MAJOR ACADEMIC, AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL
BARRIERS THAT TENTH GRADE ADULT STUDENTS CONFRONT
INTO THE ENGLISH CLASS AT THE COLEGIO NACIONAL DE
EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA, SAN JOSÉ, 2014.”
KARINA BARBOZA GUADAMUZ
YERALDY FALLAS CORDERO
MAY, 2014
ii
TABLE OF CONTENT
Examining Board Advisory Committee Sworm declaration Copyright assignments Letter from the institution Dedications Acknowledgements Preface
vi vii viii ix xi xii xiv xv
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9
Background of the problem Justification of the problem Problem statement General objective Research questions Specific objectives Variables Scopes Limitations
17 17 20 20 20 20 21 21 22
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 2.1.1 2.1.2 2.1.3 2.1.4 2.1.5 2.2. 2.2.1 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.2.4 2.2.5 2.2.6 2.2.7 2.2.8 2.2.9 2.2.9.1 2.2.9.2 2.2.10 2.2.11 2.2.12 2.2.13 2.2.14 2.2.15 2.2.16 2.2.17 2.2.18 2.2.18.1 2.2.18.2
Institutional framework A brief historical review of the Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia (CONED) Distribution of the staff according to the field provided Characterization of the administrative staff Mission Vision Theoretical framework History of the education in Costa Rica Andragogy English as an element of the educational curriculum in Costa Rica. English teaching in Costa Rica Educational process in Costa Rica Scholar environment Multimedia resources Importance of the family in the education process Adult education in Costa Rica The costa rican Political Constitution Fundamental law about education (ley fundamental de educación) Motivational factors that influence adult students when learning English Motivation Intellectual and academic factors that influence adult students when learning Englis Humanistic perspective Stephen krashen´s theory of second language acquisition Description of krashen´s theory of second language acquisition The concept of affective filter Intrinsic and extrinsic factors Personality factors Self-esteem Inhibition
24 24 25 25 26 26 26 26 27 28 30 31 32 33 34 38 38 39 40 41 42 45 47 50 50 51 52 53 54
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2.2.18.3 2.2.19 2.2.20 2.2.21 2.2.22 2.2.23 2.2.23.1 2.2.23.2 2.2.23.3 2.2.24 2.2.25 2.2.26 2.2.27 2.2.28 2.2.28.1 2.2.28.2 2.2.28.3 2.2.28.4 2.2.28.5 2.2.28.6 2.2.29 2.2.29.1 2.2.29.2 2.2.29.3 2.2.29 .4
Risk taking Learning versus acquisition Principles of affective and social interaction Carmichael theory Emotional intelligence Social factor and learning Marginality Leadership in the group Characteristics of a cohesive group Pedagogical implications Pedagogical reactions Teaching English to adult students Socio cultural and emotional factors that affect the learning process of adults Content-based instruction Active student involvement Using reading as a teaching strategy Reading as product: focus on text Syllabus design Types of syllabus Teacher´s role in English courses English language skills Listening skill Speaking skill Reading skill Writing skill
57 56 57 58 59 62 63 64 64 65 65 66 68 70 70 71 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK
3.1 3.2 3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.3 3.4 3.4.1 3.4.2 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8
Investigation Defining the kind of research Descriptive research Explicative research Exploratory research Subjects of investigation Sources of information Primary sources Secondary sources: Population Data collecting instruments Variable definition Information process
83 84 84 84 84 85 86 87 87 88 89 89 92
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS
4.1 4.2. 4.3. 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.4 4.4.1 4.4.2 4.4.3
Introduction Personal information First variable data Opinion of the teachers Opinion of the psychology Second variable data Opinion of the teachers Class observation Opinion of the psychologists
93 94 96 101 102 105 106 107 107
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4.5 4.5.1 4.5.2 4.5.3
Third variable data Opinion of the teachers Class observation Opinion of the psychologists
110 113 113 114
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 5.2
Conclusions Recommendations
118 121
CHAPTER VI PROPOSAL OF EFECTIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES THAT TEACHERS WILL USE TO ENHANCE THE INTEGRATION OF STUDENTS INTO THE ENGLISH CLASS AT COLEGIO NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA, SAN JOSÉ.
124
Bibliography Annexes
130 134
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INDEX OF CHARTS AND TABLES
Chart # 1 Chart # 2 Chart # 3 Chart # 4 Chart # 5 Chart # 6 Chart # 7 Chart # 8 Chart # 9 Chart # 10 Chart # 11
Classification of the students by gender………………………………………………….. Students age in tenth grade at CONED………………………………………………….. Time without studying in a formal program……………………………………………….. Favorite signature of the students………………………………………………………… Reasons for returning to a formal educational program……………………….………. Teaching environment into the high school………………………………………………. Time of three lessons per week enough to acquire a second language………........... Frequency in which economical problems affect their performance in English……… Frequency in which English teachers use books exercises as a teaching …………… Usual evaluation technique………………………………………………………………… Recommended evaluation technique……………………………………………………...
94 95 96 97 98 100 101 106 111 112 113
INDEX OF CHARTS AND TABLES
Table # 1 Table #3 Table # 2 Table # 4
Staff distribution according to the matter taught ………………………………………… Pedagogical reactions………………………………………………………………………. Cost of the study…………………………………………………………………………….. Cost of the proposal…………………………………………………………………………
25 65 123 130
INDEX OF GRAPHS
Chart # 1 Chart # 2 Chart # 3 Chart # 4 Chart # 5 Chart # 6 Chart # 7 Chart # 8 Chart # 9 Chart # 10 Chart # 11
Classification of the students by gender………………………………………………….. Students age in tenth grade at CONED………………………………………………….. Opinion about the time without studying in a formal program………………………….. Favorite signature of the students…………………………………………………………. Reasons for returning to a formal educational program……………………..…………. Teaching environment into the high school………………………………………………. Time of three lessons per week enough to acquire a second language……….......... Frequency in which economical problems affect their performance in English ……. Frequency in which English teachers use books exercises as a teaching …………… Usual evaluation technique………………………………………………………………… Recommended evaluation technique……………………………………………………...
94 95 96 97 98 100 101 106 111 111 112
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TRIBUNAL EXAMINADOR
Esta Memoria de Seminario de Graduación es aprobada por el Tribunal Examinador
de la Facultad de Educación, como requisito para optar al grado de Licenciatura en la
Enseñanza del Inglés.
San José, a los 19 días del mes de Mayo del año dos mil catorce
________________________________
Máster Martín Núñez Arguedas
Presidente
____________________
Máster Vivian González Trejos
Directora Académica
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COMITÉ ASESOR
El Trabajo Final de Graduación es aprobado por el Comité Asesor de la Facultad de
Educación, como requisito para optar al grado de Licenciatura en la Enseñanza del
Inglés.
San José, a los 19 días del mes de mayo del año dos mil catorce
.
___________________________
Máster Nick Bolaños Astúa
Profesor de Seminario de Graduación
______________________________
Máster Vivian González Trejos
Rectora
______________________________
Máster Martín Núñez Arguedas
Lector
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DECLARACIÓN JURADA
Nosotras, Karina María Barboza Guadamuz y Yeraldy Fallas Cordero estudiantes de
la Universidad Magister, declaramos bajo fe del juramento y conscientes de la
responsabilidad penal de éste, que somos las autoras intelectuales del Trabajo Final
de Graduación intitulado “MAJOR ACADEMIC, AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL
BARRIERS THAT TENTH GRADE ADULT STUDENTS CONFRONT INTO THE
ENGLISH CLASS AT THE COLEGIO NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA,
SAN JOSÉ, 2014.”De comprobarse que la información arriba suministrada es falsa o
conduce a error, se aplicarán las sanciones correspondientes, de conformidad con el
Código Penal de la República de Costa Rica y de cualquier legislación vinculante,
por lo que liberamos a la Universidad Magister de toda responsabilidad.
San José, a los 19 del mes de Mayo del año dos mil catorce.
_______________________________
Karina Mª Barboza Guadamuz
Cédula: 1-12080359
________________________________
Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
Cédula: 1-11090699
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UNIVERSIDAD MAGISTER
DIRECCIÓN ACADÉMICA
CESIÓN DE DERECHOS DE AUTOR
Quien suscribe, Yeraldy Fallas Cordero, cédula 1 1109 0699, en calidad de estudiante
en la Licenciatura de la Enseñanza del Inglés, en éste acto manifiesto que en caso de
tener dificultades de cualquier índole y desista de la presentación de éste Trabajo
Final de Graduación; cedo todos los derechos a la co-autora del mismo, Karina María
Barboza Guadamuz, cédula 1 12080359 para la Memoria Final de Graduación
intitulada; “MAJOR ACADEMIC, AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL BARRIERS
THAT TENTH GRADE ADULT STUDENTS CONFRONT INTO THE ENGLISH
CLASS AT THE COLEGIO NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA, SAN JOSÉ,
2014.”
_____________________________
Firma del Estudiante
x
UNIVERSIDAD MAGISTER
DIRECCIÓN ACADÉMICA
CESIÓN DE DERECHOS DE AUTOR
Quien suscribe, Karina María Barboza Guadamuz, cédula 1 12080359, en calidad de
estudiante en la Licenciatura de la Enseñanza del Inglés, en éste acto manifiesto que
en caso de tener dificultades de cualquier índole y desista de la presentación de éste
Trabajo Final de Graduación; cedo todos los derechos a la co-autora del mismo,
Yeraldy Fallas Cordero, cédula 1 11090699 para la Memoria Final de Graduación
intitulada; “MAJOR ACADEMIC, AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL BARRIERS
THAT TENTH GRADE ADULT STUDENTS CONFRONT INTO THE ENGLISH
CLASS AT THE COLEGIO NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA, SAN JOSÉ,
2014.”
_____________________________
Firma del Estudiante
xi
Mayo, 2014
Señores
Universidad Magister
Estimados señores:
Mediante la presente el suscrito Luis Figueroa Retana, en calidad de Coordinador de
Sede San José en el Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia, autorizo a las
estudiantes, Karina María Barboza Guadamuz, cedula No 1 12080359 y Yeraldy
Fallas Cordero, cédula No. 111090699, de la Carrera de Enseñanza del Inglés para
que realicen su Trabajo Final de Graduación intitulado “MAJOR ACADEMIC,
AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL BARRIERS THAT TENTH GRADE ADULT
STUDENTS CONFRONT INTO THE ENGLISH CLASS AT THE COLEGIO
NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA, SAN JOSÉ, 2014.”Queda bajo la
responsabilidad del estudiante el uso que se sirva dar la información y datos
obtenidos.
Se extiende la presente a solicitud del interesado a los 20 días del mes de Marzo del año
2014.
Atentamente;
__________________________
Luis Figueroa Retana
Coordinador de Sede
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DEDICATION
To my dear husband , Juan Carlos , who
has always given strength and
support to all my ideas and
desires.
To my brother , Byron ,
who have always seen in me an
example to follow.
And finally, to my beautiful mother ,
Carmen , who has had the
patience and wisdom enough for
telling me good words and pieces
of advice.
In addition, this study is devoted
to my little son Ronald for all their support and tolerance.
Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
xiii
DEDICATION
First of all, I dedicate this project to God and the Virgin, because they gave me the
opportunity to make my goal come true. Also, to my mother, because she has been
supporting me morally, and taking care of my son, while I was doing that possible.
To Samuel my son, for giving me the patience and the love to succeed in life.
Finally, but not least to my couple Lenin, who gave me energy to be happy every
single moment.
Without their patience, understanding and support, the completion of this project would
not have been possible.
Karina María Barboza Guadamuz.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We want to thank God for all the guidance through the process of this investigation.
We also want to thank our families for having been there with us during the past
months.
We also want to thank our professor Martin, and the professor Nick for his support,
patience and dedication with us. To all the people at the University who have given us
assistance during the research, too.
Finally, we want to thank each other the friendship we have been cultivating during
years, and for the effort both were doing to realize this investigation.
Karina Mª Barboza Guadamuz
Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
xvi
PREFACE
It has long been apparent to many teachers and students of language that progress in
learning to use good English has been seriously retarded by the lack of interest on
English language, simple enough to be easily understood by pupils in the upper
grades of schools, and at the same time sufficiently comprehensive to embrace all the
essentials of the structure of the English sentence. Appreciating the serious loss that
has come to the students, it is really essential for students to be proficient in general
aspects of English including their participation in class. This research aims to fulfill the
necessities for both instructors and learners in regards to the strategies needed for the
appropriate development of classes in the Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia,
San José. The research provides a series of instruments to evaluate the process
before, during and after the study, who begins with a questionnaire in which the
students provide their own perceptions about their knowledge of English and the
necessity to be comfortable during the English Class. A diagnostic test is administered
to measure the level of English of the students at the beginning of the study. Then, an
observation sheet evaluates the behavior of the students during the sessions. Finally,
a post test evaluation is administered to the students to measure their improvement in
the Language.
At the end of the research suggestions are provided to upgrade the English Classes
for students and instructors.
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1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM
Studies have analyzed issues related to the learning process of adults,
psychological development of adult students, motivation of students and
recommendations used in adult educational programs.
However, no particular studies have been conducted about the challenges
that tenth grade adult students experience when reentering in an educational
program. Therefore, research in this area is necessary in order to discuss the
different situations that teachers who work with adult students would
experience and provide solutions and strategies that they could apply.
The present study is conducted in the area of the lower self-esteem in English
as a Foreign Language and more specifically in the area of adult education.
This research acknowledges English teachers about the major affective,
social and academic difficulties that tenths grade adult students confront when
reentering to a formal educational program after years without studying.
Therefore, issues related to the cognitive, psychological and social processes
that students experience when accommodating to an educational program are
described.
1.2 JUSTIFICATION
Nowadays, the labor market requires many requisites for getting a job,
including proficiency in a second language and a high school degree as the
minimum. However, a great amount of adults have not finished their
secondary education around the country diminishing their opportunities for
obtaining a job.
Due to this increasing necessity for finishing their secondary education, adults
have a variety of educational programs that emphasize only on the results of
obtaining the high school degree, not on the real academic, affective or socio
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cultural needs of students. For that reason, research in the area of adult
education and more specifically in the area of adult learning during the
reinsertion process in an educational program is necessary in order to
acknowledge teachers about the academic, affective and socio cultural
strengths, of adult students. Since last century, there has emerged a "boom"
of learning English in Costa Rica primarily due to its "open door" policies. This
has been challenging the English Language Teaching (ELT) profession in the
country. However, the number of English learners in Costa Rica has not
dropped accordingly; instead, it has gone up at an overwhelming speed in the
last two decades. Many of them need to have sufficient knowledge of English
to search through the literature and the latest developments in their academic
fields; and some of them intend to further their studies in an advanced English
speaking country, or to find a job in a joint venture, or a foreign funded
international company upon their graduation.
Therefore, secondary night school students tend to be learning English in
large classes, where they sit in straight rows facing the teacher, the teacher
does most of the talking, and where learners and the instructors share a
common first language, the talking tends not to be in English.
There used to be much resistance to the teaching of English in large classes
in most of the Costa Rican universities. Many universities would take many
other measures rather than enlarging the class size. They would try to
increase the workload of their existing staff (from 12 hours to 16 or 20 hours
per week); to recruit part time English professors through various channels; or
to arrange the postgraduate students majoring in English or linguistics to
teach 4 to 8 hours per week. However, these measures bring with them some
management problems and to some extent they result in an unstable teaching
quality. Under such circumstances, some universities experimented on
enlarging the English class size.
Individual students feel they cannot draw enough attention from the instructor,
and they feel it unlikely to be asked to stand up and answer a question;
therefore they tend to be more relaxed than they should be and less attentive
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to the educator. Pupils feel they cannot have two way communications with
the teacher; and that they rarely have chances to practice what they have
been learning. Some students feel uncomfortable with the "air pollution" of the
classroom, due to they are especially for those students to attend to day
classes.
The practice and experience of many who have ever been teaching show that
it is not only possible to build up a good learning atmosphere in large classes,
neither feasible to take advantage of the large class size.
The purpose of this research addresses in the issue of detailing some of the
techniques in the learning process particularly, in a community designated by
the society as “Marginal Zone”.
When teachers are immersed within an educative reality, it is necessary to
change the methodology and strategies to accomplish the main causes that
society is facing in relation to affectivity, taking into account the needs of the
social environment, thus establishing the purpose it is a way to facilitate the
process of researching.
A workshop will be performed with some students with low self-esteem. This
tool will help to understand some issues learners have and why they behave
in certain ways. Through this process, it will be analyzed how that reality is
related to the affectivity when the students are acquiring the foreign language,
taking into consideration that the emotional and social part of the active
participants of the workshop are being influenced by diverse internal and
external situations that are affecting their knowledge and also are generating
more depressed, fearful, anxious, and aggressive learners.
This research will be particularly useful because it will help to know in deep
ways which are the different factors that could influence the acquisition of
English in a community difficult to manage due to the many socio-affective
implications that the students require to fulfill, the main goal being “English
communication”
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1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT
What are the major academic, affective and socio cultural difficulties that
would affect the proficiency of tenths grade adult students when reentering in
a formal educational program after years without studying?
1.4 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
To explore some affective and sociocultural difficulties that tenth grade adult
students confront when learning English at CONED (Colegio Nacional de
Educación a Distancia) in San José, offering effective teaching techniques.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. How the low self steem affects the students of tenth grades in the Colegio
Nacional de Educación a Distancia, San José, secondary night school
during the first period of 2014” in the English classes?
2. Which are some effective teaching techniques that the teachers can use to
enhance the integration of students into the English class in the Colegio
Nacional de Educación a Distancia?
3. Which are some academic difficulties that tenth grade adult students face
in class when learning English at CONED in San José?
4. Which limitations could interfere into the learning process of students of
tenth grade?
1.6 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
1. To determine the main academic difficulties that tenth grade adult students
face in class when learning English at CONED in San José.
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2. To identify the major affective and sociocultural difficulties that tenth grade
adult students confront when learning English at CONED in San José.
3. To determine what factors are really affecting the English learning process
of students from the CONED in San José.
4. To model a classroom where students will be in a comfortable area in the
Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia, to teach oral proficiency and
different skills for people from 30 to 50 years old at a beginning level
where comprehension means to be necessary.
1.7 VARIABLES
1. Academic difficulties
2. Affective difficulties
3. Socio cultural difficulties
4. Effectiveness of the techniques
1.8 SCOPES
This research contributes to the field of adult education providing updated
data throughout the analysis of the major academic, affective and socio
cultural difficulties that tenth grade adult students face when continuing their
secondary education.
The CONED, Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia, is a public
secondary institution that emerges in 2005 as an innovative educational
proposal for adults who have not finished their secondary education. This
institution presents an academic plan that includes the six main subjects
required by formal educational programs (Math, Science, English, Spanish,
Social Studies and Civic Education). Additionally, subjects such as
Conversational English, and Accounting are taught in order to offer students
tools for the present labor marketing. CONED applies a non- attending
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methodology in which students must develop skills such as autonomy, self-
regulation and self-discipline in order to achieve the objectives. Tutoring is
offered as a resource for students; even though, attendance is not a
requirement. CONED actually has ten educational centers around the country.
This research is directed to EFL teachers, and pedagogues, psychologists
and some other professionals who work with adult students in any educational
program because it provides relevant background about the learning process
and difficulties of adult students when adapting themselves to the educational
environment.
1.9 LIMITATIONS
Some of the limitations that the present study copes with are related to the
lack of contextualized information and research about adult learners and adult
education in Costa Rica; the time and cooperation of students because most
of them have very demanding agendas.
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
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This chapter is based on the important details about the Institution where this
investigation takes place and the most important aspects using for the
development of this research; institutional information.
2.1 INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK
2.1.1. A BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE COLEGIO NACIONAL DE
EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA (CONED)
The Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia (CONED) is an adult tutorial
secondary institution ascribed and sponsored by the Universidad Estatal a
Distancia (UNED) in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Education (MEP).
CONED main objective is to offer adult people (18 and older), who have not
finished their secondary education yet, an innovative educational opportunity.
The program of CONED proposes an educational offer that considers the
needs, interests, problems, aspirations and autonomy of adult students,
besides their capacity for making decisions by their own. CONED
methodology is eclectic due to its approach based on the awareness and
accessibility to education by the diverse groups of people around the country.
Therefore, heterogeneous groups (from different ages) and flexible schedules
are emphasized with the purpose of stimulating autonomy of students for
learning and respect for individual differences.
The teaching-learning process is possible due to the interaction among
people, environment, didactic resources and didactic mediations such as
tutorials, didactic orientations and information, class environment and
evaluation. There are ten CONED branch offices around the country: San
Jose, Heredia, Nicoya, Liberia, Ciudad Neily, Limón, Palmares, Cartago,
Turrialba and Puntarenas.
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2.1.2 DISTRIBUTION OF THE STAFF ACCORDING TO THE FIELD
PROVIDED
The educative staff is currently composed of twenty eight teachers. The two
areas in which a greater number of teachers are used are Social Studies and
English (including Conversational English). The subjects with one teacher are
accounting and public relations.
The following chart evidences the amount of teachers working in the
secondary school as well as the distribution according to the subjects taught
in the educational center.
TABLE. N .1 STAFF DISTRIBUTION ACCORDING TO THE MATTER
TAUGHT
Source. Own Elaboration according to the information given by the secondary school office
2.1.3 CHARACTERIZATION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
The administrative staff working at Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia
(CONED) has a total of seven people in different positions. In this sense in
that area there is not a large number of persons with the same jobs. The
janitors are has two. Administrative staff has three assistants.
SUBJECT TEACHERS
Social Studies 5
Science 3
Mathematics 5
Spanish 3
Accounting 1
English 4
Conversational English 2
Technology 2
Public Relations 1
Computation 2
Totals 28
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2.1.4. MISSION
To raise the quality of the education of the student community taking into
account, the educational and technological context and the general
dispositions to contribute to the development of the critical and reflexive
thought, to develop integral people.
2.1.5. VISION
To promote the formation of integral students with critical attitudes, capable of
facing new challenges and also contribute to a better quality of life of being
costarrican; across the improvement of the education and the experience of
values.
