Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Publication Date

9-1-2015

Abstract

Students' perceptions of English as a foreign language (EFL) were studied in 20 final papers written by 44 students for the undergraduate course of English Phonetics and Phonology taught at a university in Bogota, Colombia in four cohorts. Using qualitative content analysis (QCA), this study analyzes students' meanings and interpretations of the foreign language in their written ideas that emerged in the process of written and phonetic transcriptions of a verbatim sample chosen from the Internet. These meanings were represented in the students' words, ideas, and symbols to construe the new language and to make sense out of it. The 20 final papers are considered primary data in this particular study; the data of the instructor and a post-experience survey are classified as secondary data. These data served to contextualize the participants' perceptions in their final papers and to validate students' experiences and environmental reality of the foreign language. The role of the instructor is indirectly questioned, as the final papers are the result of a teaching-learning practice which was created and implemented by the instructor in two and a half years of teaching English Phonetics and Phonology (Fall 2010-Spring 2012). The study explores the underlying dialogical relationships students established with the various semiotic texts: printed, audiovisual, and audio texts. This study uses a sociocultural framework, where issues of cognitive perception, local reality, and the abstract, dialogical, and fragmented nature of texts helped foreign language students interpret and reconstruct foreign language through virtual reality.'

Keywords

EFL/ESL, PERCEPTION, SECOND LANGUAGE PHONETICS AND PHONOLOLGY, PRONUNCIATION, LISTENING, LANGUAGE LEARNING AND COMMUNICATION

Sponsors

My family and my savings

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies

First Committee Member (Chair)

Peele-Eady, Tryphenia

Second Committee Member

Mahn, Holbrook

Third Committee Member

Crawford-Garrett, Katherine

Fourth Committee Member

Laura, Haniford

Fifth Committee Member

Pabisch, Peter

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