Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / This study explores the perceptions of teachers and students in an EFL university in Chile and how these perceptions have an impact on the validity of the test. The research questions conducting the study were focused on the comparison between teachers‟ and students perceptions regarding oral tests. In order to elicit the perceptions of teachers, interviews were conducted in order to gather information regarding their evaluation, knowledge and general opinion of the oral tests. Students‟ perceptions were elicited through the application of a survey which gathered information regarding their levels of satisfaction, knowledge and general opinion of the oral tests. These perceptions were later on compared and contrasted. The results indicated that teachers agreed on several aspects of the test and had a general positive perception of it. Conversely, students had a negative perception of the overall test and displayed a very heterogeneous range of perceptions and opinions. The analysis conducted indicated that students are not fully informed of test procedures and criteria of evaluation, thus compromising the construct, face and consequential validity of the test. At the same time, teachers do not fully agree on the criteria of evaluation generating issues in the reliability of the test.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / In the face of educational reforms, the role that teachers play in the classroom appears to be of paramount importance to different stakeholders. In a growing demand for quality teaching accountability, teachers’ duty is to help students in acquiring knowledge. Thus teachers are assessed to guarantee quality teaching through various assessment procedures, as it has been identified that teaching effectiveness is an important factor contributing to ensure student achievement. On the other hand, there is compelling evidence supporting the link between teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and student outcomes. The study reported in this thesis sought to provide evidence in regard to teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs as a key driver of teaching effectiveness, as it has been suggested that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs may work as a strong predictor of teaching effectiveness. Through an instrumental qualitative case study design, this study investigated the sources of self-efficacy beliefs and the desired characteristics or attributes that an effective teacher of English as a foreign language should possess. Results were analysed from data collected through in-depth individual interviews, emerged from three teachers working in different educational settings (private language institute, private university, and a public university). This study yielded interesting results concerning efficacy for student engagement, efficacy for instructional strategies and the impact of student evaluation of educational quality (SEEQ) report on teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. As a conclusion, the study’s findings seem to confirm that mastery experiences (the strongest source of self-efficacy beliefs) affect both teachers and students’ self-efficacy beliefs, resulting in a predictor of teaching effectiveness.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / This study reveals the results of the Social Representations (Moscovici, 1984) and Linguistic Ideologies (Kroskrity, 2010) behind the most influential and widespread varieties of English in the context of English as a foreign language in Chile: Received Pronunciation -British English- and General American -American English- in monolingual Spanish speakers from a middle-class background. This investigation, inserted in an anthropological perspective, focuses on notions from Hispanic-phone speakers who are not related to academic environments, pursuing thus a similar approach to Folk-Linguistics. The corpus of this research is composed of personal interviews performed to participants corresponding to three different age sets (adolescent - middle-age adult - mature adult) where the participants provided their opinions about English language and the most prominent varieties of English. The findings revealed a common perception of English as a working tool and the acknowledgement of English as a global language; besides there was an average preference towards the British English variety, especially in the adult participants, who also depict a more prominent rejection towards American English. In contrast, the younger group presents a more positive appreciation of American English in terms of production; however, they place British English in a superior status. As a complement, the theories of Symbolic Power by Bourdieu and Discourse and Power coined by Foucault will be considered in this research since these concepts are present in the participants‟ discourse.

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Existen dos aproximaciones al estudio de la adquisición de segundas lenguas : una de ellas considera que todos los aprendientes analizan el input y almacenan la información sobre la segunda lengua de una manera parecida, mientras que la otra sostiene que los aprendientes son distintos y que, en consecuencia, var¡an tanto la forma en que enfrentan el aprendizaje de una segunda lengua como lo que realmente logran aprender. Esta segunda aproximación, aquella que considera las diferencias individuales, es la que se ha adoptado en el presente trabajo.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / Conceiving language and languages as cultural systems, being the main focus of the linguistic anthropological perspective, this study intends to apply this approach in order to understand language teaching as a determined cultural system. Chileans Social Representations towards Alexis Sanchez’s use of English in his first interview in that language will be characterized and its possible theoretical and methodological implications in English teaching. Through empirical and qualitative research, focus groups and personal interviews were applied to English university professors, English university students, and university students of science. Based on the thick description metaphor by the anthropologist C. Geertz, the preliminary results show the existence of a serie of cultural models related to a) native speaker ideal, b) speaking English well and poorly, c) the existence of different levels of English d) good or bad communication depending on fluency, grammar, syntax, e) the concept of error, and how all these categories reflect the reality of English teaching. These results suggest that the social actors involved in English teaching and learning, express those social representations based on an ideal of communication and an ideal of English language, which at the same time, influences the way of teaching English as a foreign language in Chile.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / The main goal of the present study is to do research on group and individual word associations with the purpose of identifying similarities and differences between native and nonnative speakers at different levels of proficiency both in English and in Spanish. For this purpose, data were elicited through two word association tests, one in English and one in Spanish. Both tests included 30 stimulus words, and they were given to a total of 42 participants. The data obtained were described, analysed, and quantitatively compared in order to answer the research questions. Finally, some conclusions were drawn from the research analysis. In relation to the formal arrangement of the present study, it consists of six major sections. First, the Introduction, followed by the study, which is subdivided into Objectives, Research Questions, Theoretical and descriptive framework, and Methodology. The third section is the Discussion of results, followed by the conclusions. The two last sections are Bibliography and Appendixes

En síntesis, la comprensión lectora fluida y eficiente involucra una serie de procesos simultáneos, varios de los cuales ya han sido identificados por estudios teóricos y prácticos, pero todavía no se ha logrado un modelo que integre la información con que se cuenta. Nuestro trabajo, además de explorar este tema en un contexto nacional, intenta aportar a un mejor entendimiento de cómo la comprensión lectora se ve influenciada por dos dimensiones de la competencia léxica: tamaño y profundidad. Sin duda, en el contexto pedagógico, este tipo de contribuciones son sumamente importantes al momento de considerar innovaciones en los modelos teóricos y didácticos de la enseñanza/aprendizaje de inglés como L2, y así enriquecer la calidad del aprendizaje en los estudiantes de pregrado.

As learning English has become a necessity all over the world for some time now, due to the phenomenon of globalisation, analysing the aspects involved in second language-acquisition studies has acquired great relevance in the field of applied linguistics. During the past three decades, much attention has been given to the cognitively oriented models of L2 learning and acquisition with greater emphasis being put on learners and learning rather than on teachers and teaching, as was the tendency in the past. The way learners process new information and the different strategies they employ to understand, learn and communicate this information have been primary concerns of researchers of foreign language learning. In that context, the study of the different strategies used by learners of an L2 to resolve communication problems so as to effectively convey their messages has become a relevant issue.