2.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.2.1 HISTORY OF THE EDUCATION IN COSTA RICA
Education has been considered an element used for the development of the
societies. Since the XVII century, education has been a topic of key
importance for the Costa Rican authorities. According to the Ministry of Public
Education and its department of National Educational Systems, in 1792 the
government obligated parents to send their children to school; if parents did
not respect this new commandment, they had to pay a fare to the authorities
in charge. By the year 1813 the government started founding town councils
which were in charge of finding new schools. In this manner, the education in
Costa Rica began to spread all around the country.
The first formal school in Costa Rica was established in 1814 and was called
“Casa de Enseñanza de Santo Tomás”. This important education center was
located in Heredia, and it is of relevant importance for Costa Rican history. On
August 18th, 1823 the government analyzed the necessity of having a
philosophical basis for inspiring the educational actions in Costa Rica. As a
result, the Superior Governmental Council created a claim which stated that
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public education was the basis and the principal ground for human happiness
and common prosperity. In this manner, education became the basis and the
final goal of Costa Rican population.
In 1827, Costa Rica had more than 50 schools spread around the territory.
However, by this time, only men had the opportunity to receive an academic
instruction. It was in 1844 when women had the opportunity to go to school for
taking knowledge as men had taking. This fact made authorities more
conscious of the relevance education had for the development of the country,
so in 1869, due to a new degree of the state, education in Costa Rica became
free and paid for the state. Education continued getting importance and
strength among all the Costa Rican society. There were not only elementary
schools but also high schools for every citizen; According to the web page of
the University of Costa Rica, in 1941, during the government of Dr. Rafael
Angel Calderon Guardia, The University of Costa Rica emerged, giving the
opportunity to the society to have a superior education.
2.2.2. ANDRAGOGY
According to Wikipedia, Andragogy consists of learning strategies focused on
teaching adults. It is often interpreted as the process of engaging adult
learners in the structure of the learning experience. As Smith (1996-1999, p.3)
explains, the term andragogy was originally formulated by a German teacher,
Alexander Kapp, in 1833. He used it to describe elements of the education
theory created by Plato. The employment of andragogy by Kapp had some
currency, but it was disputed, and fell into disuse. It reappeared in 1921 in a
report by Rosenstock in which he argued that 'adult education required special
teachers, methods and philosophy, and he used the term andragogy to refer
collectively to these special requirements.
Later on, Andragogy was developed into a theory of adult education by the
American educator Michael Knowles. As Stephan Lieb (1991, p.1) states,
Knowles theory establishes the following principles:
Adults are autonomous and self-directed. They need to be free to direct themselves. Adult learners should be
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responsible for their own learning, they need to be actively involved in their learning process.
Adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge that may include work-related activities, family responsibilities, and previous education. They need to connect learning to this knowledge/experience base.
Adults are goal-oriented. Upon enrolling in a course, adult students usually know what goal they want to attain. They, therefore, appreciate an educational program that is organized and has clearly defined elements.
Adults are relevancy-oriented. Adult students must see a reason for learning something. Learning has to be applicable to their work or other responsibilities to be of value to them.
Adults are practical, focusing on the aspects of a lesson most useful to them in their work. They may not be interested in knowledge for its own sake.
As do all learners, adults need to be shown respect. These adults should be
treated as equals in experience and knowledge and allowed to voice their
opinions freely in class.
However, Conner (1997-2004) claims that the andragogic model asserts that
five issues be considered and addressed in formal learning.
They include (1) letting learners know why something is important to learn, (2) showing learners how to direct themselves through information, and (3) relating the topic to the learners' experiences. In addition, (4) people will not learn until they are ready and motivated to learn. Often this (5) requires helping them overcome inhibitions, behaviors, and
beliefs about learning.( p. 2)
2.2.3 ENGLISH AS AN ELEMENT OF THE EDUCATIONAL CURRICULUM
IN COSTA RICA.
According to the Webster’s Dictionary (1998) English is
“the West Germanic language of England: the official language of the United Kingdom and an official, standard, or auxiliary language in the United States and regions formerly under British or U.S. dominium”.
English language is spoken by five hundred millions people in more than one
hundred three countries. Since The United States has become a very
important economical potency, English language has been spread all around
the world. In Hispano-America, for example, English is an essential tool for
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many aspects in life. In Costa Rica, English has taken an important position
as a requirement for almost any job. For this reason, many institutions have
done business by teaching English as a foreign language to people who want
to have better job conditions.
In Costa Rica, since 1993, English has been part of the subjects of the
Ministry of Education curriculum. In this manner, the government does great
efforts to immerse citizens into a world in which English represents a form to
get better opportunities.
According to the National English Syllabus (2006) the English curriculum
“was written within the principles stated both in our
Constitution, The Education Law and in the Educational Policy "Towards the 21st Century" in order to help the students face life and work situations which require an average command of English, with the desire that this preparation will allow them to participate actively into the challenges of the global economy for the benefit of the country.”( Page.6)
The idea of the Ministry of Public Education is to create citizens able to face a
world in which the English language is an outstanding part of development.
Because of the fact that English constitutes the principal language for global
communication, the Ministry of Public Education states in the National English
syllabus the following two facts in which their perspective lies in:
1. English offers students a second language which can enable them to
communicate within a broader social-economic context in and outside
Costa Rica.
2. English gives students a tool to directly access scientific, technological and
humanistic information and, in this way, expand their knowledge of the
Classrooms are full of students with affective needs, some of them due to
the social variables to which they belong. In that sense the most important
motivation for this research arises on how the socio-affective factors
interfere in the process of learning English.
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2.2.4 ENGLISH TEACHING IN COSTA RICA
The National English Syllabus makes use of the four English skills: writing,
reading, speaking and listening. Teachers have the responsibility to guide
students under the development of these skills in order to achieve a high-
quality English proficiency by designing methods and activities in which
students can exploit these abilities.
The English curriculum bases their design under the Communicative
Approach. Firstly, Douglas Brown in (2002)
“An Anthology of Current Practice” states that an approach constitutes “a set of assumptions dealing with the nature of language, learning, and teaching.” (Page.3)
In this manner, the Communicative Approach refers to the way teachers can
center the teaching of English language in the classroom in such a way that
students can communicate in a conscious way, taking into account their real
experiences. Some teachers see communicative approach as a great tool;
however, there are some who have not realized of its usefulness yet (Brumfti,
2004 p. 112) According to the Ministry of Public Education in the English
National Syllabus (2006), the main characteristics of the Communicative
Approach are:
1. It creates a stress-free atmosphere conductive to learning a language with plenty of opportunities to communicate.
2. It provides ample opportunities for interaction promoting a pleasant, warm and enjoyable environment which features positive feedback for the learner from both the teacher and peers.
3. The learners' needs and interests are taken into account making them as the center of the learning process.
4. The methodology used is participative, dynamic and offers the opportunity for real use of the language.
5. The teacher guides the learning process but shares the responsibility with the learners. They use critical thinking to solve problems, work in groups, take risks, discuss different topics, and appreciate and reinforce their own as well as English speaking cultures. All these aspects take place in real-life situations.
6. The teacher and students make decisions together. By doing this, the learner gets completely involved in the language-learning process and becomes responsible for it.
7. The objectives of the syllabus develop the communicative functions of the language elements.
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The Communicative Approach makes teachers to be facilitators of the
learning process and a mean by which learners get the necessary information.
Moreover, learners constitute the active part of the teaching process being
able to develop the needed abilities for facing a world plenty of opportunities
in which English is the essential requirement.
2.2.5. EDUCATIONAL PROCESS IN COSTA RICA
The educational process in Costa Rica and in any other country represents a
very complex issue. Many are the techniques which teachers use to instruct
their students, and many are the ways in which students learn. Therefore, it is
very significant to analyze the factors that are present in this essential
process. For the purposes of this work, the information will be related to the
English teaching and learning in Costa Rica.
Education is seen as an action by which the human being develops the
process for the creation of the knowledge (Picado, 2002.) In this case,
education does not represent all the information that a person can get at
school, for example the necessary knowledge and understanding for speaking
English. The fact that a student speaks. English or not does not mean that this
individual is completely educated. In other words, education constitutes all the
processes that occur during the formation of their knowledge, not the
knowledge itself. Picado also states that individuals do not educate
themselves; she affirms that there are interrelated aspects which help
individuals to create their own understanding.
School is the place in which individuals have the opportunity to put in action
the development of their knowledge. Related with this process, there are
many factors that can be taken into account for standing the effectiveness or
the failure of an individual within the educational development.
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2.2.6. SCHOLAR ENVIRONMENT
One of the aspects that affect the learning process is constituted by the
impact learners have regarding what surrounds them. According to Guillermo
Bolaños (2002) the scholar environment has been minimized to just the
classroom perimeter.
However, he states, the scholar environment represents all the scenery in
which the individual develops the teaching- learning processes. By scholar
environment one can understand not only the tangible but also the intangible
aspects present at school. The infrastructure of the school in general, the
arrangement of the classroom and the school, the relation among the
members of the school society can be mentioned just as few of a great
amount of elements that are present within the educational process.
When the schools do not have optimal conditions in infrastructure such as big
classrooms with ceiling, big windows, well- conditioned school desks; the
educational practice becomes uncomfortable not only for the students but also
the teacher, and, of course, it disrupts the learning and teaching experiences.
English teaching is not away from this reality. Since English is a foreign
language and it is sometimes hard for students to process their knowledge,
and in non-optimal conditions it is such as harder to have a very meaningful
experience. English teaching in Costa Rica is structured under the
communicative approach. In this manner, teachers have to use
communicative methods for the students to develop the four English skills. It
means that teachers have to use techniques such as role plays in which the
space and the arrangement of the classroom conform an element of relevant
impact.
On the other hand, the relation among the members of the school society
plays an important role during the acquisition of knowledge. The role each
member has establishes either the success or the failure of the process.
Teachers and students must work in an environment in which they can
interact in a free, respectful and enjoyable way (Bolaños, p.48). The
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environment must provide a democratic feeling; that means that both students
and teachers must deal with the rules and the principles of the good behavior.
2.2.7. MULTIMEDIA RESOURCES
Another aspect that affects the process of learning English in Costa Rica is
the use of multimedia resources. The resources used in the teaching process
can encourage or discourage students in the creation of their knowledge.
Nowadays, technology is an essential part of classroom interaction. Taking
this into consideration, one can say that education and technology has a close
relation. The use of new technologies makes people to have more challenging
experiences during the learning process. In the case of English, the use of
multimedia resources stimulates the development of new learning
experiences. Nowadays, learners have a very direct relation with the use of
different kinds of multimedia resources, such as television, radio, magazines
and internet. Teachers have to be very creative when assessing their student
because all the methods used during the learning process must be interesting
to them.
Moreover, it is very important to keep in mind that times change, so it is not
the same teaching English in 1995 than teaching English now. When teachers
use methods and resources that call the learner’s attention, teacher can
guarantee a meaningful learning.
Although technology serves as a useful tool when learning English, it is not
the only multimedia resource. There are schools in which it is such as hard to
have access to technology, so teachers have to use other kind of multimedia
resources such as the board, chalk, printed materials, or even pictures
(Picado, 2002); sometimes it can be constructive to make students to create
their own resources because it stimulates the knowledge processing.
According to Guillermo Bolaños (2002) this practice exercises the auto
learning. With the purpose of having a more meaningful learning and
integrating students in a more active process, the use of multimedia resources
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gives teachers and students the opportunity to have a better knowledge
development.
2.2.8. IMPORTANCE OF THE FAMILY IN THE EDUCATION PROCESS
Family is defined by the Webster’s Dictionary (1998) as “parents and their
children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not.” Regarding
education, family constitutes one of the most important elements within the
knowledge development. In this manner, parents as active elements play an
important role in the development of their children. According to Krauskopf
(2000) children have a better academic performance when their parents
manifest interest for their development. In families with difficult economic
conditions or low academic levels is where problems related to education take
place.
The strengths of this investigation are based on the specific situations of the
distinct people in different contexts.
In a qualitative research study, there is an interest not only on the physical
events and the behavior that is taking place, but also on how the participants
in their learning process make sense of this and how their understanding
influences behavior (Maxwell, 1992, Manzel 1978).
Therefore, this research will be done with the purpose of comprehending the
meaning, that is, the actions, and experiences of the participants who are
immerse within the setting, but also identifying influences generated by the
type of social and emotional context and also through observation of the
distinct situations that they are confronting in the learning process.
Practical purposes are focused on persuading teachers of the need of using
and providing spaces for the humanist philosophy in several settings, for
example: activities of different areas, classroom arrangement, socialization,
and a practical or updated syllabus. Those aspects are really important
because educators have kept giving emphasis to cognitive perspective but
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they do not pay much attention to the emotional side of students, These
actions are generating a poor education in values having in the classrooms
students without a critical thinking to evaluate the society and without any
sensibility of the different situations they have to face every day.
Currently, it is normal to observe a huge lack of values, because the society
is constantly changing. It means that if a society changes so do the values
and principles. Developing specific planning to introduce adults actively to a
culture of values is not an easy task due to the aspects adults have to
confront such as violence, familiar disintegration, and poverty, among others.
Parents must establish basic requirements for their children to avoid that
emotional problems come in future. They need more than education, medical
care, food or clothing. What they really need is love, protection, to spend time
with them and discipline them, but also parents must provide values that help
them facing the future in a mature behavior.
Moreover, it is true that some factor such as divorce, desertion, or death of
any member of the family can cause great pain and des-motivation to the
adult and their way of seeing life.
In 1990, teaching English in Costa Rica suffered a radical change because
new plans were elaborated containing new objectives, new learning situations
and new evaluation criteria and activities. The Communicative Approach is
promoted; for that reason, oral communication is considered among the plans
criteria. The Communicative Approach and the elaborated plans are still used
nowadays in Costa Rica for teaching English in High School.
The process of teaching English in Costa Rica has experienced many
changes in the last twenty years as the emerging global economy that has
pushed education to a distinct level in which the integral education is
considered a vital component in different areas and English has not been the
exception. With the arrival of a global economy, the society needs to be both
competitive and interdependent so that it can reflect the formation of integral
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citizens not only social and the affective part as well, two aspects that are
being damaged in the current culture by many factors.
However, it was not until 1949 that teaching in all levels strongly expanded to
several parts of this country. Up to this period, Costa Rican educators had
already adopted the basic principles of the “Active School,” which are
democracy, active methods, children interests, and the system of integral
citizens among others.
According to this curricular policy, in this 21th century the teacher also has to
assume the idea of implementing into the classroom the transformation of
students in critical thinking so that they express their emotions respectfully;
strengthening family ties and relations with the rest of the members in a
society.
The basic principles of the policy could be pointed in the following factors:
a) Individuals should be able to develop their own personality and ought to
seek opportunities to contribute to the development of their country, while
fulfilling themselves and finding their own happiness.
b) They should be able to interact with other people and cultures to solve
problems and produce benefits for their country. They have to respect their
own values and those of other people.
c) Education should promote the broadening of understanding by providing
challenging classroom situations and opportunities for self-growth.
Individuals should learn how to learn.
d) Providing individuals with possibilities of social improvement should close
social and economic gaps in order to integrate them into every-day
problem-solving situations. Their goal should be to promote a self-sufficient
society.
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e) Achieving sustainability in production and the economy in general
represents a challenge for the spirit of competitiveness. Furthermore, there
is a need to integrate the country more effectively into the global economy.
f) The information of the content the learners handle should be up-to-date
and has to be relevant to global development in the 21st century.
g) Education should aim to solidly reinforce values and attitudes.
Consequently, it is not difficult to see that these goals entail moral imperative,
humanism, rationalism, and constructivism, which are clearly stated in the
principles of the policy. According to these facts, every person is able to
achieve his or her full abilities, which involve as a necessary step of
interacting harmoniously with the surroundings, in three aspects of human
development: the cognitive, socio-affective, and psycho motive factors.
Education ought to be a permanent formative process, which each person has
not only a right, but also a duty to exercise. Achieving quality in education is
an “integral” process throughout which the results validate the initial aims.
Through this process, learners are offered equality of opportunities to succeed
and appropriate educational provision according to their needs, problems, and
aspirations.
The design of the syllabus encourages participative interaction and its
adaptation. The implementation of educational provision encourages
democratic participation, cooperative and self-reliant attitudes. The process of
mediation for the construction of learning, and the transference of knowledge
are framed, primarily, within an epistemological-constructivist position. The
ties with other disciplines allow for educative as well as for inductive
processes.
The task of teaching is not an easy mission; however, it could be improved by
using different approaches, methods, and techniques for teachers to take into
account how to teach this language in an interesting way. It is also mandatory
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that teachers can be responsible for creating real experiences in class time,
that motivate students to learn English, and explain to them that this language
is a tool that will open their windows and will expand their minds to new ideas
in this world.
2.2.9. ADULT EDUCATION IN COSTA RICA
Adult education is considered a subsystem of the global permanent
educational project, a process characterized by the integral and continuing
improvement of people from their birth to their death. For that reason, the
concept of adult education embraces all the organized educational processes
which contribute to adults’ acquisition, innovation, completion and expansion
of their knowledge and aptitudes for their personal and professional
development (Quiros and Calvo, 2006, p.13).
The UNESCO Conference, Nairobi, 1976. defines adult education as :
“The entire organized educational processes, no matter the content, the level, the method, if it is a formal or informal system, continuing or replacing the initial education offered by schools and universities. People considered as adults for the societies in which they live, can develop their attitudes, increase their knowledge, improve their technical and professional competences in order to achieve a socio-economic and cultural participation in their society”
2.2.9.1 THE COSTA RICAN POLITICAL CONSTITUTION
Article 77: Public education will be organized as an integral process and
correlated in its different cycles from preschool education to university.
Article 78: Preschool education, general basic education and “diversificada”
in the public system are obligatory, free and paid by the Nation (government).
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Article 83: The State will sponsor and organize adult education with the
purpose of reducing illiteracy and offering a cultural opportunity for those who
want to improve their intellectual, social and economic condition.
2.2.9.2 FUNDAMENTAL LAW ABOUT EDUCATION (LEY FUNDAMENTAL
DE EDUCACION)
Article 1: The purposes of Costa Rican Education are:
1. To make citizens loving of their country, conscious about their rights and
duties with fundamental freedom and a deep sense of responsibility and
respect for the human dignity.
2. To help the development of the human personality.
3. To make citizens for a democracy interest in the individual and community
harmony.
4. To stimulate the sense of union and human comprehension.
5. To preserve and increase the cultural inheritance providing knowledge
about history, literature and philosophy.
Article 32: The State will develop programs about fundamental education in
order to train the citizens about social and civic responsibilities; to offer them
an adequate physical and mental health; to use the material resources
rationally; and to promote a higher quality of life.
·
Executive Decree 6-70 which creates the Adult Education Department as the
specialized department of the Ministry of Education (MEP) in charge of
“planning, guiding and organizing all the official activities related to the
promotion of Costa Rican Adult Education.”
Executive Decree 3333-E that approves the National Plan for Educational
Development. This plan defines the characteristics, objectives and structure of
Adult Education by describing it as “a sub system or branch of the Regular
and Formal Educational System. Moreover, it establishes the regulations
40
about the equivalence, recognition and accreditation of previously taken
courses.
National Plan for Educational Development: education responds to the
country’s necessities, increasing and changing the adult educational offers by
adapting those educational offers to adults’ familiar, social, professional and
cultural necessities and conditions.
Considering the existing Costa Rican policies for adult education, the Ministry
of Education have improved some educational programs such as “IPEC”,
“Nuevas Oportunidades”, “Bachillerato por Madurez”, “Bachillerato por Edad”,
“Bachillerato Unificado”, “Planes Modulares” and more recently “CONED” (an
agreement among MEP and UNED) which offer adults accessible education
with the purpose of improving their quality of life and learning.
2.2.10. MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE ADULT STUDENTS
WHEN LEARNING ENGLISH
Stephan Lieb (1991) suggests at least six factors that serve as sources of
motivation for adult learning:
Social relationships: to make new friends, to meet a need for associations and friendships.
External expectations: to comply with instructions from someone else; to fulfill the expectations or recommendations of someone with formal authority.
Social welfare: to improve ability to serve mankind, prepare for service to the community, and improve ability to participate in community work.
Personal advancement: to achieve higher status in a job, secure professional advancement, and stay abreast of competitors.
Escape/Stimulation: to relieve boredom, provide a break in the routine of home or work, and provide a contrast to other exacting details of life.
Cognitive interest: to learn for the sake of learning, seek knowledge for its own sake, and to satisfy an inquiring mind. On the other hand, motivational factors can also be a barrier. Typical motivations include a requirement for competence or licensing, an expected (or realized) promotion, job enrichment, a need to maintain old skills or learn new ones,a need to adapt to job changes, or the need to learn in order to comply with company directives. The best way to motivate adult learners is simply to enhance
41
their reasons for enrolling and decrease the barriers. Furthermore, Quiros and Calvo (2006, p.17) suggest two types of motivational factors that influence adult students’ learning.
Extrinsic Motivation: refers to those situations that solve concrete problems or necessities; for example, professional adaptation to work throughout a certificate or title (Bachillerato), labor and social improvement, to help children with school assignments, etc.
Intrinsic Motivation: related to obtain a personal satisfaction and increase the self-esteem. This type of motivation also includes to break up with people’s routines in order to get a better quality of life, adaptation to social
changes, among others.
2.2.11. MOTIVATION
According to Lieb (1991, p. 215) ESL/EFL motivation of adult students may
fall into a broad spectrum distribution:
1. Teachers will have students who are very eager to learn English; therefore they can move on to other classes or so they can advance in their employment.
2. Teachers may also have students who are required (by their employer, by some social assistance program, etc.) to attend English classes but who do not really care about English at all. Some may be motivated to learn every possible detail about every aspect of English. Others may only want as much language as is necessary to do a particular job.
English teachers need to explore what his or her adult students really want.
Regardless of the motivation adult students come with, genuine concern for
the student, an enjoyable class and a sense of progress will increase
motivation once the students are there. Because students come with specific
purposes for learning, one of the best ways to keep them motivated is to help
them feel progress towards their goal. In order to do this, the teacher will have
to determine somehow what those goals are. One way to proceed is to
conduct an informal discussion to determine their goals. This may require the
assistance of interpreters because of the variety of the native languages
spoken by students. Once the goals have been determined, materials and
activities that will be relevant to the goals should be selected. For example, a
student wants to learn English so that he or she can work towards general
education, the materials that are chosen should provide vocabulary and
42
language patterns that are used in basic secondary textbooks. Students will
be further motivated if teacher remind them how each of the activities that you
are doing will help them move towards their goals (e.g., "We are doing this
activity so that when you are taking a math class, you will be able to ...").
One of the most important factors that motivate students is a sense of
progress. There should be clear markers of success so that students can look
at what they are doing well. This means that there should be fairly frequent
measurements (questioning individual students, short quizzes, corrected
homework, and others). Some teachers avoid measurements because they
are time consuming or because the students have an inordinate fear of
examinations.
However, a wise teacher will build in easy, convenient ways of showing the
students their progress. One simple way of doing this is a simple checklist of
tasks that the students would want to be able to accomplish in order to reach
their overall goal. As they do the tasks one by one, they sense their progress
and feel that the class is worthwhile. This will keep them coming until they
reach their major goal.
A second factor that will maintain and increase motivation for your students is
enjoyment. Activities should provide opportunities for real social interaction
and getting to know other people in a relaxed and, sometimes, even
humorous ways. If activities are exciting enough, students will not want to
miss class because they know they will be missing the "action." If you help
your students develop feelings of respect and friendship for one another,
those ties will also draw them back to the class.
Relevance is probably the most important motivating factor for adult students.
If the students are exposed to and study life-coping skills, e.g. balancing a
checkbook, applying for a job, and others , their interest will never decrease.
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2.2.12. INTELLECTUAL AND ACADEMIC FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE
ADULT STUDENTS WHEN LEARNING ENGLISH.
Speed, pace and subject matter are some basic challenges that teachers
must consider when teaching adults. As Bryson (1936) explains,
“If adults can learn approximately as well but never as rapidly as they could when they were children, teaching must be adjusted to their optimum speed” (p.72).
Even though some opponents of the actual difference on the pacing of
students and speed in the learning process would argue that there is a decline
in the intelligence of adults according to the age; Elias et al. (1977, p. 71)
affirm that there is no relation between intelligence and aging because of the
disagreement among experts for defining the term intelligence. In other words,
age is not a variable that affects neither intelligence level of students nor their
learning proficiency. The experts argue that if the term intelligence is defined
according to the abilities of long-term memory and the use of acquired skills,
there is a little decline in intellectual ability (related to aging. In addition, they
affirm that what is different is the ability of older people to respond within
specific time limits that is related to the “stimulus and stimulus-response
stages” (p. 147). Teachers must be aware of the age of students but not as an
indicator for the decline of intelligence; on the contrary it should be considered
as a criterion when selecting teaching techniques. In fact, Cross (1981)
affirms that:
“Older learners have slower reaction times than younger learners. We need more time to learn new things as we age, however, when adults can control the pace of learning, they can often effectively compensate for their lack of speed and learn new things successfully” (p.159-180).
Similar to many other supporters, Mary Schleppegrell (2006, p.21) argues that
there are recent research about adult education that shows that: there is no
decline in the ability to learn as people get older; except for minor
considerations such as hearing and vision loss, the age of the adult learner is
not a major factor in language acquisition; the context in which adults learn is
the major influence on their ability to acquire the new language.
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According to the point of view of Schleppegrell and contrary to popular
stereotypes, older adults can be good foreign language learners. The
difficulties older adults often experience in the language classroom can be
overcome through adjustments in the learning environment, attention to
affective factors, and use of effective teaching methods. The greatest obstacle
to older adult language learning is the doubt--in the minds of both learner and
teacher--that older adults can learn a new language. Most people assume that
"the younger the better" applies in language learning. However, many studies
have shown that this is not true. Studies comparing the rate of second
language acquisition in children and adults have shown that although children
may have an advantage in achieving native-like fluency in the long run, adults
actually learn languages more quickly than children in the early stages
(Krashen, Long, and Scarcella, 1979).
These studies indicate that attaining a working ability to communicate in a
new language may actually be easier and more rapid for the adult than for the
child. Furthermore, studies on aging have demonstrated that learning ability
does not decline with age. If older people remain healthy, their intellectual
abilities and skills do not decline (Ostwald and Williams, 1981).
Adults learn differently from children, but no age-related differences in
learning ability have been demonstrated for adults of different ages.
Therefore, adult learners of any age can learn and succeed in their pursuits if
they are afforded the opportunity, assistance, and support they need.
According to Reio and Reio (2000), adult workers 45 years of age and older
perform well, and there is no superior productivity of job performance in any
age group. Workers between the ages of 60 and 75 often excel in their
occupations because of extensive experience and careful judgment. Though it
is true that people in this age group often suffer from a decline in physical
reactions, vision, hearing, and strength, their well-tuned evaluative skills and
wisdom are fair compensation.
Despite age is not considered as a decisive intellectual or academic factor
that influence adult learning for some researchers, Merriam and Caffarella
(1991) argue that
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“Few changes have been found in both sensory and short-term memory as we age, but long term memory declines. Older adults have a harder time acquiring and retrieving information and they experience difficulties in organizing new material and in processing it. Older adults are not as able as younger learners in tests of recall, but the differences between older and younger learners in tests of recognition are small or nonexistent” (p.159-180).
2.2.13. HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE
Nowadays, Humanistic Education is an interesting and debatable matter.
Many people are in agreement but there are others that are against it.
However what is true is that the human being is an integral being such that
humanism nowadays consists of educating the individual; according to
Moreno (1971) cited by Perez (1997).
“there is not isolated parts of the man, the humanist culture must be integral, must be an education that influences about the mind, the physique, and the individual body”, p.41)
In others words what educators must do is to reform the individual to be able
to transform his/her surroundings. In order to transform this scenario it is
essential to know what have minded and feelings.
Teachers must take into account that the process of learning is composed by
these two parts. Therefore, if teachers want to integrate the educational
processes as a humanistic perspective also, they need to promote those
factors toward the learning and teaching process. In contrast, it is true that
society is facing nowadays a total apathy in different areas: family, culture;
and education. The idea of promoting a humanistic philosophy is to foster
strategies into their already existing curricular materials.
The implementation of the humanistic current leads to integration and to
concern for the social-emotional impact in the learners, seeing them as
integral human beings who require the theoretical part of education but also
the affective part factor that is innate in any human from birth. Thus, the
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humanistic philosophy tends to study the profound dilemma of any human
being who is confronting signs of stress as Moskowitz (1978, p.7) says that :
“signs of stress in today’s youngsters are evidenced by the continuous increase in school dropouts, drug abuse, violence, vandalism among others. Therefore, due to those problems another type of education becomes essential; the conditions youngsters are looking for”.
Educators have to take into consideration that adolescents are most part of
their time in junior or senior high school which for them is “a second home”.
They are interested in finding at least some of the particular aspects they
encounter in common family house such as: love, comprehension, motivation,
self-esteem, and others. The main problems in education and in society occur
when the human socio-affective filter is forgotten just for paying more attention
to the cognitive parts as Rogers cited by Moskowitz (1978 ,) mentions.
“Each year I become more pessimistic about what is going on in educational institutions. They have focused so intently the cognitive and have limited themselves so completely to
education from the neck up”. (p.8)
This narrowness is resulting in serious social consequences such as the
overstress on the cognitive part and the avoidance of any feeling connected
with it, most of the excitement has gone out of Education.
The constant violence in society and especially in secondary schools is a
living an issue. It illustrates how much are the needs more than subject matter
in classrooms and life instruction, which are completely different. In order to
have a clearer point of view about what humanistic education is, it is important
to recognize the content related to the fantasies, experiences, feelings,
memories, hopes, beliefs, aspirations, and values of learners. In those terms
teacher must take advantage of every situation that represents a significant
experience for them, and affective learning situation represents also an
important part of the role of being a humanistic teacher.
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The humanistic education could be more affective if teachers take into
consideration the following factors:
a) It consists on sharing, taking care, being accepted, and sensitive.
b) It facilitates understanding, genuineness, rapport, and interdependence.
c) It is a way to emphasize self-discovery, introspection, and self-esteem.
d) It helps to get in touch with the strengths and positive qualities of others
and ourselves.
e) It enables learning to take care for others.
f) It could be a funny education.
Curiously, if educators ask learners who are their favorite teachers, as well the
better education for them, with no doubt they will answer those who are
interested in their needs and want to share experiences.
As a result, it can be said that when students drop out from school, one major
factor is due to the lack of meaning that strikes them in scholar instruction.
Moreover, it is also necessary to know what humanistic education is not only
concerning to humanism and the issue of the whole person. The idea is to
avoid the instructor let students to do whatever they want in the classroom.
2.2.14. STEPHEN KRASHEN´S THEORY OF SECOND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
Stephen Krashen (University of Southern California) is an expert in the field of
linguistics, specializing in theories of language acquisition and development.
Much of his recent research has involved the study of non-English and
bilingual language acquisition. During the past twenty years, he has published
well over hundred books and articles and has been invited to deliver over
three hundred lectures at universities throughout the United States and
Canada.
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This is a brief description of Krashen´s widely known and well accepted theory
of second language acquisition, which has had a large impact in all areas of
second language research and teaching since the 1980s.
2.2.15 .DESCRIPTION OF KRASHEN´S THEORY OF SECOND
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Krashen´s theory (1980) of second language acquisition consists of five main
hypotheses:
the Acquisition-Learning Hypothesis,
the Monitor Hypothesis,
the Natural Order Hypothesis,
the Input Hypothesis,
the Affective Filter Hypothesis.
The Acquisition-Learning distinction is the most fundamental of all the
hypotheses in Krashen's theory and the most widely known among linguists
and language practitioners. According to Krashen, there are two independent
systems of second language performance: the Acquired System and the
Learned System'. The Acquired System' or Acquisition is the product of a
subconscious process very similar to the process children undergo when they
acquire their first language. It requires meaningful interaction in the target
language - natural communication - in which speakers are concentrated not in
the form of their utterances, but in the communicative act.
The Learned System or Learning is the product of formal instruction and it
comprises a conscious process which results in conscious knowledge 'about'
the language, for example knowledge of grammar rules. According to Krashen
Learning is less important than Acquisition.
The Monitor hypothesis explains the relationship between acquisition and
learning and defines the influence of the latter on the former. The monitoring
function is the practical result of the learned grammar. According to Krashen,
the acquisition system is the utterance initiator, while the learning system
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performs the role of the 'monitor' or the 'editor'. The 'monitor' acts in a
planning, editing and correcting function when three specific conditions are
met: that is, the second language learner has sufficient time at his/her
disposal, he/she focuses on form or thinks about correctness, and he/she
knows the rule.
It appears that the role of conscious learning is somewhat limited in second
language performance. According to Krashen, the role of the monitor is - or
should be - minor, being used only to correct deviations from 'normal' speech
and to give speech a more 'polished' appearance. Krashen also suggests that
there is an individual variation among language learners with regard to
monitor use. He distinguishes those learners that use the 'monitor' all the time
(over-users); those apprentices who have not learned or who prefer not to use
their conscious knowledge (under-users); and those learners that use the
'monitor' appropriately (optimal users).
An evaluation of the person's psychological profile can help to determine to
what group they belong. Usually extroverts are under-users, while introverts
and perfectionists are over-users. Lack of self-confidence is frequently related
to the over-use of the 'monitor'.
The Natural Order hypothesis is based on research findings (Dulay & Burt,
1974; Fathman, 1975; Makino, 1980 cited in Krashen, 1987) which suggested
that the acquisition of grammatical structures follows a natural order, which is
predictable. For a given language, some grammatical structures tend to be
acquired early while others late. This order seemed to be independent of the
learners' age, first language background, conditions of exposure, and
although the agreement between individual acquirers was not always 100% in
the studies, there were statistically significant similarities that reinforced the
existence of a Natural Order of language acquisition. Krashen, however,
points out that the implication of the natural order hypothesis is not that a
language program syllabus should be based on the order found in the studies.
In fact, he rejects grammatical sequencing when the goal is language
acquisition
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2.2.16. THE CONCEPT OF AFFECTIVE FILTER
Krashen (1981, p.31) holds that the Affective Filter Hypothesis captures the
relationship between the affective variable and the process of second
language acquisition by positing that acquires vary with respect to the strength
or level of their affective filters. As a result, this filter constitutes an important
part of the acquisition of any language, and the different psychological
elements, such as anxiety, self-esteem, and motivation play a main role in this
issue.
This theory could be interpreted as very relevant because teachers must take
into account those aspects mentioned before. In this sense students can
obtain an effective and comprehensible input, providing different methods and
techniques to diminish the low affective filter, with the result that this sort
defines within the teaching of English a new way to establish the pedagogical
goals not only for giving comprehensible cognitive input but also a real
contribution making a relationship between daily situations that any human
could face which can enrich the integral part of a human, who has
weaknesses but also strengths.
It can also be said that the affective filter is one of the most important aspects
that teachers need to know in order to have success in the learning process,
but it plays a crucial role, especially those related to anxiety, self-esteem and
motivation, which are the ones that mainly influences the acquisition of
learners.
Krashen suggests that the anxiety can be viewed, not as a simple or single
structure, but as a cluster of affective states that are influenced by intrinsic
and extrinsic factors.
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2.2.17. INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC FACTORS
Krashen (1981, p.155, 156) maintains that intrinsic motivation are those
activities for which there is no clear reward except the activity itself.
“People are involved intrinsically when self-determination appears during the process of learning; it means that it is something people do on their own.”
In contrast, Krashen considers extrinsic motivation as a participation of a
reward from outside and beyond inside. Thus, if teachers are extrinsically
motivated, it is because there is something they can obtain from outside, in
other words, teachers can receive a kind of gift when the task is done.
Another important aspect that must be taken into consideration is that the
development of affectivity begins with receiving it. Bloom (1964) cited by
Krashen (1981, p.135) mentions that beyond receiving, being willing to
respond voluntarily means being capable of committing themselves to any fact
that implies immersion in the process of learning. According to Bloom,
teachers and learners must take into account the environment surrounding
them, being conscious about the situation and being willing to receive the
stimulus.
It is needed to know the components that are involved in the setting of the
students which could give teachers a better picture of how to internalize the
concepts putting together the necessary pieces to conform the immersion of
learners into the acquisition of a new language.
Furthermore, Bloom’s ideas are closely related to the way in which the
individuals are characterized by understanding themselves in terms of their
values system. Educators could find that learners act by the internalization of
their code of seeing life with a positive perspective. The immersion process of
an individual who is integral can have a big impact not only in his or her
personality but in society, as well.
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2.2.18. PERSONALITY FACTORS
Ernerst Hilgard (1963) cited by Krashen (1981, p.135) holds that purely
theories of learning will be rejected unless a role is assigned to affectivity. The
emotional field cannot be conceived without valuing the language as an
important part of the whole person. Both researchers Bloom and Krashen
believe that those fundamentals variables affect the path of the acquisition of
the learners.
Most of the time, educators have in their classroom students who suffer
personality problems. These issues are closely related to education that
becomes failed. According to Krashen, there are four major aspects that are
related with personality or affectivity, such as: self–esteem, inhibition, risk-
taking, and motivation.
2.2.18.1 SELF-ESTEEM
The concept of self-esteem is well defined by Coppersmith (1967, p.4, 5) cited
in Krashen (1981, p.137) in which he states:
“By self-esteem, we refer to the evaluation which the individual makes and customarily maintains with regard to himself; it expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval, and indicates the extent to which an individual believes himself to be capable, significant, successful, and worthy”.
Self-esteem is a term used in psychology to reflect a person's overall
evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses
beliefs (for example, "I am competent" or "I am incompetent") and emotions
such as triumph, despair, pride and shame. A person's self-esteem may be
reflected in his/her behavior, such as in assertiveness, shyness, confidence or
caution. Self-esteem can apply specifically to a particular dimension (for
example, "I believe I am a good writer, and feel proud of that in particular") or
have global extent (for example, "I believe I am a good person, and feel proud
of myself in general").
53
Psychologists usually regard self-esteem as an enduring personality
characteristic ("trait" self-esteem), though normal, short-term variations
("state" self-esteem) also exist. Thus, now seeing those crucial elements as
one of the most important variables in the acquisition of language, it can be
said that self esteem interferes with the process of learning, especially in
those students who cannot build with their own way of seeing things but rather
their low self esteem contributes to their failure and in most cases it is not
easy for them to face this situation alone, so their performance and
competence are broken, a factor that also is related to inhibition.
2.2.18.2. INHIBITION
Krashen (1981, p.138) asserts that all human beings, in their understanding of
themselves build sets of defenses to protect the ego. Regarding this topic, it is
useful to compare the facets that human beings can experiment through the
process of development, for example, when people are children, they do not
really know anything about self image, because they are not inserted in real
life at all, however, as soon as their age gradually rises, people learn to
identify their self- image, since they are facing distinct aspects of life that
contribute to this construction of their personality.
In fact, little by little the self-image weakens or strengthens depending on how
could the person, as a mature being, faces the various troubles in real life.
Conversely, in childhood it is normal to have a fragile ego that is protected,
and this inhibition is an affective aspect that in a certain way, in greater or less
degree, an individual faces in a moment of his or her life. Inhibition is a
process to continue building defenses on into adulthood.
Some people have higher self-esteem and ego strength who are better able to
address emotional problems, but contrary, those individuals who have a
weaker or fragile ego, present lack of confidence in confronting any emotional
problem.
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2.2.18.3. RISK TAKING
Risk-taking is an important characteristic of successful learning of a second or
foreign language. Beebe (1983), cited in Krashen (1981, p.140), states that:
“Fossilization, or the relatively permanent incorporation of certain patterns of error, may be due to the lack of willingness to take risks”.
For example, the silent student in a common class is one who is unwilling to
appear foolish when mistakes are made.
Self -esteem is closely related to risk -taking factors, because learners do not
want to risk the knowledge they have, but, they consider themselves as not
able to do something, or simply because an accentuated lack of confidence
debilitates them.
Sometimes teachers have in class a type of student who really knows the
structural concepts that are being explained during the process of learning,
however, due to his inhibition, the process of acquisition is broken in a way
that interferes with the process of the necessary learning to obtain a better
output from these pupils. That is why the mission of teachers is to provide an
environment in which those types of learners who are not risk takers at all,
would want to risk their knowledge without feeling insecure or at least to give
a short idea of what they think about a topic in the classroom.
In this way, teachers help them to construct the knowledge based on two
important elements explained by Brown cited by Moskowitz (1978, p.1) who
comments the following:
“We have a mind. We have feelings”. Teachers have to take into account that the pieces of learning are composed by these two elements “Mind and Feelings”. Separating these two factors means to deny all that educators are, however, integrating those means to help teachers to realize what they might be”.
55
Consequently, if educators want to integrate the educational process as a
whole perspective, they as facilitators need to promote those aspects towards
the learning process of acquiring a language.
The personality factor is extremely important because there are many aspects
that are interrelated with it, for example, attitude and aptitude, as explained by
Carroll (1973) cited by Krashen (1988, p.19) who asserts that :
“aptitude is defined as the rate at which persons learn to criterion by measured standardized test, and attitudinal factors are related to affective variables”.
These two factors encourage communication with speakers of the target
language, and thereby obtain the necessary input for the acquisition of
language.
Therefore, during this process of exchanging the learner sometimes feels a
lack of confidence to produce the required input that obliges the optimal
understanding of the language. Alternatively, the amount of the internalization
of the input in the students will be more relevant for them as the motivation will
help to enhance learners in the process of acquiring the language.
2.2.18.4 MOTIVATION
Motivation is another important feature in the pedagogical procedure and the
acquisition of language in light of the emotional side of the learners. It is not a
secret as previously stated that motivation depends on which kind of attitudes
teachers show in relation to the process of language learning.
It has taken into consideration that each particular learner has not only a
psycho-cognitive but also psycho -affective side, which occupies an important
position in the educational process. Thus, educators have several needs to
survive in and to satisfy their personal ego as Maslow (1977) cited by Carballo
(1980, p.46) mentions in his hierarchy of needs in which he talks about that
how the human being is motivated by some basic elements that he/she
requires to survive, such as love, security, self-esteem, among others.
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Brown (2000, 160-166) cited by Harmer (2001, p.51), holds that
“a cognitive view of motivation includes factors such as the
need for exploration activity, stimulation of new knowledge,
and ego enhancement”.
In others words, for Brown, internal or external factors promote this type of
exploration in each in or out tasks of the learning process. Every time
educators put into practice a kind of task, the stimuli must be first applied to
generate a better motivation throughout the exploration that each particular
individual both externally or internally could contribute with the enhancing of
the ego
In contrast, according to Krashen (1988, p.22) motivation is divided in two
functions: integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. Integrative
motivation is defined as the desire to be like valued members of the
community that speak a language. Thus, it is the motivation that encourages
the acquirer to interact actively by obtaining the input.
The Krashen´s Input Hypothesis attempts to explain how the learner acquires
a second language. In other words, this hypothesis is Krashen´s explanation
of how second language acquisition takes place. So, the Input Hypothesis is
only concerned with “Acquisition”, not “Learning”. The learner improves and
progresses along the natural order when he/she receives second language
input that is one step beyond his/her current stage of linguistic competence.
For example, if a learner is at a stage ´i´, then acquisition takes place when
he/she is exposed to ´Comprehensible Input´ that belongs to level ´i+i´. Since
not all of the same learners can be at the same level of linguistic competence
at the same time, Krashen suggests that Natural Communicative Input is the
key to designing a syllabus, ensuring in this way that each learner will receive
some ´i+i´ input that is appropriate for his/her current stage of linguistic
competence..
Instrumental motivation is defined by Krashen as the wish of achieving
proficiency in a language for utilitarian or practical reasons. As a
consequence, interaction is important with the rest of the students´ community
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with a specific practical purpose that permits them to perform in a practical
way the effort that received during interaction.
Taking into account the point of view of the two researchers, it can be said
that the first motivation is low affective and the presence of instrumental
motivation predicts stronger affective filter. Following those ideas, as soon as
the teacher creates the essential spaces to get the input for practical
purposes, the learner feels more motivated and less insecure.
2.2.19. LEARNING VERSUS ACQUISITION
In classrooms, teachers have to define what type of input they could provide
to their students. Krashen (1982) acquisition is the primary process; which is
an unconscious process; learning can contribute to language production only
when learner information is engaged as monitor. What he intended to say is,
that the process of learning in students is consciously based upon formal
features of the target language. But, if the learners are implementing the
target language for authentic communication and the focus is based on
meaning rather than linguistic form that is acquisition.
However, it is not easy to provide acquisition in each classroom settings or in
each classroom syllabus because the affective side or emotional part of
students is not well managed either for students or for teachers.
Another important aspect that educators must take into consideration is the
idea that the communicative needs at the very beginning are not building
complete expressions. Therefore, the humanistic perspective is also needed
in the process of learning and teaching form the very beginning of any
interaction and it must be put into practice form the first contact that they have
with the students into the classroom. In this way the process of learning will be
more interesting for them.
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2.2.20. PRINCIPLES OF AFFECTIVE AND SOCIAL INTERACTION
A humanistic teacher must create opportunities for the learner to express
himself or herself without fear of being judged by anybody and enable them to
be authentic. On the other hand, the humanistic teacher should also try to
cultivate a warm atmosphere that permits to them to feel confident in order to
express themselves and to communicate their ideas using the target language
or the first language in the case they do not know how to say something.
However, this does not mean that the instructors are not to push them to use
the English language, it just an option for them to recur the first language just
in case it is needed.
It can be seen those principles in Roger’s theory as cited by Carballo (1980,
p.8.13) in which she remarks concerning “education from the neck up”. For
her, there are the resulting social consequences because of the overstress on
the cognitive, putting apart the feelings. If teachers decreased the harsh
criticism to a minimum and rather encouraged them, therefore, the students
would be emotionally engaged in a positive learning. Self-knowledge, feelings,
and emotions are exteriorized, and their internal side will improve little by little
as building the self-image for them. This is needed to enhance as part of the
process.
2.2.21. CARMICHAEL THEORY
Carmichael (1967, p114) argues that:
“the emotions are related to intimate feelings and the changing body, that provoke engaging in the stimulus that produce the emotion according to the emotional state of each one”.
Thus, according to this theory, it can be said that each person has particular
forms of feeling the stimulus produced by the emotions and he considers the
following emotions as the first causes of affective and social changing: mad,
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afraid, and love. For him, the adolescence period is a social adaptation of the
development as youth.
Thus, this theory can be considered correct because if teachers pay attention
to all the different moments the pupils face, sometimes educators are
influenced by the social adaptation, a factor that is really remarkable in
youngsters, as a result, the scholars receive specific considerations from their
teachers in the learning process.
There is another important aspect considered by him as relevant: the social
spontaneous life. The typical friend gangs help them to reinforce and to
develop social skills to insert into society accurately; among those social skills
he considered the followings: loyalty-juices- leadership-unity, among others.
2.2.22. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
In this part the scholars will be studied based on their emotions and feelings.
Students will be more motivated to study a foreign language since they will
feel they are learning to do something useful with the language they study.
Teachers give students an opportunity to express their individuality by having
them share their ideas and opinions.
Goleman (1995, p.27) explains that the emotion is a complex phenomenon in
which there are many factors that are interrelated to the affective side of
human being. Therefore, the human being is not just a rational person; he or
she is also an emotional being with different feelings who describe his or her
personality. According to him, there are two types of knowledge: rational mind,
that is the way of comprehending what we are consciously, and emotional
mind, that refers to a reflexive and analytical position. He considers that this
type of intelligence permits to know you through the distinct sentiments.
In psychology the term “meta-cognition” refers to learners´ automatic
awareness of their own knowledge and their ability to understand, control, and
manipulate their own cognitive processes. Meta-cognitive skills are important
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not only in school, but throughout life. For example, Mumford (1986) says that
it is essential that an effective manager be a person who has learned to learn.
He describes this person as one who knows the stages in the process of
learning and understands his or her own preferred approaches to it - a person
who can identify and overcome blocks to learning and can bring learning from
off-the-job learning to on-the-job situations.
Learners with good metacognitive skills are able to monitor and direct their
own learning process. In this situation, learners typically go through the
following steps (Pressley, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1987):
1. They establish a motivation to learn a metacognitive process. This occurs when either they themselves or someone else gives them reason to believe that there would be some benefit to know how to apply the process.
2. They focus their attention on what is that they or someone else does. That is metacognitively useful. This proper focusing of attention puts the necessary information into working memory. Sometimes this can occur through modeling, and sometimes it occurs during personal experience.
3. They talk to themselves about the metacognitive process. This talk can arise during their interactions with others, but it is their talk to themselves that is essential. This self talk serves several purposes:
It enables them to understand and encode the process.
It enables them to practice the process.
It enables them to obtain feedback and to make adjustments regarding their effective use of the process.
It enables them to transfer the process to new situations beyond those in which it has already been used.
4. Eventually, they begin to use the process without even being aware that
they are doing so.Van Lier cited by Krashen (1988, p.81) suggested that
“the classroom is a social defined reality and is therefore influenced by the belief systems and behavioral norms of the society of which it is part”.
The classroom researcher or teacher who should be more than a simple
medium of transmitting knowledge, he or she also must be a facilitator of the
different expectations that the learner could have within the classroom setting.
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However, language by itself has an important role and consequently teachers
will want to portray classroom individuals in a mature affective side.
In this way, educators need to emphasize to students that each one of them
has a particular way of learning and in that way, his or her emotional part is
building up the necessary components to achieve not only the academic tasks
but also to express emotions and aspirations internalizing the knowledge
through the process of learning.
As Lewis cited by Ian (1993, p.65) says “language is a means of self-
expression”. Thus, the learner, as a human being and as a social actor, can
express freely in a mature or critical manner his or her own mode of thinking,
and as a social actor, he or she can transmit and help others in the same
group to communicate effectively.
That is why the humanistic perspective is also needed in the process of
learning and teaching. The current education does not offer to learners
something that helps them to build other types of opportunities beyond the
academic abilities. That is why it is really urgent to have another kind of
political education that permits the learners to insert themselves in a society
that requires many attitudinal skills in different areas.
Teachers must help their pupils to rediscover their emotional side, or as
through the discovering of their personal intelligences, or as Carl Rogers cited
by Goleman (1995, p.58) says “interpersonal skills”, or Martin Lutter King,
cited by Goleman holds “intra- physical capacities”. Both researchers are in
agreement with this theory. It could be a fruitful skill that could help teachers
to reduce monotony in classroom but also it is a way to transmit the
knowledge in a creative way .Those different capacities are the ones that are
helpful to have success or failure in society, such as the multiple intelligences
as factors that play into the process of learning and incorporating activities or
tasks that promote all abilities.
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Gardner cited by Goleman (1995, p.56) mentions that the leadership has the
capacity of cultivating relationships and to keep friendship, the capacity of
solving conflicts, and the skill of analyzing the social surrounding. If those
areas are analyzed, they are part of the daily life, and therefore teachers must
teach those elements to the learners, because when they have to insert
themselves in society they are going to face those factors any way.
2.2.23. SOCIAL FACTOR AND LEARNING
Talking about social context has been a topic that is closely related to
personality. But, what is personality? Vidal et al. (1977) cited by Carballo et al.
(1980. p.68) writes: “the personality is a fundamental integration of behavior
and major of human behavioral changes are learned socially”. Alternatively,
Margaret Mead in Robert Havighurt (1969, p.4) cited by Carballo y otros
(1980, p.69) comments “the behavior of youngsters during the adolescence is
determined intensely by factors or socio-cultural powers. The social context is
a way to insert in society, so through the history the human being has been
living in society; and in each social context, the groups take an important role
to insert in a society.
At the very beginning the human being satisfies his/her needs through the
family, but little by little he/she knows that he/she needs support from other
entities, such as: groups of friends, work, church, and school, among others.
However through the process of insertion into society, sometimes this process
is broken especially because a good interrelation is not given. In a classroom
in which there are many personalities, the knowledge comes well defined
mainly but there are some structural factors that are important and among
them are the learners, the educator, the surrounding, setting, and so on.
Kelly (1989) holds that:
“the human being learns significantly when there is an open window to experiment because the individual acquire the
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capacity of hearing himself and to experiment what is happening inner him, opening to his feelings”.
Talking about knowledge is not just the process of transition of the
information; it is also the internalization of seeing the classroom according to
the perspective oriented to the surrounding of the learners. It means a kind of
knowledge that combines a significant learning with the social and affective
position. If teachers see what some researchers have talked about that, then
they could analyze that all those components are useful, even in present
times.
2.2.23.1 MARGINALITY
Krauskop (1994, p.129) writes: “Marginality is a cultural and social privation”.
According to him, a huge group of learners everywhere in Costa Rica is
suffering what is called marginality. It is not a secret that many of the learners
nowadays belong to this particular area, and they are being margined also by
the rest of the people who do not live in these particular conditions. It
represents a cultural and social aspect in a society which is facing different
difficulties day by day in different areas as, for example, economic, social, and
affective.
2.2.23.2. LEADERSHIP IN THE GROUP
Knowing the leadership in the group is an important and necessary
complement in identifying the essential tools that a teacher needs to promote
the dynamic process of the group, and, of course, to know what the structure
of the group is. Following Perearnau, the structural factors of the group are a
powerful tool to interpret and deduce many components around it, as, for
example, type of leadership: democratic, authoritarian or permissive or type of
interrelation: competitive, cooperative.
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2.2.23.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF A COHESIVE GROUP
There are some important aspects to recognize if a group has cohesion
among its members: capacity to adapt to several changes, neutralize the
internal conflicts, rearrange the interpersonal relationship, unity by affectivity,
not only by mutual or functional ties or links, same aspirations among the
members, reciprocal communication, positive attitude to accept the
individualization of each member, have a strong sentiment of protecting each
other. On the other hand, there are others aspects that could help the
cohesion of the group.
Perearnau notes, “The self-image is a factor that helps the group to reflect in a
realistic way which is the specific interest into the dynamic process of the
group”. She mentions that the self-image is a factor that stimulates in a
positive or negative manner the rest of the members in the whole group. If a
self -image is higher, then, the transmission of all the pedagogical aspects in
the dynamic of the group could be better.
On the contrary, if in a group there is a member who his or her self-image is
broken, the cohesion of the group could adopt a passive dynamism. For her,
the characteristics of the leaders play an important role into the dynamism of
the classroom. She mentions that there are three different types of leaders in
a group. They are the following:
a) Authoritarian leaders: they dictate the politics to follow.
b) Permissive leaders: they let the group in complete freedom decide what
they want to do.
c) Democratic leaders or socio-emotional leaders: they contribute to building
up an appropriate atmosphere to work, and help to solve conflicts. They
support and encourage the group. They also argue for the alternative.
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2.2.24. PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS
According to Perearnau (1982) leadership is related to the different reactions
that appear in the process of learning. It depends on the type of leadership the
group has, thus, it can be said that the pedagogical implications in the process
of learning will be positive or negative, and it is the educator´s responsibility to
know his/her groups if he/she wants to obtain cohesion form them, and also
competence and performance in the process of learning.
2.2.25. PEDAGOGICAL REACTIONS
TABLE. N. 2. PEDAGOGICAL REACTIONS
TYPE OF LEADERSHIP
REACTIONS FROM THE LEADER TO THE GROUP
REACTIONS FROM THE GROUP TO THE LEADER.
AUTHORITARIAN LEADERS
Hard critic Efficiency in goals Low group communion Personalization of criterion
Submissive Aggressiveness Sentiments of freedom
PERMISSIVE LEADERS
Low efficiency of working Low organization High facility of distraction
Low submission Polarization of functions Disrespectful
DEMOCRATIC
Major efficiency in goals Originality Critical thinking Respect individualism Major cooperation Major cohesion in socio -affective Goals
Does not require supervision Division of tasks Low polarization of functions
Source : Pedagogy of the oppressed .Paulo Freire chapter 4
2.2.26. TEACHING ENGLISH TO ADULT STUDENTS
Educating adults differs from educating children in several ways. One of the
most important differences is that adults have accumulated knowledge and
experience that can add to or hinder the learning experience. Another
difference is that most adult education is voluntary, therefore, the participants
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are generally better motivated. Adults frequently apply their knowledge in a
practical fashion to learn effectively. They must have a reasonable
expectation that the knowledge recently gained will help them further their
goals. For that reason, Curtis Kelly affirms that “adult learners attend ESL
classes because they choose to, not because they have to” (2004, p. 5). If the
class fails to satisfy the need that has motivated students to come, they will
simply stop coming. According to Kelly (p.5), some of the major motivating
forces for the students in the English class are the following:
1. Survival: Students realize that learning English is essential to satisfy their most basic physical and social needs. They must speak it in order to get food, clothing, shelter, medical attention, as well as to participate in social and political institutions.
2. Job Enhancement: In many instances students need to be able to speak English in order to get a job. Sometimes they have a job but need better English skills in order to keep the job or to advance in their employment.
3. Education: Many students attend ESL classes in order to complete their general education or, in some cases, to attend college.
4. Social Interaction: Some students attend ESL classes for social reasons. They enjoy meeting and getting to know new people, and the ESL class is a place where they can fulfill those needs.
Something important to point out is that adult students are much more likely
than younger students to come with specific purposes for their learning. They
are oriented to know what they want to learn and why they want to learn it. On
the other hand, it is commonly believed that children acquire a Second
language quickly and effectively.
However, research shows that the same could be the case with adults, given
certain conditions. Julio Foppoli (2007, p.2) states that there is no biologically
determined constraint on the language learning capacity that affirms that it
emerges at a particular age, nor any maturational process which requires that
older language learners function differently than younger language learners.
Foppoli’s argument does not imply that younger and older learners acquire the
language in precisely the same way. Every stage of human life has different
advantages and disadvantages, and the same applies to language
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acquisition. For example, older learners can benefit from what already know
not just about language but about life experiences. They can memorize rules
without problems and even analyze and understand details of the language.
Children, on the other hand, have the advantage that they are not afraid of
making mistakes or errors while they try to talk. In other words, Foppoli’s
perspective about language acquisition is based on Krashen’s theory about
second language acquisition. Krashen’s first hypothesis about second
language acquisition (The Acquisition-Learning Distinction) claims that adults
do not lose the ability to acquire languages the way that children do. Adults
have two different ways to develop competence in a language.
Language Acquisition: a subconscious process not unlike the way a child
learns language. Language acquirers are not consciously aware of the
grammatical rules of the language, but rather develop a “feel” for correctness.
“In non-technical language, acquisition is “picking –up” the language.”
Language learning: the “conscious knowledge of a second language, knowing
the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them.” Thus
language learning can be compared to learning about a language. In spite of
these differences among children and adult students, there is no evidence to
claim that there are biological differences between language acquisition in
children and adults. Actually the opposite is true: there is no particular age
when the ability to learn a second language declines. What is more, linguistic
studies that have analyzed the errors of older and younger learners who learn
in similar contexts have concluded that they make very similar errors. This
clearly suggests that both children and adults use similar cognitive processes
to learn a second language.
2.2.27. SOCIO CULTURAL AND EMOTIONAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT
THE LEARNING PROCESS OF ADULT STUDENTS
Merriam and Brockett (1997, p.187-200) state some major conditions that
influence the learning process of adult students:
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Geographic Conditions. There is clearly defined division between urban, suburban, and rural settings. Rural areas tend to have fewer resources for education. In many industrialized countries, however, inner cities may be worse off than some rural areas. Migrant and homeless people are also at a great disadvantage for receiving access to education.
Demographic Factors. Age and sex influence who participates and who does not. Young and middle-aged adults participate more than older adults--of course, younger adults often continue learning for their jobs. But older adults tend to have less education in general than younger people, and level of education is a good predictor of who will continue to participate in educational activities.
Native Language Background. Because immigration laws and refugee patterns shift frequently, the native language backgrounds of your students may be as varied as their ages or as homogeneous as a regular English class. The native language backgrounds of the students can affect their language learning about as much as any other single factor. Some languages are more similar to English than others. These similarities can be in vocabulary, grammatical structure, or sound. The languages might also share the alphabet. Teaching people with these language backgrounds is easier than teaching those with language backgrounds less similar to English. Even though it may be more difficult to teach people English when their native language is extremely different form English, it is not impossible and many of these students become very fluent in English.
Native Culture: One of the most surprising things for many teachers is the influence that the native culture has in the classroom. Students come with their native cultural view of:
1. What a teacher should say and do. 2. What should happen in any kind of classroom 3. How a language should be taught.
For example, in many oriental cultures, the teacher is a highly respected
individual and there is a great social difference between pupils and teacher. In
other cultures there is less distance between students and teachers, and
students expect to have more interpersonal relationships with the teachers.
Dealing with culture may mean that teacher has to modify some of his or her
behavior in order to do not offend his or her students and gain their respect as
their teacher. It may also mean that the teacher will have to explain to some
students the differences in cultural expectations and encourage them to move
towards the norms of the society in which they are currently living.
On the other hand, gender can also determine if and how much a person will
participate in education. Women tend to participate less than men and their
participation is qualitatively different from men's. But, this also overlaps with
geographic conditions--women in developed nations may participate as much
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as men. In less developed countries, women often receive very little
opportunity to participate. Even in wealthier nations, men are still more likely
to hold higher and better paid positions than women, and are thus more likely
to receive further (and better) training.
Furthermore, affective factors such as motivation and self-confidence are very
important in language learning. Many older learners fear failure more than
their younger counterparts, maybe because they accept the stereotype of the
older person as a poor language learner or because of previous unsuccessful
attempts to learn a foreign language. When such learners are faced with a
stressful, fast-paced learning situation, fear of failure only increases. The older
person may also exhibit greater hesitancy in learning. Thus, teachers must be
able to reduce anxiety and build self-confidence in the learner.
Older adults studying a foreign language are usually learning it for a specific
purpose: to be more effective professionally, to be able to survive in an
anticipated foreign situation, or for other instrumental reasons. They are not
willing to tolerate boring or irrelevant content, or lessons that stress the
learning of grammar rules out of context. Adult learners need materials
designed to present structures and vocabulary that will be of immediate use to
them, in a context which reflects the situations and functions they will
encounter when using the new language. Materials and activities that do not
incorporate real life experiences will succeed with few older learners.
2.2.28. CONTENT-BASED INSTRUCTION (CBI)
The main objective of this kind of instruction is to provide learners of a second
language instruction in content and language. Nowadays, the word content is
interpreted as the use of subject matter as a vehicle for second language
teaching and learning. According to Nunan (2003) some positive aspects of
this kind of instruction are the following:
“Learners are exposed to language through stimulating content. Learning the language becomes automatic because the students are engaged in language-dependant activities.”
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Learners are taught useful language which is contextualized and this helps
them make connections with the language and what they already know. Real
life context is used to give learners complex information and this leads to
intrinsic motivation. Information is strategically delivered at the right time and
situations.
There is great flexibility and adaptability in the curriculum for the students’
interest (p. 199) an important aspect in this type of instruction is to keep
students motivated. Challenging and informative activities support pupils’
success when learning complex skills. When the material is interesting the
learners can make greater connections between topics and can recall the
information better. The center of this instruction is the student. Therefore, the
objective is to keep motivation and interest by generating stimulating content
instruction and materials.
2.2.28.1 ACTIVE STUDENT INVOLVEMENT
In CBI classes the students are very engaged in the process and they learn
more by doing. According to Stryker and Leaver (1997, 11) there are some
factors that have to do with the instructors´ actions and the learners actions.
The teacher’s input as well as the peer’s input and interactions are important
during the process. Besides, students assume social roles that involve
interactive learning, information gathering, and co-construction of meaning. All
these aspects combined with a relaxed atmosphere make the acquisition of a
second language a meaningful process.
2.2.28.2 USING READING AS A TEACHING STRATEGY
Reading is seen as a method to learn vocabulary, especially through
memorizing. Carrel (1998, p. 224) says that:
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“written English has a semantic-grammatical base. It means that it is possible to deduce the semantic field of words and the grammatical class to which they belong (noun, verb, adjective, and others). There are approaches that emphasize on the text features at word and sentence level; others also consider texts as a whole. These are called bottom-up. On the other hand, there are approaches that focus on the reader as a point of departure. They are known as top-down. These kinds of approaches allow readers to make relationships between what they know about the text and what they know about the world.”
Another important aspect about reading has to do with learning styles.
Gardner and James (1995) refer to learning styles as how a person acquires
or processes information in learning situations. These styles must be taken
into consideration by educators so that they can adapt methodologies that
involve all the students in the dynamics of the lessons. The knowledge and
application of learning styles have many advantages for both teachers and
learners. First, it helps instructors keep pupils´ interest and motivation.
Second, teachers can be sure that all the students are engaged in the
learning process and it is more meaningful. Third, learners feel more confident
since they are comfortable with activities that are suitable to them. Fourth,
pupils can strengthen other abilities which they do not usually develop. Finally,
they have the sense they are really learning because they like the variety of
tasks.
In relation to learning styles, there are students whose style is more visual and
understand better by looking at words. Thus, reading techniques must be
provided so that these students can improve their skills. Some examples of
them are inference, linking sentences and ideas, previewing, skimming, and
scanning.
Inference is a useful technique because learners know how to cope with new
vocabulary. This is important because according to Grellet (1981, p.41) when
pupils are given the meaning of unknown words they will have difficulties
when they try to interpret a text by themselves. In this case, it is
recommended to train students in the use of context and word-formation
(roots, prefixes, suffixes, etc) in order for them to know how to interpret new
words.
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In order to understand a text it is important to recognize how sentences are
related. That is why Grellet (1981, p.41) suggests that students need to know
the meaning of the words that connect ideas within a passage. On one hand,
when learners are able to identify these words they are able to understand
what the whole text is about. On the other hand, when pupils do not know
what linking words are they may misunderstand the idea of the text because
they cannot distinguish cause-effect relationships, sequences, comparisons,
among others.
Previewing is a technique that uses graphs and headings to find requested
information within the passages. Grellet states that this technique allows
readers to find details in paragraphs that have not been read. This is
especially helpful in ESP courses where technical texts are long and learners
have lots of information. With this technique they can know the contents
without having to read the whole text.
R.R. Jordan (1997) proposes that “Skimming involves the quick reading of a
text not every word – in order to understand the gist or main points of a
passage, i.e. the overall meaning” (p. 17). Besides that, Grellet also mentions
skimming as a useful reading technique because readers can get information
very quickly. In this technique the learner has to read the whole text. Another
advantage of skimming is that the organization of the text and the writer´s
intention can be known. On the contrary, when pupils do not know how to
apply skimming, they spend more time reading information that may not be
useful for their purposes.
Finally, Jordan claims that “Scanning involves quickly looking through a text,
or surveying it, in order to find specific information.” Grellet points out that
scanning is another reading technique that students can use to find specific
information that is relevant for a purpose. The advantage of this technique is
that learners become well-trained in finding information and this may help
them in solving reading comprehension tests in the estimated time.
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2.2.28.3 READING AS PRODUCT: FOCUS ON TEXT
Catherine Wallace (cited by Lee and VanPatten, 2003) (p. 21) stated that:
“practical work with complex sentence structure is involved when the learners are intermediate and advanced, or when English is required for a specific purpose. The materials and texts are designed for students to identify co-reference, analyze, and manipulate structure. It is also important that learners make use of their cognitive and linguistic resources during text processing. To do this, instructors can apply pre-reading activities such as brainstorming, mapping, true or false, and agree-disagree tasks. Besides, while-reading tasks can be used, for instance, margin prompts. It is also said that reading has to be flexible.”
In other words, learners can apply different ways of reading, for example,
detailed reading and scanned reading. Finally, it has to be reflective. In this
case, the learner is engaged with the reading by the use of questions or
prompts in order to produce interrogation of text.
For these reasons, it can be stated that reading through the application of
different activities promotes the development of important skills such as
inferring the meaning of words using context. Besides that, reading also aids
pupils improve their analytical abilities that they can use later when
interpreting technical manuals related to their field of study.
2.2.28.4. SYLLABUS DESIGN
A syllabus is defined as a plan that pretends to be achieved through teaching
and learning. According to Michael P. Breen Evans (mentioned by Lee and
VanPatten, 2003), a syllabus has “four elements: aims, contents, methodology
and evaluation” (p. 151). When designing a syllabus it is important to identify
what contents the teachers and students will work upon and match the
objectives. Also, methodology is how to work upon the contents and
evaluation is how to measure the results from the learning. Thus, a syllabus
provides some significant information:
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Clear knowledge and capacities selected that are appropriate to the aims
Continuity and direction in classroom work
Documentation for other teachers of what has been covered
A basis to assess pupils´ progress
A basis to assess the effectiveness of the course in relation to the
objectives and the students needs
In order to accomplish these requirements some principles have to be
followed by instructors and syllabus designers. Breen (mentioned by Lee and
VanPatten, 2003), suggests that these principles can be presented as
questions:
What knowledge and capabilities should be focused upon? A syllabus has to give priority to linguistic or communicative knowledge and focus on one of the four language skills.
What should be selected as appropriate content? Content, uses of language and types of activities are selected based on the linguistic or communicative focus.
How should the content be subdivided so that it can be dealt with in manageable units? It means to divide the main topic into subtopics that are easy to cover and understand.
How should the content be sequenced along a path of development? It refers to how the progression and sequence of knowledge has to be done (p. 151).
Thus, the accurate design of a syllabus involves aspects such as knowledge
of the specific field of study and the learners’ characteristics in order to set the
appropriate objectives, contents, methods and assessment. When these
factors are clear it is possible to plan classes that allow both pupils and
educators achieve the objectives of an ESP course
2.2.28.5 TYPES OF SYLLABUS
Irina Petrova (independent.academia.edu, 2008) states different types of
syllabus that can be used in an ESP course.
“The first one is called product oriented and it focuses on what the learner will know and do at the end of the course. The second one is known as process oriented and it is basically based on the development of the learning process. Another
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distinction is made by White when proposes the Type A syllabus where the emphasis is the subject matter and the Type B syllabus which its focus is the learning process. The main difference between these two types of syllabi is that the former refers to a grammatical, lexical, functional and situational syllabus, while the latter makes reference to the tasks and the learner. White also mentions the skill-based syllabus that combines Type A and Type B syllabi. Furthermore, Wilkins proposes synthetic and analytic syllabi. Synthetic means that pupils are provided with discreet units of language that are accumulated into a system and analytic means that several examples of language use are presented to learners and they have to analyze how to combine them to form a whole.”
This means that different kinds of syllabi can be implemented depending on
what goals the instructors and learners want to achieve. Besides, factors such
as the study field and the context in which it is presented influences decisions
that have to do with which materials to use and in which order it should be
explained. In conclusion, when the educators have clear knowledge of these
aspects, it is going to be easier to them to choose and develop a syllabus for
an ESP course.
Now the debate is in which category classify an ESP syllabus. In one hand, it
could be said that it is task-based since the learners develop language skills
they need for job purposes. On the other hand, it is suggested a situational
type of syllabus because of the use of specific language working situations.
However, Petrova also states that an ESP syllabus can be process or product
oriented given that all the factors can be included in one syllabus.
Based on this, it can be concluded that an ESP course needs to have
elements of each type of syllabus in order to be effective. Thus, it has to take
into account the abilities students have to develop to perform a job. It also has
to include the work context in which the learners carry out their activities.
Finally, more than focus on a specific type of syllabus it is better to incorporate
elements that can help pupils reach their purpose.
2.2.28.6 TEACHER´S ROLE IN ESP COURSES
English instructors are usually required to plan their lessons based on an
approach and a syllabus which establishes general and specific objectives.
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Thus, the teachers use this information to prepare activities that allow their
pupils learn the language. Besides that, teachers of ESP courses may have
more requirements. In the website iteslj.org the author Pavel V. Sysoyev
(1999) suggested that ESP educators have an important role in designing and
developing a course, especially in the following issues:
Student´s analysis: the purpose is to pay attention to the students´ needs, interests, knowledge of the second language, and learning styles as important sources of information. Vygotsky (1978), mentioned by Sysoyev, said that the relationship between the teacher and the learner is that of a mediator because the teacher is the person that helps the students achieve what they cannot do by themselves.
Formulation of the goals and objectives of the course: this allows instructors to know what the course is going to be about. According to K. Graves (mentioned by Sysoyev), objectives are crucial since they set the level students will achieve and how they will achieve these objectives. Another function of the objectives is to know which material to teach and when is the best time to teach it. Finally, it is important to set goals that are realistic and achievable.
Conceptualizing the content: it refers to adapt the syllabus and the materials to the changes of the world as well as the students´ needs, interests, expectations and where the course takes place. When contextualizing the content teachers can focus on increasing different skills, for example, communicative competence, intercultural competence, or vocabulary awareness, among others, depending on the study field.
Selecting and developing ESP materials: in this kind of courses materials have to be selected according to their appropriateness, the comfort and familiarity of the learners with the material, language level, interests, and relevance. It can also be said that the content of the course determines which materials to use during the instruction.
Course planning: once the objectives are set and the materials are chosen the educators start planning a course. One way to do that is to begin with a warm-up activity about what the pupils already know, then continue with the presentation of new subject matter, next develop more complex activities. However, instructors should be flexible and make changes when necessary that benefit students.
Evaluating the course: the main purpose of evaluation in an ESP course is to improve and promote its effectiveness. It can be done in two different ways. One is implicit and in this case the learners show to the educator through their grades, participation, and motivation during the course how their learning is going on. The other way is explicit. It is done by the teacher at the end of the course by using surveys or questionnaires and it is intended to know the pupils´ attitudes towards the subject matter, methodology, activities. This kind of evaluation is useful to make changes based on the learners´ suggestions
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The job of the instructors is, then, essential and at the same time difficult to
meet since they have to pay attention to a variety of factors when designing
an ESP course. Knowledge of the learners helps to design a course that
keeps their motivation high and achieve the objectives. Besides that, well
formulated objectives become a crucial tool to plan in an organized way what
to teach, how to teach it, and how to evaluate it. Furthermore, it is a key factor
to take into consideration the context in which the course will be developed
based on the purposes it serves in order to adapt it to make it more effective.
Moreover, this contextualization helps to decide which materials are better to
use during the course. Finally, the evaluation can be proposed using all the
elements of the course in order to measure the pupils´ knowledge, the
effectiveness of the course and have feedback to know what to improve.
2.2.29. ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS
English language has four important skills which are listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. They are important because, according to Neena Dash
(2007, p. 36), people are expected to listen and understand the language, to
speak it and others understand the message, to read and understand what
they read, to write it and that other people understand what they write.
This means that teaching and learning the English language means that
learners have to be able to receive the language in written and spoken forms
as well as produce it through speaking and writing. Besides that, learning the
four skills means that students become able to communicate because all of
them are related, they have some characteristics in common and they also
have different features.
On one hand, some aspects that the four skills share are vocabulary,
grammar, structure, and idiom. On the other hand, listening and speaking
share pronunciation, fluency, expression, rhythm, and intonation. Finally,
spelling handwriting, and punctuation are essential to writing. Dash also
proposes that these skills are learnt “in sequential order because listening
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leads to speaking, speaking leads to reading which in turn leads to writing”.
However, this does not mean that when learning one of these skills the others
have to be ignored.
One result can be that to be able to communicate well in English it is
necessary to develop all the skills well. For this reason, it is said that teaching
a second language is a challenge for teachers since they have to provide
activities that help pupils to acquire these abilities at the same time.
2.2.29.1 LISTENING SKILL
Dash claims that before a person can speak, read, or write, he or she must
hear the language. Moreover, students need to comprehend language in a
natural environment, such as lectures, means of communication, and face-to-
face conversations. It is also said that in order to understand spoken
language, people have to understand sounds, words, phrases, sentences,
and entire passages. Another way to understand spoken language is to use
the background knowledge to interpret messages.
One of the main problems in the current educational system is that little
attention is paid to the listening skill. This happens due to the time that is
devoted to cover the MEP´s program since teachers focus the lessons on
reading and writing skills. As a consequence, students have lots of problems
when they listen to recordings in the class or when they speak with other
people.
According to Dash (2006), these suggestions can be useful to help pupils
improve their listening ability:
Before listening to a passage, ask students what they know about the topic and preview difficult vocabulary after listening to a passage, ask students about the general ideas allow students to take notes.
Listening passages must coincide with students´ level of proficiency.
Use pictures or actions to associate the objects or situations with the sounds.
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These aspects lead to the conclusion that helping learners to develop the
listening skill is a simple and easy task. Also, teachers can include listening
comprehension practices in each session since they must use the target
language to help students get used to it. Finally, educators can introduce new
and more complex vocabulary little by little once pupils master a topic.
2.2.29.2. SPEAKING SKILL
During the acquisition of a second language, it is said that this language is
learnt through speaking. That is why speaking is the most important skill.
Dash states that teachers have a great responsibility in enabling learners to
understand and speak the language. One responsibility is to be sure pupils
understand sounds, words, and commands given orally. Also, educators have
to encourage students to participate actively in conversations, dialogues and
other activities. Besides that, some strategies are recommended to improve
speaking skills:
Every new item must be introduced orally
Drills must be implemented when new items are introduced
Oral practices should be based on every day experiences
Classes must be interesting so that learners feel the necessity to speak
English
It is recommended to teach the correct pronunciation, intonation, and
stress patterns through tape recorder and laboratory practices
In summary, the speaking ability is better acquired when taught at early ages
and when enough time is devoted to activities in which learners are allowed
and encouraged to participate in them. As in listening, the main difficulty is
that teachers do not take much time to develop speaking practices or these
are not meaningful to students. Nevertheless, educators can do simple
activities such as dialogues, questions and answers, role plays, and reading
aloud to help students improve this ability and be more confident.
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2.2.29.3 READING SKILL
Reading is a complex skill that involves perception and thought. Dash
proposes that “readers typically make use of background knowledge,
vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies
to help them understand written text”. Thus, reading must be taught after
learners have enough oral practice and reading words from flash cards and
boards. Then, readers can be encouraged to read magazines, short stories,
biographies and books.
Some of the problems faced by pupils when learning to read are that they get
frustrated because they do not understand every single word they read. Also,
the topics they read about are not appealing to them. These situations happen
because the activities done in class do not really promote the analysis and
interpretation of texts. As a result, pupils usually prepare for a reading
comprehension text by looking for specific words and they do not really
analyze what is being asked.
2.2.29 .4 WRITING SKILL
According to Susan Lenski and Frances Venbruggen (2010, p.10)
“Writing is a complex process because many factors are involved, for instance, lower-level transcription skills, higher-level organizational skills, and the ability to express oneself with the written word.”
Moreover, transcription is important because learners can express themselves
in a fluent manner. Lastly, in order to write coherently, learners have to use
rich vocabulary, apply grammatical structures, and organize their thinking in a
logical manner.
As a conclusion, writing is the last ability to acquire because it requires more
complicated processes. Nowadays, these processes are not really taken into
account in the educational programs since pupils are being prepared for a
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reading comprehension test. Teachers usually limit writing practices to simply
produce sentences based on a given grammatical structure. However, when
all the other skills are improved students can produce paragraphs, essays,
and compositions if time is provided.
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CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK
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3.1 INVESTIGATION
This chapter presents all the procedures and techniques used in this
investigation. It also, describes the type of population and characteristics of
the community that contribute to collect information, and finally what type of
research it is. Also, it can be found the different purposes to choose this
investigation and how the methodological position was developed towards the
observation.
The analysis of the individuals will be done externally at first with the purpose
of grasping the affective factors, and the social aspect as well, through
different instruments of helping. Kettle (1984, p.21) describes the observation
as
“a process that requires a voluntarily intelligence, oriented by a specific objective which is guided to obtain the observation”.
All those observations will be written down while the facts appear using the
aspects of human behavior observed, that permits a deeper interpretation of
the study that expresses naturally the behavior of individuals and facts around
the setting.
Moreover, in ethnographic research it is useful to mention the kind of
purposes that will be required towards the project, because they are going to
serve to give a justification about the study being conducted by the
researcher. Maxwell (1941, p.15) states that :
“purposes are divided in three areas, personal purposes, practical resolutions, and research determinations”.
Thus, it can be said that personal intentions are those that are observed in
detailed in relation to the life experiences as educator in urban marginal
zones. It implies a longitudinal description of the activities, groups and
community among others, to give the validity of the project at the moment of
measuring the factors observed.
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The current investigation, as it was mentioned before, is qualitative, and
quantitative, because it has an objective to achieve: to analyze the socio-
affective factors that influence the learning of English in tenth grade adult
students confront when learning English at CONED (Colegio Nacional de
Educacion a Distancia) in San Jose.
Given the methodological process and the type of problem to be analyzed;
this type of investigation will be applied with a view to not only measuring the
data but also comparing the results to obtain a better interpretation of the
information. Also, a brief survey will be applied to some students to obtain
some facts that will be helpful with the investigation.
3.2 DEFINING THE KIND OF RESEARCH
3.2.1. DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH.
According to Wikipedia this type of research is also known as statistical
research and describes data and characteristics about the population or
phenomenon being studied. Descriptive research answers the questions who,
what, where, when and how.
3.2.2. EXPLICATIVE RESEARCH.
Its aim is to explain the causes of physical or social events as well as the
reason and the circumstances in which it occurs.
3.2.3. EXPLORATORY RESEARCH.
According to the same source of information, it is a type of research
conducted because a problem has not been clearly defined. Exploratory
research helps to determine the best research design, data collection method
and selection of subjects.
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Because of the students academic performance and the desertion level that
the institution experiences, the present study intends to explore the major
academic, affective and socio cultural difficulties that tenth grade adult
students confront when learning English at CONED (Colegio Nacional de
Educacion a Distancia) in San José. This research is exploratory because no
particular studies have been conducted about the problem studied. Likewise,
it is descriptive because it describes the phenomenon that adults experience
when reentering to a formal educational program and explicative because its
main objective is to explain the causes or facts that directly affect the learning
of English in tenth grade adult students at CONED San José.
3.3. SUBJECTS OF IINVESTIGATION
This research consults tenth grade adult students from CONED San José.
The study is carried out with the group 10-2 which is composed by 24
students also the English teachers from the same educational institution as
subjects of the study. On the other hand, an expert in the area of adult
learning as psychologists is consulted as well.
3.3.1. STUDENTS
The target populations are adults who receive three academic English lessons
per week. The students who are observed belong to the marginal zones such
as Pavas, Cristo Rey, Barrio La Cruz, among others.
The sample includes twenty-four students which ages were among thirty and
fifty years old who answered the questions included in the survey.
3.3.2. TEACHERS
The research will involve two educators of the Academic English program and
the tenth graders guidance teacher to obtain specific information through a
questionnaire.
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3.4. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Due to the type of investigation, it was necessary to elaborate a observation
based on personal questionnaires and a survey.
The observation represents a daily process. According to Jorgensen (1989,
p.14) who remarks:
“The world of every life constitutes reality for its inhabitants, natives, insiders or members”.
In terms of getting a participant observation were daily done analyzing the
reality of the setting of the group studied. In relation to this study each
methodology involves different goals that every teacher should take into
account. It is necessary not only to focus the teaching style on method, but
also to use the different alternatives that the spectrum of methodologies offers
Methodology can be defined as the proceedings, tasks and learning
experiences which the teacher takes implements of in order to accomplish
learning. Methodology also implies how the proceedings, tasks and
experiences are used within the teaching learning practice. There is not a
certain methodology imposed on teachers and learners, because it cannot be
predetermined. But this does not mean that effective teaching cannot be
planned or prepared beforehand. In fact, regarding English Teaching, the
Communicative Approach provides the basis for an appropriate methodology
that can be used.
Woods (1987), cited by Chavarría and Zeledón (2000, p.71), asserts: “The
participant observation is that the educator assumes an ethnographic role”.
For him, there are fundamental aspects related to the participant observation:
a) The investigator- educator is a member who must reflect also upon his own actions.
b) Analyze in his reactions, intentions, motivations, during the process of observation.
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c) Combine the profound implication with a certain kind of distance that permits him to keep the “objectivity” toward fact analysis observed.
Following Woods (2002), it will be inserted in this research the participant
observation to determine the different characteristics in the group observed,
so that the investigator can interpret and determine the following aspects:
a) Personality factors b) Social factors c) Dynamic into the group d) Effective techniques
Therefore, it could be said that the reality of the human being is like a triangle
in which all the vital processes of a person are based on human behavior
through these three stages. Carballo says that people are known by their
“actions” which determine their personalities.
3.4.1. THE PRIMARY SOURCES
Tenth graders in group 10-2 from CONED San José High School.
Observation
Interviews with different specialists about adult learning such as
psychologists and teachers are conducted.
3.4.2. SECONDARY SOURCES:
Books
Articles
Web pages
MEP Plans
Materials
Human being sources (subjects)
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3.5 POPULATION
The subjects selected for this extensive study are 25% of the population 24
students from the group 10-2 from CONED San José High School. They come
from different parts of Costa Rica .The selected students are taking
conversational English three lessons per week.
3.6 DATA COLLECTING INSTRUMENTS
The instruments used in this study include a questionnaire that is
administrated to students. The questionnaire includes two main sections. The
first one contains some questions about personal information that helps the
researcher to classify the participants into categories according to age,
gender, occupation and amount of time without studying. The second section
includes questions about possible difficulties or situations that could affect
their learning process and improvement of English and the role of the teacher
regarding those students’ limitations. Moreover, interviews are carried out to
English teachers at CONED, to the psychology in order to identify the major
academic, socio cultural and affective limitations that learners experience; the
way these limitations would affect students’ performance and adult students’
identification and adaptation when reentering to a formal educational program.
Observations of tenth grade group 10-2 at CONED are conducted in order to
detect the class environment and the interaction among teacher and students,
students and students as well as students and teachers.
3.7 VARIABLE DEFINITION
3.7.1 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE 1. To determine the main academic difficulties
that tenth grade adult students face in class when learning English at CONED
in San José.
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VARIABLE1. Academic difficulties
CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION. During the development of this research, the
reader must understand by the academic difficulties that tenth grade adult
students face in class when learning English at CONED in San Jose, any fact
directly related to English as a language such as grammatical structures,
pronunciation, vocabulary or the exposure to the language and that would
affect or difficult the performance of students.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION. To consider the degree of importance of the
information gathered, some arbitrary criteria should be taken into account. It
would be considered positive if more than 70% of the participants agree that
academic factors like grammatical structures, pronunciation, vocabulary or the
exposure to the language difficult the performance of students when learning
English. On the other hand, it will be considered negative if less than 70%
support the previously mentioned idea.
INSTRUMENTAL DEFINITION. To quantify this variable a questionnaire
located in the Appendix No.1 is applied to tenth grade adult students,
particularly questions from No4 to No7, also questions No.9 and No.10 and
finally questions from No.11.1 to No.11.6 refer to this variable. Moreover, an
interview is conducted to English teachers and questions No.6 and from
question No.7 to No.7.5 refer to this variable. This interview is located in the
Appendix No.2. In addition, an observation is carried out during the
performance of an English lesson to tenth grade adult students. From the
observation sheet, questions from No.1 to No.3, and questions from No.9.1. to
No.9.3 refer to this variable. This observation sheet is located in the Appendix
No.3. Furthermore, an interview is conducted to specialists in Psychology,
questions No.2.2., No.2.3., No.2.4. and from questions No.3.2. to No.3.2.20
refer to this variable. This interview is located in the Appendix No.4.
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3.7.2 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE 2. To identify the major affective and
sociocultural difficulties that tenth grade adult students confront when learning
English at CONED in San José.
VARIABLE 1. Affective and sociocultural difficulties
CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION. During the development of the present study,
the reader must understand by affective and socio cultural difficulties that
tenth grade adult students confront when learning English at CONED in San
Jose, any fact related to students’ personality, emotions and socio cultural
environment that would affect tenth grade adult students’ performance when
learning academic English.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION. To consider the degree of importance of the
information gathered, some arbitrary criteria should be taken into account. It
would be considered positive if more than 75% of the participants support the
idea that affective and socio cultural features would affect their performance
when learning English at CONED. In contrast, it will be considered negative if
less than 75% support the previously mentioned idea.
INSTRUMENTAL DEFINITION. To quantify this variable a questionnaire
located in the Appendix No.1 is applied to tenth grade adult students,
particularly questions from No.1 to No.3, question No.8 and from question
No 11.7 to No 11.20 refer to this variable. Moreover, an interview is conducted
to English teachers and questions from No 7.6 to No 7.18 refer to this
variable. This interview is located in the Appendix No 2. In addition, an
observation is carried out during the performance of an English lesson to tenth
grade adult students. From the observation sheet, questions from No 4 to
No 8.7 and questions from No 9.4. to No 10 refer to this variable. This
observation sheet is located in the Appendix No 3. Finally , an interview is
conducted to specialists in Psychology, questions No 2.1., No 2.5. and No 2.6
refer to this variable. This interview is located in the Appendix No 4
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3.7.3 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE 3 1.To mention the effectiveness of the
techniques that English as a Foreign Language teachers use to acknowledge
English to tenth grade adult students at CONED.
VARIABLE 3. Effectiveness of the techniques
CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION. During the development of this research, the
reader must understand by strategies that English as a Foreign Language
teachers use to acknowledge English to tenth grade adult students at
CONED, any activity or procedure that English teachers use for teaching
English to adults at CONED.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION. To consider the degree of importance of the
information gathered, some arbitrary criteria should be taken into account. It
would be considered positive if more than 80% of the participants consider
that the strategies that English as a Foreign Language teachers use to
acknowledge English to tenth grade adult students at CONED are effective.
Conversely, it will be considered negative if less than 80% of the participants
support the previously mentioned idea.
INSTRUMENTAL DEFINITION. To quantify this variable a questionnaire
located in the Appendix No.1 is applied to tenth grade adult students;
particularly questions from No.12.1 to No.12.13 refer to this variable.
Moreover, an interview is conducted to English teachers and questions #8,
questions from No.9 to No.9.13, refer to this variable. This interview is located
in the Appendix No.2. In addition, an observation is carried out during the
performance of an English lesson to tenth grade adult students. From the
observation sheet, questions from No.2 to No. 2.13. and questions from #11 to
No.11.13. refer to this variable. This observation sheet is located in the
Appendix No.3. Furthermore, an finally interview is conducted to specialists in
Psychology, questions No.2.7 and from question No.3.1 to No.3.1.13 refers to
this variable. This interview is located in the Appendix No.4.
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3.8 INFORMATION PROCESS
The collected data is classified and analyzed according to each variable and a
quantitative perspective, identifying numerical data that will be represented
through percentages and graphics.
The interpretation of the information gathered is based on the most relevant
elements included in each variable measuring the numerical results and
directly relating the qualitative data collected from the open questions done to
expertise with the main objective of this research. The conclusions and
recommendations of the present study will be derived from the results of the
analysis and interpretation of the collected data.
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CHAPTER VI
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
94
4.1. PREFACE
This chapter presents a critical analysis about the collected data through a
questionnaire applied to tenth grade adult students that included close and
open questions with the purpose of determining students’ opinions about the
major academic, affective and sociocultural difficulties that those students
confront when learning English at coned. in addition, a psychologists, and two
English teachers were interviewed in order to establish important details about
adult learning. moreover, a class observations were considered in order to
examine students behavior and interaction during English classes.
This research was conducted during the final semester in 2013, based on the
specific objectives the following variables are considered:
1. Academic difficulties
2. Affective difficulties
3. Socio cultural difficulties
4. Effectiveness of the techniques
The results obtained from the questionnaires, interviews and observations
conducted, provided relevant and clear support to the topic investigated and
are classified and presented according to the students personal information
and each of the variables previously stated.
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4.2. PERSONAL INFORMATION
CHART NO. 1. CLASSIFICATION OF THE STUDENTS BY GENDER. 2014.
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Male 6 25
Female 18 75
Total 24 100
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH NO.1 CLASSIFICATION OF THE STUDENTS BY GENDER. 2014.
Source: Chart 1
The questionnaire applied to tenth grade adult students at CONED included a
question about the gender of students could reflect, the majority of
participants are female and only a minimal part of them are male. Even when
the sample taken represents only a ten percent of the total population of tenth
grade adult students at CONED, the increasing participation of women in
educational programs shows an emergent necessity of women for education
and personal achievement.
75%
25%
Female
Male
96
CHART NO.2 AGE OF THE STUDENTS IN TENTH GRADE AT CONED.
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
18-20 0 0
21-30 7 29
30-40 9 38
More than 40 8 33
Total 24 100
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH NO. 2 AGE OF THE STUDENTS IN TENTH GRADE AT CONED.
Source: Chart no. 2
Teaching in a public High School as in the case of the CONED entails a
heterogeneous target population. Graphic two shows the age range of the
survey’s students. As observed, in a great majority of cases, the participants
ages in both male and female exceed the 30 years old range. This percentage
is alarming comparing with the traditional results reflected for the Minister of
Public Education research due to the ages have been considered a
determining factor that affects the English adult learning process. Therefore,
the results of the present study indicate that almost seventy one percent of the
person interviewed, did not require any curricular accommodation to follow an
English educational program for their learning process.
0%
29%
38%
33%
18-20
21-30
30-40
40 and older
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4.3. FIRST VARIABLE DATA
According to the objective N°1, which variable is the main academic difficulties
that tenth grade adult students face in class when learning English at CONED
in San Jose, the most important findings are:
CHART NO.3 TIME WITHOUT STUDYING IN A FORMAL PROGRAM AT
PUBLIC EDUCATION MINISTER.
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero GRAPH NO. 3 TIME WITHOUT STUDYING IN A FORMAL PROGRAM AT
PUBLIC EDUCATION MINISTER.
Source: Chart no.3
This graph presents the amount of time without studying that the students at
CONED have had at the moment of the presented research. As it is described
in the graph, the majority of students with more than fifty-eight percent have
4% 0%
13%
25% 58%
1-2 Years
2-3 Years
3-4 Years
More than 5 but less than 10years
More than 10 years
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
1-2 Years 1 4,
2-3 Years 0 0
3-4 Years 3 13
More than 5 but less than 10 years 6 25
More than 10 years 14 58
Total 24 100,00
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been outside of the classrooms for more than ten years. This prominent
percentage implies a significant challenge not only for students who are the
most interesting agents in the educative process but also for teachers who
have to deal every day in the Minister of Public Education high schools with
learners that do not remember how to follow an official studying program or
have forgotten about the study patterns of their previous years. These results
can show easily the new teaching techniques that nowadays teachers must
look for in order to improve students’ abilities about English without keep as
the main reason the increasing of the four skills demanding for the Tenth
Grades English Program at MEP.
CHART NO.4 FAVORITE SIGNATURE
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Biología 4 17
Español 5 21
Estudios Sociales 9 37
Matemáticas 2 8
Ingles 3 14
Ninguna 1 4
Total 24 100
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH NO.4 FAVORITE SIGNATURE
Source: Chart no.4
Graph 4 demonstrates that thirty- seven percent of them think that social
studies is their favorite subject; on the other hand, the majority of the
17%
21%
37%
8% 13%
4%
Biología
Español
Estudios Sociales
Matemáticas
Ingles
Ninguna
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participants seventy percent provides the reasons people who have decide to
continue their secondary education after years without studying, although very
significant percentage of the surveyed participants returned to a formal
education system because of personal decision which demonstrates a
compromise and interest from the students. At the same time, it shows the
second reason why the surveyed participants decided to continue their
secondary education is because of family reasons. In the majority of cases,
adults continue their secondary education in order to help their children during
school assignments and offer them a higher quality of life. In the same way,
this study considers adults as autonomous and self-directed individuals
because they know what they want to learn and why. Based on the answers
provided by the students during the interviews and the information disclosed
on the tables, the study found out that most adults reentered an education
program in order to achieve a higher socio-economic status.
CHART NO.5 REASONS FOR RETURNING TO A FORMAL
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Por decisión personal 16 67
Por razones familiares 1 4
Por razones Laborales 3 12
Otro_________________ 4 17
Total 24 100
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
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GRAPH NO.5 REASONS FOR RETURNING TO A FORMAL
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM
Source: Chart no.5
Different from children or adolescents whose educational expectations and
decisions are influenced by the decisions of their parents, motivations of adult
students and reasons for continuing studying are goal oriented. Table 4
provides
the reasons people who have decide to continue their secondary education
after years without studying. As described in the table, a very significant
percentage of the surveyed participants returned to a formal education system
because of personal decision which demonstrates a compromise and interest
from the students. At the same time, the table shows that the second reason
why the surveyed participants decided to continue their secondary education
is because of family reasons. In the majority of cases, adults continue their
secondary education in order to help their children during school assignments
and offer them a higher quality of life. In the same way, this study considers
adults as autonomous and self-directed individuals because they know what
they want to learn and why. Based on the answers provided by the students
during the interviews and the information disclosed on the tables, the study
found out that most adults reentered an education program in order to achieve
a higher socio-economic status.
67%
4%
12%
17%
Por decisión personal
Por razones familiares
Por razones Laborales
Otro_____________
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CHART NO.6 TEACHING ENVIRONMENT INTO THE HIGH SCHOOL
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Muy de Acuerdo 4 17
De Acuerdo 2 8
En Desacuerdo 6 25
Muy en Desacuerdo 12 50
Total 24 100
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH NO.6 TEACHING ENVIRONMENT INTO THE HIGH SCHOOL
Source: Chart no.6
There is a generalized idea regarding to students’ failure in high school;
especially in our society, teachers are commonly blamed for this. However,
when CONED tenth grade adult students present their perception about this
aspect during the survey, the great majority of them agrees that the teaching
environment in high school does influence negatively their academic
performance in English. Surprisingly, the majority of the student in question
six have been affected in their English classes by emotional problems.
17%
8%
25%
50% Muy de Acuerdo
De Acuerdo
En Desacuerdo
Muy en Desacuerdo
102
CHART NO.7.TIME OF THREE LESSONS PER WEEK ENOUGH TO
ACQUIRE A SECOND LANGUAGE
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH.NO.7. TIME OF THREE LESSONS PER WEEK ENOUGH TO
ACQUIRE A SECOND LANGUAGE
Source: Chart no.7
Each student learn different, and the time required to do it varies too. In the
case of the participants interviewed it is deduced that 38 percent of them,
think that three lessons per week are not enough to learn a second language
and develop all the skills, while the 8 percent of the students ensure three
lessons per week are not sufficient to master a second language.
8%
33%
21%
38%
Muy de Acuerdo
De Acuerdo
En Desacuerdo
Muy en Desacuerdo
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Muy de Acuerdo 2 8%
De Acuerdo 8 33%
En Desacuerdo 5 21%
Muy en Desacuerdo 9 38%
Total 24 100,00%
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4.3.1 TEACHERS PERCEPTION ABOUT THE ACADEMIC FACTORS
THAT INFLUENCE STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH.
During the interviews, all teachers argued that students’ age is not a factor
that negatively affects their academic performance in English; although, older
students (35 and older) tend to be slower during the assimilation process of
new information. According to the English professionals, this students’
lateness is a result of their period of time without studying and does not
represent an effect of their age. Additionally, teachers stated that students’
age provide maturity, motivation, experiences and interesting contributions to
the class and in general to the learning process.
On the other hand, interviewed teachers revealed that students’ period of time
without studying and the contents (vocabulary, grammar, etc.) are the main
academic factors that usually influence students’ performance in English. In
contrast, teachers mentioned that the structure of the educational system, the
evaluation criteria and the materials (books, handouts, etc.) are academic
factors that rarely or never affect performance of students in English.
4.3.2. PSYCHOLOGY PERCEPTION ABOUT THE ACADEMIC FACTORS
THAT INFLUENCE STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN THE ENGLISH CLASS
According to the interviewed specialists, the main learning differences
among children and adults were:
Children have a superior brain plasticity than adults which means that their
capacity for assimilating new information is higher.
Adults and specially those who are older than 40 years old have difficulties
when assimilating new information.
Children are exposed to an open educational environment that provides
them a higher stimulus which contributes with their assimilation process
and learning.
Children acquire innovative learning styles that are a positive factor during
the assimilation process.
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Adults are less likely to innovative stimulus and their assimilation process
is slower than children.
Adults are experienced individuals. They use their experience as a tool for
learning.
Children learn what is immediate.
Learning methods and strategies of adults are different from those that
used by children.
Adults associate their experience with the new information in order to
comprehend.
Children memorize and repeat the new information.
Children have more emotional stimulus that increases their reception and
assimilation of new information.
According to the human development stages, children are more likely to
receive and process new information.
According to the learning stages, children are located in the concrete
learning area which means that they can easily build new concepts.
Adults have a deficient self motivation and self-confidence. Adults create a
barrier among their own capacities.
Adults’ brains produce more nervous connections which benefit the
abstract adult thinking.
Adults’ abstract thinking interferes with the construction of new concepts
and assimilation and incorporation of new information due to the existence
of previous and established concepts.
Due to psychologists perception, any person can learn (children or adult) only
if he or she is highly motivated for it. Even though, there was discussion about
if children learn easily and more effectively a language such as English.
Indeed, some of arguments provided were:
Children learn easily and effectively a language due to their higher brain
plasticity.
Children are more receptive and molding during the early years.
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Children’s exposure to the language and their stimulus through means of
communication and other circumstances promote and provoke a necessity
for learning the language.
Children learn faster than adults because of their learning expectative an
cognitive development.
Children receive and assimilate more stimuli from the environment.
Adults use their life experience with the purpose of assimilate information
which at the same time would interfere with the process.
Additionally, people’s learning styles influences how and how much people
can learn.
On the other hand, materials, economic resources and social recognition
become important stimuli for learning.
Furthermore, the interviewed psychologists disclosed some of the main
academic difficulties that adult students confront when reenter to a formal
educational system by discussing the following features:
MOTIVATION: it is important to know why they are reentering to high
school and if represents an obligation and responsibility for them as
students. Continuing their studies represents a challenge itself because it
is a long-term process.
PERSEVERANCE: adults have difficulties when identifying priorities; for
example, due to their multiple responsibilities, adults consider their studies
as a non-crucial factor in their life.
LACK OF BRAIN STIMULATION: produces atrophy and thinking
slowness. Reading, using a computer, writing and other mental activities
increase brain stimulation. Some people are worried only for surviving;
they are not worried for thinking. There is no cognitive stimulation due to:
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1. Lack of learning rhythm
2. Lack of studying techniques and reading habits
3. Time dedicated to study
KIND OF POPULATION: adult students older than 25 year old present a
decline in their knowledge assimilation. The knowledge assimilation and
absorption varies according to students’ age.
FEAR: adult students should believe in their own capacities, eliminate
social stereotypes and organize themselves in order to overcome fear
when reentering to school.
Students should organize their necessities according to their priority level in
order to take decisions, organizing and taking advantage of their limited time.
Finally, psychologists concluded that the students’ amount of time without
studying and the established contents usually affect students’ performance
during English classes. In spite of aspects such as the resources or materials
(books, course guides, and others ) used for teaching and the teacher rarely
influence negatively the students’ performance in English.
4.4. SECOND VARIABLE
According to the objective N°2, which variable is The major affective and
socio cultural difficulties that tenth grade adult students confront when
learning English at CONED in San Jose, the most important findings are:
CHART NO. 8. FREQUENCY IN WHICH ECONOMICAL PROBLEMS
AFFECT THEIR PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH.
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Muy de Acuerdo 2 8%
De Acuerdo 8 33%
En Desacuerdo 5 21%
Muy en Desacuerdo 9 38%
Total 24 100,00%
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GRAPH NO.8. FREQUENCY IN WHICH ECONOMICAL PROBLEMS
AFFECT THEIR PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH.
Source: Chart no.8
Based on the answers provided by the students during the survey and the
information disclose on chart 8, it is clear that an important number of adults
reenter to an education program in order to achieve a higher socio-
economic status. Since the research took place in a public secondary
institution, most students belong to a lower-middle class. The majority of
them have a full time job and a lot of responsibilities that affect their
academic performance. As described on chart 8, the majority of the
surveyed participants expresses that economic problems represent a
negative factor that influences their academic performance in English. As
the chart indicates, only a small percentage of the students are not affected
by economical problems during their academic performance in English.
4.4.1. PERCEPTION OF TEACHERS ABOUT THE MAJOR AFFECTIVE
AND SOCIOCULTURAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE STUDENTS
PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH.
When administrated the interviews, teachers considered that economic
problems, work problems and lack of extra time dedicated to study usually
52%
17%
22%
9%
Muy de Acuerdo
De Acuerdo
En Desacuerdo
Muy en Desacuerdo
108
affect the performance of the students in English. According to the
interviewees, these sociocultural factors influence students’ motivation
inducing them to abandon their studies. In fact, most students have
experienced the impact of the previous factors along their lives as students
as cycle which conducts to frustration and depression in most cases.
Teachers indicated that it is necessary a social awareness about the
importance of adult education in order to motivate and support those who
reenter to an educational program instead of criticize them and devalue their
effort and goals in life. Conversely, the interviewed teachers considered that
physical disabilities, health problems and emotional problems affect only a
small amount of students and receive a special support such as curricular
modifications. Teachers assumed that most students establish satisfactory
interpersonal relationships even when the population is extremely
heterogeneous; for instance, there are eighteen year old students and
seventy years old students in the same class, both with different
backgrounds and experiences and despite this characteristics their
coexistence during classes are respectful and productive.
4.4.2. CLASS OBSERVATION ABOUT THE MAJOR AFFECTIVE AND
SOCIOCULTURAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT STUDENTS’
PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH.
During the class observations, students had an interactive relationship both
with other students and with the teacher. During student-student
interactions, some positive characteristics such as respect, responsibility,
interest, solidarity and collaboration were beneficial for students’ motivation
and performance during English classes. In the same way, teacher-student
relationship was interactive, respectful and horizontal with the purpose of
providing students enough confidence for asking and participating during
the classes. Moreover, student-teacher relationship reflected confidence,
respect and participation during English classes. In addition, the class
environment during the performance of English classes was pleasant and
comfortable, providing students participation opportunities and self-
confidence. In contrast, it is observed that infrastructure and some learning
109
problems such as short-term memory usually difficult students assimilation
process during English classes.
Regarding infrastructure, small desks and chairs were the major aspects
that usually disturbed students attention because those aspects produced
discomfort among students. Furthermore, aspects such as teacher’s attitude
toward students, emotional problems, discipline, physical disabilities, lack of
motivation and health problems rarely or never influenced students during
English classes.
4.4.3. PERCEPTION OF PSYCHOLOGISTS ABOUT THE MAJOR
AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE
STUDENTS PERFORMANCE IN ENGLISH.
When the reasons why adult students reenter to a formal educational
system to finish their high school were considered, the specialists revealed
that:
1. The most important reasons of the students depend on their age:
Students from 18 to 25 years old
Academic reasons
Instrumental reasons: better job opportunities
To get a career
Student of 45 year old and older
Self-fulfillment
Self-affirmation
Housewives and mothers want to be a model for their family (children).
2. The main motive why adults decide to continue and finish their
secondary studies are:
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Work reasons
Personal achievement and fulfillment
3. The main reasons why adults decide to continue and finish their
secondary
studies are:
• Work opportunities
• Personal achievement and improvement
• Family motivation
Additionally, the psychologists identified the main affective, emotional and
sociocultural barriers that adult students confront when reenter to a formal
educational system in order to conclude their secondary education as the
following:
• AGE: especially in Costa Rica, there is a widely conception about
people’s age. According to this stereotype, older people are less
important and useless, older people are not able to do anything.
• WORK: there is a labor limitation linked to people’s age: Society sets an
age barrier. According to this, people between 18-25 years old are
allowed to work and to do almost anything. However, when people are
30 and older have no time for doing anything.
• GENDER ROLES: men are required as providers and have the
responsibility of fulfill their families’ necessities. Women are responsible
for their children and family. To study does not represent a priority
neither for men nor for women.
• GUILT AND EMBARRASSMENT: adults who haven’t finished their
education experience guilt and embarrassment for their past decision of
quit school.
• ECONOMICAL LEVEL: most adults reenter to school in disadvantaged
level due to their economical level. Most of them are providers who have
to work in order to supply their family’s needs.
• GENDER ROLES: men are required to work; women have to take care
of children and their families.
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• DISTANCE: Some students have difficulties due to their homes’ location.
Farther communities face broader transportation problems.
• SOCIAL STEREOTYPES:
1. Adults are useless people
2. Adults are not able to adapt themselves to an educational situation
3. Older people are not able neither to learn not to produce.
4. Adults have to fight against their own fears and against social
conceptions about adulthood.
Additionally to the previous barriers that would affect students’ performance,
the specialists revealed that students’ amount of time without studying, the
classroom environment, the institution’s infrastructure, family problems,
work problems, economical problems, and lack of motivation were factors
that usually affect students’ performance during English classes. In contrast,
they considered that interpersonal relationships, physical disabilities, health
problems, emotional problems and the institution’s location are factors that
rarely or never affect students’ performance during English classes.
4.5. THIRD VARIABLE
According to the objective N°3, which variable is the effectiveness of the
strategies that English as a Foreign Language teachers use to acknowledge
English to Tenth grade adult students at CONED, the most important findings
are:
112
CHART NO. 9. FREQUENCY IN WHICH ENGLISH TEACHERS USE
BOOKS EXERCISES AS A TEACHING
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH NO .9. THE FREQUENCY IN WHICH ENGLISH TEACHERS USE
BOOKS EXERCISES AS A TEACHING
Source: Chart no.9
One of the commonly used teaching techniques consists on working with the
book. Chart 9 illustrates the frequency upon which teachers work with
students’ book while acknowledging tenth grade adult students at CONED.
As the table depicts, a considerable percentage of the surveyed students are
totally agree that teachers work with the students’ book. In contrast only a
few percentage of the students considers that teachers never work with the
students’ book.
79%
9%
4% 8%
Muy de Acuerdo
De Acuerdo
En Desacuerdo
Muy en Desacuerdo
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Muy de Acuerdo 2 8%
De Acuerdo 8 33%
En Desacuerdo 5 21%
Muy en Desacuerdo 9 38%
Total 24 100,00%
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CHART NO. 10. USUAL EVALUATION TECHNIQUE
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH NO.10. USUAL EVALUATION TECHNIQUE
Source: Chart no.10
The instrument applied in the Colegio Nacional de Educación was a
diagnostic test for tenth grade students in order to gather their level in
Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing Skills before the Recommended
Test, on topics based on the level program. After evaluating Pronunciation for
example, it was found that Pronunciation was difficult for the students
because they pronounce according to what they read and do not know the
difference between some words sound specially when they are similar.
This means that at the moment of the diagnostic, learners did not have
enough knowledge that allowed them to answer correctly. Besides that, some
80%
20%
Less than 70
More than 70
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Less than 70 4 80
More than 70 1 20
Total 5 100
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of the pupils showed a weakness in reading comprehension skills because
they could not understand that were based in the reading. As well, they also
had problems with written production because the statements they wrote
presented grammar mistakes such as subject verb agreement and tense
agreement.
In the diagnostic test 80% of the students obtained a grade less than 70,
which is the minimum amount in fourth cycle to approve a subject, it is proven
the necessity of an improvement in that area. Due to this result, a series of
factors had to be considered in order to help students improve their skills in
the English language.
CHART.11. RECOMMENDED EVALUATION TECHNIQUE
Source: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
GRAPH NO.11. RECOMMENDED EVALUATION TECHNIQUE
Source: Chart no.11
To acquire and evaluate the vocabulary using some realia, illustrations, and
colors was a helpful tool because learners could develop a previous
knowledge about the topic. In this case, what was needed was to provide the
0%
100%
Less than 80
More than 80
ANSWER AMOUNT PERCENTAGE
Less than 80 0 0
More than 80 4 100
Total 4 100
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students with the correct words in the target language and give them practices
such as word searches, word puzzles, and games because even though they
could identify the pictures they were not able to write them in English. Through
these kinds of activities the teacher could prove how much vocabulary
learners were able to remember.
Another important point was that before students could not understand
passages and produce written sentences by using vocabulary. Because of the
lack of this language, learners made lots of mistakes and that was why it was
important to reinforce this aspect of the target language. After evaluating all
the skills, in Speaking for example was found that it is one of the most difficult
ones because the students know what they want to say, but they do not know
the grammatical order or enough vocabulary to say the content, for example
the students said; “Yes or No” without justifying their answer.
4.5.1. PERCEPTION OF THE TEACHERS ABOUT THE TEACHING
STRATEGIES THAT ENGLISH TEACHERS APPLY FOR
ACKNOWLEDGING TENTH GRADE ADULT STUDENTS.
When conducting the interviews, teachers expressed that they sometimes use
English during English classes. Teachers said that it is difficult to speak and
explain in English to those students who do not have any contact with the
language. According to teachers’ opinions, most seventh grade adult students
are afraid of the language and create a barrier that difficult teachers’ work.
Additionally, teachers thought that it is easier to explain some contents in
Spanish than in English.
Due to the lack of time and resources for teaching English, most teachers
expressed that speech, oral exercises, conversations, role plays, games,
dynamic activities and audiovisual resources such as video, tapes,
presentations etc. are difficult to incorporate as teaching techniques for adult
students. On the other hand, individual and group work, explanations using
the board and reading comprehension were the most commonly used
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teaching techniques for adult student at a CONED.
4.5.2 CLASS OBSERVATION ABOUT THE TEACHING STRATEGIES
THAT ENGLISH TEACHERS APPLIES FOR ACKNOWLEDGING TENTH
GRADE ADULT STUDENTS.
Along the observations conducted, the English classes fulfilled the
requirements of a standard class, specifically they started on time, presenting
warm up and opening activities, review of last class topics, vocabulary and
grammar explanations, reading and writing exercises, reinforcement exercises
and homework assignment. Additionally, during the classes, teacher always
used individual work and rarely used group work in order to accomplish the
proposed activities. Also, completion of written exercises from the students’
book, explanations on the board and reading comprehension exercises were
usually used as teaching activities during English lessons. On the other hand,
the use of oral exercises, speech, dialogues and conversations, role plays,
games and audiovisual aids were rarely or never employed as teaching
techniques or resources during the English classes.
4.5.3. PERCEPTION OF THE PSYCHOLOGY ABOUT THE TEACHING
STRATEGIES THAT ENGLISH TEACHERS APPLY FOR
ACKNOWLEDGING TENTH GRADE ADULT STUDENTS.
Finally, analyzing the teaching strategies used by English teachers when
teaching adult students, the specialists concluded that individual work, group
work, completion of students’ book exercises, explanations on the board and
reading comprehension were usually applied. In spite of speeches, dialogues
and conversations, games and oral exercises that were rarely or never used
for teaching adult students. To conclude, the interviewed psychologists
advised the following aspects for teachers who work with adults with the
purpose of improving the teaching-learning process:
117
1. EMPATHY: teachers should understand their students’ multiple situation in
order to guide them. Teacher should not victimize or justify their students;
on the contrary, teacher should support students.
2. METHODOLOGY: teachers should consider students’ learning styles in
order to fulfill their learning needs.
• To promote students’ discovering capacity.
• To promote discussions.
• Teachers should help students to internalize the self-guidance, autonomy
and auto realization.
• Teachers should select techniques and strategies according to students’
learning styles, age and emotional circumstances.
• Teachers should apply techniques or strategies according to students’
learning styles.
• Techniques or strategies should stimulate students emotional area and
self-confidence.
• Teachers would include technological tools such as Power Point, videos,
recordings, and others. in order to motivate students’ learning.
118
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
119
5.1. CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions are based on the data interpretation and the experience,
the researcher had in the class when applied the exams and the practices to the
students of tenth grades of Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Therefore,
the researcher concludes that:
5.1.1 VARIABLE NO.1 . ACADEMIC DIFFICULTIES
Aging is not a factor that influences the performance of students during English
classes: The results of the present study indicate that aging is not a variable
that influences neither the adaptation of the students when reentering an
educational program or their learning process. In fact, adult learning could be
slower because of students pacing and speed, but it is not generated because
of students age.
Education of adults is continuous and permanent: In contrast to the common
idea that the age of students is a negative factor that difficulty the learning
process of adult students, it provides maturity, experiences and motivation
contributing to the learning process of all students. In fact, human beings are
individuals in continuous development who learn every day and during every
moment of their life.
The amount of time without studying that students have is a factor that
negatively affects the performance of students during English classes: Due to
the amount of time without studying that adult students at CONED have, it is
clear that most of those students have lost some necessary learning abilities
and capacities such as analysis, abstract thinking and memorization that are
relevant and indispensable for a successful learning process. As a
consequence of the lack of brain stimulation that those students are exposed to
during this period of time, brain atrophy and thinking slowness are produced.
Class contents represent a negative aspect that influences the performance of
students: Even though students consider that class contents do not represent a
120
negative aspect that influence their performance during English classes, they
denote a negative influence for the performance of students during English
classes due to their complexity, relevance and extension. Furthermore the
interest of the students about the contents depends on their learning
immediacy; in other words, adults are willing to learn only those contents that
help them to fulfill their social, economic and personal roles.
There is a confrontation of experiences during the learning process that would
affect the performance of students: Adult students carry a lot of life experiences
and previously established concepts that could support or interfere with the
learning process of students depending on both the attitude of the students
towards teachers and vice versa. When the attitude is negative, adult students
create a barrier that difficult the assimilation process of new information. On the
other hand, when the attitude of both teachers and students is positive and
conducted correctly, the learning process emerges and progress fluently.
5.1.2. VARIABLE NO.2. AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL DIFFICULTIES
Motivations and reasons of adults for continuing studying are goal oriented: It is
revealed that most adults reenter an educational program in order to achieve a
higher socio-economic status and because of personal decision which
demonstrates a commitment and interest from the students, different from
children or adolescents whose educational expectations and decisions are
influenced by the determinations of their parents.
Most students that reenter to an educational program experience low self-
esteem and shame: It can be concluded that most adults who have not finished
their education carry a great deal of guilt and embarrassment for their
condition. This guilt and embarrassment feeling is reflected in a low self-
perception of students, most of them are insecure and do not recognize their
own capacities and knowledge. Students who experience low self-esteem and
shame need an extra support from teachers, family and society in order to
diminish or overcome this problem.
121
Negative social perception and social stereotypes about adulthood: Age is a
factor used for social discrimination. According to this stereotype, an older
person has fewer opportunities for personal, professional and social growth. A
negative social perception and social stereotypes that consider older people as
useless and worthless people decrease the motivation and self-esteem of adult
students.
A comfortable and agreeable class environment provides support to adult
students during the learning process: Considering the negative social
perception about adults that society has, it is important to indicate that a
comfortable class environment and an equalitarian relationship between
teacher-student and student-student reinforce the motivation, self-esteem and
interest of adult students. In fact, those social connections among adults are
essential in order to support abilities, attitudes and values such as team work,
respect, cooperation and responsibility necessary either for working or for the
learning process.
Education as a tool of change in society: The increasing participation of women
and older people in educational programs shows an emergent necessity for
education and personal achievement. Simultaneously the education of adults
represents an opportunity for changing the generalized social perception about
adulthood, providing social worth and recognition to adults.
5.1.3. VARIABLE NO.3. EFFECTIVENESS OF THE TECHNIQUES
Adults need independence during their learning process: Different to the
dependence reflected by children during the learning process, adults
experience a psychological necessity for being self-directed during the learning
process. In fact, most adult students reject those learning situations in which
the facilitator (teacher) tends to create a dependent atmosphere.
A teacher who works with adult students should be a facilitator and a
negotiator: Contrary to the traditional role of teachers, those who work with
122
adults should be facilitators promoting and guiding the participation and
independence of students during the learning process, avoiding an excessive
control over the process and the situations involved.
Teaching techniques should be focused on the characteristics of adult
students: Class activities, learning strategies and teaching techniques should
contribute with the development and improvement of abilities for learning,
considering the differences among learning styles and promoting tasks applied
to real life situations according to the expectations and interests of students.
A comfortable class atmosphere increases motivation and interest of students:
Teachers who work with adult students should create a relaxed and respectful
class environment that motivates students to develop and improve their
learning abilities.
Lesson Planning contributes to the effectiveness of learning strategies during
the assimilation process: Planning lessons that include flexible and attractive
class activities increases the interest and motivation of students. Additionally,
teachers who previously plan their classes obtain credibility and respect from
their students.
5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS
5.2.1. VARIABLE NO.1 .ACADEMIC DIFFICULTIES
To offer specialized support such as psychological guidance to adult students
with the purpose of overcoming their guilt, embarrassment and low self-
esteem.
To offer a respectful and comfortable class environment in order to increase
the self-esteem and motivation of students.
To provide class activities and extra alternatives that increase the brain
stimulation and pacing of adult students.
123
To consider the interests, fears, weaknesses and learning styles of students
when planning and choosing class activities.
5.2.2. VARIABLE NO.2. AFFECTIVE AND SOCIOCULTURAL DIFFICULTIES
The adult educational institution must consider the specific characteristics,
interests, life experiences and amount of time without studying that adult
student have in order to design and promote educational programs adapted to
the needs of those adult students.
To consider their life experiences as source of knowledge.
Teachers who work with adults should be attentive and respectful listeners.
To consider that age is not a factor that negatively affects their academic
performance; on the contrary it implies maturity and responsibility for control
their own learning process.
5.3. VARIABLE NO.3. EFFECTIVENESS OF THE TECHNIQUES
To divulge the importance of adult education and promote new educational
opportunities with the purpose of revolutionizing the negative social perception
and stereotypes about adulthood.
To promote social activities that involve the participation of adult students in
order to disrupts the social rejection about adulthood.
To offer specialized training to teachers who work with adult students in order
to understand the complexity of adult education, incorporating appropriate
teaching strategies and educational support during the assimilation and
learning process of students.
To promote the participation of students during classes.
To select books and materials designed for adults in order to fulfill their
necessities, expectations and interests.
To encourage investigations in the field of education of adults in order to
provide valuable information for educational institutions and teachers.
124
To incorporate teaching strategies that combine class contents and the
experiences of students.
There is a confrontation of experiences during the learning process that would
affect the performance of students: Adult students carry a lot of life experiences
and previously established concepts that could support or interfere with the
learning process of students depending on both the attitude of the students
towards teachers and vice versa. When the attitude is negative, adult students
create a barrier that difficult the assimilation process of new information. On the
other hand, when the attitude of both teachers and students is positive and
conducted correctly, the learning process emerges and progress fluently.
5.2 COST OF THE STUDY
TABLE NO. 3 COST OF THE STUDY
COCEPTS TOTAL ( COLONES)
TOTAL (DOLLARS)
Travel Expenses 60.000,00 107,14
Supplies 55.000,00 98,21
Investigations Hours 400.000,00 714,28
TOTAL 515 000 919,64
Fuente: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero Nota: Cambio de dólar ₵560.35 al dia 14/5/14 de según BCCR.
125
CHAPTER VI
PROPOSAL OF EFECTIVE TEACHING TECHNIQUES
THAT TEACHER WILL USE TO ENHANCE THE
INTEGRATION OF STUDENTS INTO THE ENGLISH
CLASS AT COLEGIO NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A
DISTANCIA, SAN JOSÉ.
126
INDEX OF THE PROPOSAL
6.1 Preface …………………………………………………………… 126
6.2 General Objective ………………………………………………………….. 126
6.3 Specific Objective …………………………………………………….….… 126
6.4 Development of the Proposal ………………………………………………………… 127
6.4.1 Justification ………………………………………………………… 127
6.4.2 Proposal Purpose …………………………………………………………… 128
6.4.3 Content …………………………………………………………... 128
6.5 Impact of the Proposal …………………………………………………………… 129
6.6 Cost of the Proposal …………………………………………………….......... 130
6.7 Other Research Based on this Study ……………………………………………………….… 130
127
6.1 PREFACE
The purpose of the remedial activities that are presented below is to help the
students at Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Secondary School is the
English Oral Production improvement, in order to help them to raise their self-
esteem and be ready to enter into the labor environment in a positive way. As it
was mentioned before in this project, this kind of students comes from very difficult
places, where money is the main factor to drop out of schools.
They are students that do not have enough money to go to schools neither to a
private institute to learn English. Therefore, they prefer to find a job for them in
order to face expenses for the family. In addition of this fact, it is important to make
conscious in the mind of the students, that this is a big opportunity they will have if
they want to lose their fear for English. Someday these people could have another
view of the world and would try making it better.
6.2 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
To model an specific classroom where students will be in a comfortable area in the
Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia, to teach oral proficiency and different
skills for people from 30 to 50 years old at a beginning level where comprehension
means to an end, and the ultimate aim is to teach basic speaking skills.
6.3 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
To enhance language as a mean of expression by using videos and listening
into an integrative content level, linguistic level and instrument level.
To get an affective level of interpersonal relationship and conduct language as
a means of expressing values and judgments, by a new structure of a lesson
plan to implement it to the students.
128
To analyze the remedial learning of the students based on error analysis and
their level of learning needs.
6.4 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROPOSAL
6.4.1 JUSTIFICATION
The main problem the students have when they start the fourth cycle is the low
performance in all the skills they must to require to be able to master the
language. Another problem in public secondary adult schools in the speaking
teaching lessons is the lack of the recourses as recorders, television or in the best
cases a good laboratory to access Internet or at least to have a computer to save
written reports.
In addition of these problems, the full grammar taught in class causes lack of
motivation in the adult students, and some traumas in the speaking; when they do
not understand something and then they will not be able to pronounce it.
There are some tools teachers can use in order to provide speaking opportunities
that build up oral fluency. One of them is the implementation of discussions in
class by the Total Physical Response Method. This is a method whose target is to
work on listening comprehension by imitating the way the mother tongue was
acquired. Once it is developed, it uses the skills of speaking, reading, and writing.
Students demonstrate their comprehension by acting out commands issued by the
teacher, who provides new and often humorous variations of the commands.
Activities are designed to be fun and allow students to assume active learning
roles. Activities eventually include games and skits.
Teachers can evaluate students through simple observation that is achieved by
commanding a student to perform a series of actions. Students will start speaking
when considering to be ready; actually speaking is the emphasis of this method.
Errors are allowed just at the beginning, the teacher should correct them through
the process
129
6.4.2 PROPOSAL PURPOSE
Along the observations conducted, the English classes fulfilled the requirements of
a standard class, specifically by making a change in the classes environment and
lesson plans, where it will started on time, presenting warm up and opening
activities, review of last class topics, vocabulary and grammar explanations,
reading and writing exercises, reinforcement exercises and homework
assignment.
Additionally, during the classes, teacher will always use individual work and rarely
use group work in order to accomplish the proposed activities. Also, completion of
written exercises from the students’ book, explanations on the board and reading
comprehension exercises during English lessons. On the other hand, the use of
oral exercises, speech, dialogues and conversations, role plays, games and audio-
visual aids were rarely or never employed as teaching techniques or resources
during the English classes.
6.4.3 CONTENT 6.4.3.1. HUMAN RESOURCES
The Colegio Nacional de Educación a Distancia has three English professors in
academic and in speaking areas, with excellent training for the position.
Teachers should aim for two goals when integrating students in their class:
FIRST. To be interested in the student’s knowledge.
SECOND. To include the production of materials to use in the classroom another
handouts in benefit of the students.
THIRD: To use the computer to manage the scores of students or using any
software program to strengthen a particular skill.
130
6.4.3.2. MATERIAL, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
RESOURCES
This project involves basic changes in the teaching resources used. The CONED,
San José does not have it own infrastructure that satisfies the technological
necessities that students might have related to learn a new language.
FIRST. To find listening materials such as: free downloaded audio materials,
videos, audios, games and even songs are just some examples of
resources that everyone can access to.
SECOND. Some issues such as security, lighting, ventilation and the comfort in
the
classroom are things that can be take into account.
6.5 IMPACT OF THE PROPOSAL Students will have an academic impact, if this proposal is developed because it
will be an additional tool on the students learning process, in course that
technology nowadays is what moves the world. At the present time students
texting on their cell phones, children can navigate their iPod Touch better than
adults, and students who already have an Internet access will follow on their blog
or YouTube. So that is a resource for these students that get interested by
watching images or videos during class to get and interactive learning process.
131
6.6 COST OF THE PROPOSAL
TABLE NO. 4 COST OF THE IMPLEMENTS NEEDED IN THE CONED, FOR
THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM
IMPLEMENT QUANTITY COST ( COLONS)
COST (COLONS)
TOTAL COST DOLLARS
Tables 24 36.000 864.000 484.14
Chairs 24 20.000 480.000 268.80
Cabinet 1 100.000 100.000 56.03
Loud speaker 1 25.000 25.000 14.00
Video Bean 1 500.000 500.000 280.17
Air condition 1 350.000 350.000 196.12
Puffs 10 6.200 62.000 34.74
Painting(gallon) 2 15.600 31.200 17.48
TOTAL 2.412,200 1.351.67
Fuente: Researchers Karina Barboza Guadamuz and Yeraldy Fallas Cordero Nota: Cambio de dólar ₵560.35 al dia 14/5/14 de según BCCR.
132
BIBLIOGRAPHY
133
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, H.Douglas (1994). Principles of Language and Learning. 3rd edition.
New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regent.
Barrantes, A. Rodríguez, L. (2003). Estudio fenomenológico de las representaciones sociales del adulto medio y su proyección en el comportamiento, de un grupo de alumnos de la provincia de San José. Tesis para optar por el grado de Licenciatura en Psicología. Universidad Fidélitas. Escuela de Psicología.
Carter, Ronald., Nunan, David. (2004). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages. United Kingdom:
Cambridge University Press.
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Richards, Jack (2006) Communicative Language Teaching Today. 1st edition.
New York: Cambridge University Press
Marín Arroyo,Edwin. (2006). Methodologies and strategies in teaching English
as a foreign second language.
Papalia, D Wendkos, S. (2000) Psicología. McGraw-Hill, México.
WEB REFERENCES
Graddol, David. “The Future of English?” Retirved in 1997, from http://www.britishcouncil.org/de/learning-elt-future.pdf James, B. Waynne., Gardner, Daniel L. “Learning styles: Implications for distance learning. New directions for adult and continuing education” Retrived on August 2006, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ace.36719956705/abstract Learners.corner. Safety Signs and Warnings. Retrived in 2012 from https://sites.google.com/site/esllearnerscorner/Home/work/work- safety/safety-signs-and-warnings Mackay, Sharon., Schaetzel, Kristen. “Facilitating Adult Learner Interactions to Build Listening and Speaking Skills.”
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Retrived on July 2008, from http://www.cal.org/caelanetwork/resources/facilitating.html Educational Broadcasting, C. (2008). Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning, http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html
Educational Broadcasting. C. (2008). Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/index.html
Pshycological Consultancy, (2008). Pshycological Consultancy, www.clinicamente.com.ar
Ramírez Artavia O. Consulted on February 12th, 2008. National Educative Systems, http://www.oei.es/quipu/costarica/index.html
135
ANNEXES
136
ANNEX NO. 1
Cuestionario dirigido a Estudiantes Adultos de Inglés (Decimo Año)
Autorización
Estimados estudiantes:
La presente es para saludarles muy cordialmente y desearles éxitos en sus
estudios. Por otra parte solicitar su amable colaboración al llenar el presente
Cuestionario, cuyo propósito es recopilar información general acerca de
estudiantes que estudian inglés a nivel de décimo año en esta institución de
educación secundaria a distancia. La información recabada formará parte de una
Investigación que se realiza en la Universidad Magister sobre los retos que
enfrentan los estudiantes adultos de inglés de décimo año para optar al grado de
Licenciatura en la Enseñanza del Inglés. La información suministrada será de
carácter confidencial y se utilizará únicamente con los fines anteriormente
descritos.
Agradeciendo de antemano su valiosa colaboración, muy respetuosamente
se despide:
Karina Barboza Guadamuz
Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
Profesoras inglés
CONED, Sede San José
137
Instrucciones:
1. Lea cada enunciado propuesto y responda según su criterio. 2. No debe anotar su nombre.
ANNEX NO. 2
Cuestionario dirigido a estudiantes Adultos de Inglés (Décimo Año)
La información será absolutamente confidencial.
I. INFORMACIÓN PERSONAL Y DATOS ACADEMICOS
1. ¿Cuál es su lugar de residencia permanente:
________________________________________________
2. Sexo: 1. ( ) Femenino 2. ( ) Masculino
3. ¿Cuál es su edad?
( ) 18-20 años
( ) 21-30 años
( ) 30-40 años
( ) más de 40 años
4. ¿Cuál es su ocupación?______________________________________
5. ¿Requiere algún tipo de adecuación? Si_________No____________
138
6 ¿Cuánto tiempo tenia de no estudiar antes de incorporarse a este sistema?
( ) 1-2 años
( ) 2-3años
( ) 3-4 años
( ) más de 5 pero
( ) menos de 10 años
7 ¿Cuántas horas o minutos diarios dedica al estudio? (MARCAR SOLO UNO)
( ) Menos de una hora
( ) Más de una hora
8 ¿Por qué razón decidió retomar sus estudios?
( ) Por decisión personal
( ) Por razones familiares
( ) Por razones laborales
( ) Otro_________________
9. ¿Con que frecuencia asiste usted a las tutorías de inglés?
( ) Siempre
( ) Casi siempre
( )A veces
( ) Raras veces
( ) Nunca
139
10. ¿Cómo se siente durante las tutorías de inglés?
( ) Perfectamente
( ) Muy bien
( ) Bien
( ) Regular
( ) Mal
11. ¿Cuánto tiempo extra a la semana dedica al estudio del inglés?
( ) 0 horas
( ) 1-2 horas
( ) 3-4 horas
( ) 5-6 horas
( ) Otro_______________
12. ¿Cuál es su materia favorita?
_________________________________________________________________
__
13. ¿Ha repetido algún nivel? No________ Si ________Cuál?__________
14. . ¿Cuál es su tipo de música favorita?____________________________
140
II. PREGUNTAS SOBRE SU PUNTO DE VISTA
8. Por favor marcar X en el recuadro.
A continuación se le presentan una serie de
preguntas , por favor responda cada una de ellas
Muy de
acuerdo De acuerdo
En
desacuerdo
Muy en
desacuerdo
1. ¿Considera que le afecta la estructura del sistema a distancia?
1 2 3 4
2. ¿Le afecta a usted el sistema de evaluación semestral impartido en ésta institución?
1 2 3 4
3. ¿Considera que los contenidos del programa son muy modernos de acuerdo a su edad?
1 2 3 4
4. ¿Ha brindado el docente herramientas para emprender un mejor aprendizaje del idioma?
1 2 3 4
5. ¿Influye el ambiente educativo ( relación de compañeros de clase y docentes) en el desempeño de aprendizaje?
1 2 3 4
6. ¿Cree usted que los problemas emocionales afectan en su desempeño durante la lección de inglés?
1 2 3 4
7. ¿Cómo afecta su situación económica en su estudio?
1 2 3 4
8. ¿Son suficientes tres lecciones semanales para adquirir una segunda lengua?
1 2 3 4
9. ¿Los materiales (libros, lecturas) utilizados durante la lección de inglés se adecuan a su condición?
1 2 3 4
10. ¿Considera usted que el trabajo grupal pueda beneficiarle en el aprendizaje de una segunda lengua?
1 2 3 4
11. ¿Cree usted que presentaciones orales “Speech” benefician su pronunciación en el idioma?
1 2 3 4
12. ¿Le afecta la ubicación de la sede de estudio?
1 2 3 4
141
ANNEX NO. 3
Cuestionario dirigido a Profesores de Inglés de Decimo
Autorización
Estimados profesores:
La presente es para saludarles muy cordialmente y desearles éxitos en sus
labores. Por otra parte solicitar su amable colaboración al llenar el presente
Cuestionario, cuyo propósito es recopilar información general acerca de
estudiantes que estudian inglés a nivel de décimo año en esta institución de
educación secundaria a distancia. La información recabada formará parte de una
Investigación que se realiza en la Universidad Magister sobre los retos que
enfrentan los estudiantes adultos de inglés de sétimo año para optar al grado de
Licenciatura en la Enseñanza del Inglés. La información suministrada será de
carácter confidencial y se utilizará únicamente con los fines anteriormente
descritos.
Agradeciendo de antemano su valiosa colaboración, muy respetuosamente
se despide:
Karina Barboza Guadamuz
Yeraldy Fallas Cordero
Profesoras inglés
CONED, Sede San José
142
ANNEX NO. 4
Cuestionario dirigido a Profesores de Inglés (Decimo )
1. ¿Cuál es su género? 1.1. Masculino ( )
1.2. Femenino ( )
2. ¿2. Cuál es su edad?
2.1. ( ) 18-20 años
2.2. ( ) 21-25 años
2.3. ( ) 26-30 años
2.4. ( ) 31-35 años
2.5. ( ) 36-40 años
2.6. ( )entre 40-60 años
2.7. ( ) más de 60 años 3. ¿Cuántos años tiene de experiencia en el campo educativo?
3.1. ( ) Menos de un año
3.2. ( ) 1-2 años
3.3. ( ) 3-4 años
3.4. ( ) 4-5 años
3.5. ( ) más de 5 pero menos de 10 años
3.6. ( más de 10 pero menos de 15 años
3.7. ( ) más de 15 años
Instrucciones:
1. Lea cada enunciado o apartado propuesto y responda según su criterio. 2. No debe anotar su nombre.
143
4. ¿Cuánto tiempo tiene de laborar para esta institución de enseñanza de adultos? 4.1. ( ) 6 meses
4.2. ( ) 1 año
4.3. ( ) 2 años
4.4. ( ) 3 años 5. ¿Qué características tanto positivas como negativas poseen sus estudiantes
adultos de sétimo año?
6. ¿Considera usted que la edad del estudiante es un factor que influye
negativamente en el proceso de aprendizaje?
7.¿Cuáles y con qué frecuencia considera usted que los siguientes factores
afectan negativamente el rendimiento académico en inglés de sus estudiantes
adultos de sétimo año?
Factores que afectan negativamente el rendimiento académico en la materia de Inglés
Frecuencia
S CS AV RV N 7.1 Cantidad de años sin estudiar
7.2. Estructura del sistema a distancia
7.3. Los contenidos (vocabulario, estructuras gramaticales, etc.)
7.4. El sistema de evaluación
7.5. Los materiales utilizados (libros y cronogramas)
7.6 El profesor
7.7. Ambiente educativo (relación entre compañeros de clase)
7.8. Infraestructura de la institución (iluminación, mobiliario)
7.9. Ubicación de la sede de estudio
7.10. Problemas de aprendizaje Anote cuales
7.11. Problemas emocionales Anote cuales
7.12. Problemas intrafamiliares (violencia, agresión, etc.)
7.13. Problemas económicos
7.14. Problemas laborales
7.15. Discapacidades físicas
7.16 Falta de motivación
7.17.Falta de tiempo extra para estudiar
7.18.Problemas de salud
7.19. Relaciones interpersonales (relación con los compañeros )
7.20 . Otros. Anote cuáles y la frecuencia Simbología: S= siempre CS= casi siempre AV=a veces RV= raras veces N=nunca
144
8.¿Con qué frecuencia utiliza el idioma inglés en sus clases?
Frecuencia
S CS AV RV N
Simbología: S= siempre CS= casi siempre AV=a veces RV= raras veces N=nunca
9. ¿Cuáles y con qué frecuencia utiliza usted las siguientes estrategias o técnicas
para la enseñanza del inglés durante sus lecciones?
Técnicas utilizadas en la enseñanza del inglés e
estudiantes adultos de décimo año Frecuencia
S CS AV RV N 9.1.Trabajo individual
9.2.Trabajo en grupo
9.3.Resolución de páginas del libro (complete de ejercicios escritos)
9.4.Resolución de ejercicios orales
9.5.Presentaciones orales (speech)
9.6.Clase magistral
9.7.Explicación en el pizarrón
9.8.Prácticas extras
9.9.Diálogos y conversaciones
9.10 Juegos
9.11.Dinámicas
9.12.Uso de medios audiovisuales (videos, presentaciones, grabaciones)
9.13.Comprensión de lectura
Simbología: S= siempre CS= casi siempre AV=a veces RV= raras veces N=nunca
145
ANNEX NO. 5
Class Observation Sheet
Date of observation: _____________________
Approximate class time: ______________
Group: _____________ Level: _____________________
Total number of students: ____________________
Males: _______________ Females: ________________
Name of the teacher: _____________________________
1. Does the class start on time?
Yes ( ) No ( ) Was there any excuse or reason for? Yes ( ) No ( )
2. Mark with an X the frequency with which the following teaching techniques are
used by the teacher during the English class
Teaching Techniques Used for Teaching English to Tenths Grade Adult Students
Frequency
A U S R N
2.1. Individual Work
2.2. Group Work
2.3. Completion of written exercises from the students’ book)
2.4.Oral exercises
2.5. Speech
2.6. Lectures
2.7. Explanations using the board
2.8. Extra practice
2.9. Dialogues and conversations
2.10. Games
2.11. Dynamics
2.12. Audiovisual aids (videos, presentations, tapes, posters, picture)
2.13. Reading comprehension
A= always U=usually S=sometimes R=rarely N=never
Instructions: 1. Fill in the blanks with the requested information. 2. Read the statements and propositions and answer according to the observation
during the English class.
146
3. Does the teacher use English? Mark the frequency.
Frequency
A U S R N
A= always U=usually S=sometimes R=rarely N=never
6 How is the relation students-teacher?
_________________________________________________________________ 7 How is the relation teacher-students? _________________________________________________________________
8 How is the relation student-student? _________________________________________________________________ 9 How is the class environment? _________________________________________________________________ 10 Is there any infrastructural factor that would affect the students’ performance
during the English class.
_________________________________________________________________ Infrastructural factors Yes No
8.1.Lights
8.2.Furniture (desks and chairs
8.3.Class arrangement
8.4.External noise
8.5.Board condition
8.6.Classroom condition
8.7.Others. Which?
147
11 Mark with an X the frequency with which the following factors affect students’ performance during the English class.
Factors that affect students’ performance during English classes
Frequency
A U S R N
9.1.Content (vocabulary, grammatical structures, etc)
9.2.Materials (books, chronograms, extra material
9.3.Teacher’s attitude towards students
9.4.Class environment (interpersonal relations)
9.5.Infrastructure (lights, furniture
9.6.Learning Problems Which ones?
9.7. Emotional problems Which ones?
9.8.Discipline
9.9.Physical disabilities
9.10.Lack of motivation
9.11.Health problems
9.12.Others Which ones?
A= always U=usually S=sometimes R=rarely N=never
12 How was the teacher’s classroom management? Mark with an X.
Excellent Appropriate Regular Deficient
148
13 Mark with an X if the English teacher follows any of the following classroom
activities.
Activity Yes No
11.1. Warm up
11.2. Opening
11.3. Review of last class topics
11.4. Introductory activities
11.5. Explanation of grammatical structures
11.6. Vocabulary explanation
11.7. Oral exercises
11.8. Listening exercises
11.9. Reading comprehension exercises
11.10. Writing exercises
11.11. Reinforcement exercises
11.12. Closure activity
11.13. Homework assignment
149
ANNEX NO. 6
Cuestionario dirigido a Especialista en Psicología Autorización Estimado profesional:
La presente es para saludarle muy cordialmente y desearle éxitos en su labor.
Por otra parte solicitar su amable colaboración al llenar el presente Cuestionario,
cuyo propósito es recopilar información general acerca de estudiantes que
estudian inglés a nivel de décimo año en la institución de educación secundaria
a distancia CONED. La información recabada formará parte de una Investigación
que se realiza en la Universidad Magister sobre los retos que enfrentan los
estudiantes adultos de inglés de décimo año para optar al grado de Licenciatura
en la Enseñanza del Inglés. La información suministrada será de carácter
confidencial y se utilizará únicamente con los fines anteriormente descritos.
Agradeciendo de antemano su valiosa colaboración, muy respetuosamente se
despide:
Yeraldy Fallas Cordero Karina Barboza Guadamuz
Profesoras Inglés
CONED, Sede San José
150
ANNEX NO. 7
Cuestionario dirigido a Especialistas en Psicología
Entrevista a Profesionales en Psicología I Parte. Debe ser llenada por el entrevistador.
1. Tipo de Funcionario:
1.1. ( ) Público
1.2. ( ) Privado 2. Cargo: __________________________ 3. Especialidad: _________________________ 4. ¿Posee experiencia en el campo de educación de adultos?
4.1. ( ) Si Anote cantidad de años___________________
4.2. ( ) No
5. ¿Habla inglés?
5.1. ( ) Si Anote nivel _____________________
5.2. ( ) No 6. Tiempo estimado para la entrevista: __________________ 7. Fecha de la entrevista: _____________________
Instrucciones: 1. Lea cada enunciado o apartado propuesto y responda según su criterio. 2. No debe anotar su nombre.
151
II Parte. Responda según su criterio
2.1. ¿Cuáles cree usted que son las principales razones o motivos por los cuales un adulto regresa a las aulas a concluir sus estudios secundarios? ___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2.2 ¿Cuáles son las principales diferencias de aprendizaje existentes entre un niño y un adulto? ___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2.3¿Considera que los niños aprenden más fácilmente y de forma más efectiva un idioma como lo es el inglés? ___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2.4¿Cuáles considera usted que son las principales retos académicos al que estudiantes adultos enfrentan cuando regresan a las aulas? ___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2.5 ¿Cuáles considera usted que son los principales barreras socioculturales que
los estudiantes adultos enfrentan cuando deciden regresar a las aulas?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2.6.¿Cuáles son según su criterio los principales problemas afectivos y
emocionales que los estudiantes adultos enfrentan cuando deciden regresar a
las aulas?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
2.7.¿Qué tipo de técnicas de enseñanza le recomendaría usted a los profesores
que trabajan con estudiantes adultos que deciden terminar su enseñanza
secundaria?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
152
III Parte. Consulte al entrevistado y llene los cuadros siguientes con la
información solicitada.
3.1. Marque con una X la frecuencia con la que considera que los profesores de
inglés utilizan las siguientes técnicas y metodologías cuando enseñan inglés a
estudiantes adultos.
Técnicas utilizadas en la enseñanza del inglés e estudiantes adultos de décimo año
Frecuencia
S CS AV RV N 3.1.1. Trabajo individual
3.1.2. Trabajo en grupo
3.1.3.Resolución de páginas del libro (complete de ejercicios escritos)
3.1.4. Resolución de ejercicios orales
3.1.5 .Presentaciones orales (speech)
3.1.6. Clase magistral
3.1.7.Explicación en el pizarrón
3.1.8.Prácticas extras
3.1.9.Diálogos y conversaciones
3.1.10.Juegos
3.1.11.Dinámicas
3.1.12.Uso de medios audiovisuales (videos, presentaciones, grabaciones)
3.1.13.Comprensión de lectura
Simbología: S= siempre CS= casi siempre AV=a veces RV= raras veces N=nunca
153
3.2. Marque con una X la frecuencia con la que considera que los siguientes
factores afectan negativamente a los estudiantes adultos mientras aprenden
inglés.
Factores que afectan negativamente el rendimiento académico en la materia de Inglés
Frecuencia
S CS AV RV N 3.2.1. Cantidad de años sin estudiar
3.2.2. Estructura del sistema a distancia
3.2.3. Los contenidos (vocabulario, estructuras gramaticales, etc.)
3.2.4. El sistema de evaluación
3.2.5. Los materiales utilizados (libros y cronogramas)
3.2.6 El profesor
3.2.7. Ambiente educativo (relación entre compañeros de clase)
3.2.8. Infraestructura de la institución (iluminación, mobiliario)
3.2.9. Ubicación de la sede de estudio
3.2.10. Problemas de aprendizaje Anote cuales
3.2.11. Problemas emocionales Anote cuales
3.2.12. Problemas intrafamiliares (violencia, agresión, etc.)
3.2.13. Problemas económicos
3.2.14. Problemas laborales
3.2.15. Discapacidades físicas
3.2.16 Falta de motivación
3.2.17.Falta de tiempo extra para estudiar
3.2.18.Problemas de salud
3.2.19. Relaciones interpersonales (relación con los compañeros )
3.2.20 . Otros. Anote cuáles y la frecuencia Simbología: S= siempre CS= casi siempre AV=a veces RV= raras veces N=nunca
154
ANNEX NO. 8
FIRST DIAGNOSTIC TEST
I SEMESTER 2014
Grade:_______________
Total Points:___________
45 PTS
SUBJECT: ENGLISH
PROFESSOR: KARINA BARBOZA GUADAMUZ
STUDENT’S
NAME:________________________________.
I PART : WRITING ( 10 pts)
Write a ten line paragraph about a typical food that you like to eat. Do not forget to write a title.
________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
155
II PART : READING COMPREHENSION ( 5 pts)
Foods made from grains (wheat, rice, and oats) help form the foundation of a nutritious diet. They provide vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates (starch and dietary fiber), and other substances that are important for good health. Grain products are low in fat, unless fat is added in processing, in preparation, or at the table. Whole grains differ from refined grains in the amount of fiber and nutrients they provide, and different whole grain foods differ in nutrient content, so choose a variety of whole and enriched grains. Eating plenty of whole grains, such as whole wheat bread or oatmeal (see box 11), as part of the healthful eating patterns described by these guidelines, may help protect you against many chronic diseases. Aim for at least 6 servings of grain products per day—more if you are an older child or teenager, an adult man, or an active woman (see box 7)—and include several servings of whole grain foods. See box 8 for serving sizes.
Vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other protective substances in whole grain foods contribute to the health benefits of whole grains. Refined grains are low in fiber and in the protective substances that accompany fiber. Eating plenty of fiber-containing foods, such as whole grains (and also many fruits and vegetables) promotes proper bowel function. The high fiber content of many whole grains may also help you to feel full with fewer calories. Fiber is best obtained from foods like whole grains, fruits, and vegetables rather than from fiber supplements for several reasons: there are many types of fiber, the composition of fiber is poorly understood, and other protective substances accompany fiber in foods. Use the Nutrition Facts Label to help choose grains that are rich in fiber and low in saturated fat and sodium.
1. What types of carbohydrates does grain
provide the body with?
_________________________________
_________________________________
2. What's the difference between whole grain
and refined grain products?
_________________________________
_________________________________
156
3. Why does a teenager require more grain than
an adult?
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
4. Why are you often told to eat products that are
high in fiber?
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
157
III PART : SPEAKING (15 pts) AND LISTENING (16pts) .
Find someone who likes to drink soda
Question: Do you like to drink soda? Why?
Answer: Yes, because it is sweet.
Do you like…? Why?
Yes I do (write name & reason) / No I don’t ( write name & reason)
1. to drink soda 2. sausage 3. to drink coffee 4. to drink
orange juice
5. mango ice-cream 6. scrambled eggs 7. to eat sandwich 8. to eat cake
9. spicy food 10. chicken curry
LISTENING EX. 4 pts
GOOD 3 pts
NEEDS IMPROVEMENT 2 pts
NOT ACHIEVED 1pt
Content
Coherence
Grammar
Vocabulary
158
COLEGIO NACIONAL A EDUCACION A DISTANCIA Date 17/03/2014
Course:Tenth Grade SPEAKING Points 15 PTS
ASPECTS Excellent (5) Very Good (4) Good (3)
Inferior (2)
TOTAL
4 Phonetically correct. Pronunciation and intonation sound natural.
3 Generally correct and comprehensible. Only occasional errors.
2 Several errors in pronunciation which interfere somewhat with communication.
1 Excessive errors which make communication very difficult.
FLUENCY**
4 The student speaks very clearly without hesitation
3 Speaks with some hesitation, but communication is not affected
2 Some unnatural pauses. Problem with flow and intonation distort meaning and inhibit communication in some instances.
1 Frequent hesitations and use of English cause communication to break down.
0 Did not participate
VOCABULARY
4 Excellent use of persuasive vocabulary and expressions
3 Good use of persuasive vocabulary and expressions
2 Vocabulary is just adequate and does not support the persuasive nature of the argument.
1 Inadequate vocabulary or incorrect use of words causes a lack of communication
SYNTAX**
4 No grammatical errors or errors are self-corrected immediately
3 Some minor errors in structure which do not interfere with comprehension
2 Many errors in agreement or verb forms.
1 Most structures are incorrect. Little use of verb conjugations of appropriate tenses.
0 Did not participate.
159
ANNEX NO. 9
SPEAKING
The Skit Kit is an activity for creating skits, creating stories or creating dialogues
. In groups students have to make up a story about food, make up a dialogue or make up a skit.
. It's pretty simple but fun and effective for in real situation and for teaching real English.
The activity:
- To start have the students take just a few cards out of the envelope and explain that they will
need to make a story using all of the vocabulary.
- Allow the students time to make a story and encourage them to add characters or themselves to
the story.
- Explain that the students will be acting out the story.
160
LISTENING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GOOPOjY5mEI#t=106
1. What foods are used to make the Full English Breakfast in the video
2. Which utensils are NOT needed or mentioned in the video?
a spatula a saucepan a fork a can opener a knife
a spoon fry pan
161
Join the ideas that the teacher shows you and write them in a good order adding more
information related to traditional English breakfasts, by taking into account the previous
listening. Please read it aloud to be evaluated.
162
Grade:_______________
Total Points:___________
40 PTS
ENGLISH
Foods
SUBJECT: ENGLISH
LEVEL: TENTH GRADER’S
PROFESSOR: KARINA BARBOZA GUADAMUZ
STUDENT’S
NAME:______________________________
Listening
EX.
3 pt
GOOD
2 pt
NEEDS
IMPROVEMENT
1pt
NOT
ACHIEVED
0.5 pt
Content
Coherence
Grammar
Vocabulary
Writing
EX.
3 pt
GOOD
2 pt
NEEDS
IMPROVEMENT
1pt
NOT
ACHIEVED
0.5 pt
Content
Coherence
Grammar
Vocabulary
Speaking
EX.
3 pt
GOOD
2 pt
NEEDS
IMPROVEMENT
1pt
NOT
ACHIEVED
0.5 pt
Content
Coherence
Grammar
Vocabulary
Reading
EX.
3 pt
GOOD
2 pt
NEEDS
IMPROVEMENT
1pt
NOT
ACHIEVED
0.5 pt
Content
Coherence
Grammar
Vocabulary
163