The research reported here is an experimental study designed to investigate listening comprehension strategy instruction. This study involves a comparison of the progress of an experimental and a control group of students of English as a foreign language at university level. The main purposes of the study are: a) to experiment with activities that can be used to train students to perform listening tasks and b) to determine the effectiveness of such training in both improving listening comprehension and in raising students’ awareness of the process of listening. Strategy training can be defined as any intervention which focuses on the strategies to be adopted and used by language learners to develop their proficiency, and/or to improve specific task performance. The investigation is based on the premise that by integrating a process approach into regular listening activities, we may be able to raise students’ consciousness of the process of successful listening. Thus, we may be able to help our students gain greater control over their listening efforts, the ultimate goal being the development of self-regulated listeners who can take responsibility for their language learning out of the classroom

La presente investigación está inserta en el marco general de la lingüística aplicada, específicamente dentro del campo de la lingüística contrastiva ya que se da cuenta de algunas de las diferencias entre dos idiomas: la variedad del inglés británico culto conocida como RP y el español de Chile. Estas diferencias se concentrarán en el plano fonológico ya que se tratará de establecer los errores1 más comunes que comete un grupo de estudiantes de inglés como segunda lengua en cuanto a segmentos, específicamente consonantes, y a suprasegmentos, concretamente, colocación de acento de palabra. También se tratará de dilucidar si es que los alumnos del curso superior (4° y último año del programa de Lengua y Literatura inglesas) producen menos errores que los alumnos de un curso inferior (3° y penúltimo año del programa antes señalado).

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory has traditionally focused on the mere learning of linguistic contents. Context from a semiotic perspective is an emerging field which is now taking increasing importance in the area, since recent research has highlighted the relevance of context when communicating in a second language (L2). This study focuses on the ways in which Chilean English language learners use a L2 in order to communicate their real-life experiences, skills and knowledge. The purpose of the study is to understand the functional categories through which context is collectively constructed to facilitate communication in a second language. To develop this study, 18 sessions about various topics were recorded with language learners, participants in each one were three novices and one expert who taught them. Eight of these recordings were selected as meaningful data and thoroughly analysed regarding context making and interaction. Through the analysis, three functional categories were identified as commonly used to establish a common context: learners’ prior knowledge, question/response routines and common sense. Additionally, non-verbal communication and discourse markers played an important role as supporters of interaction. As a conclusion, this study shows that the category of prior knowledge was the most recurrent strategy used to establish a common context. Nonetheless, the three previously mentioned categories are necessarily intertwined to interact in a second language.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / The general objective of this research study is to analyse and compare receptive and productive word associations produced by intermediate and advanced learners of English as a foreign language, and native speakers of English.

Objetives: to describe the way in which native speakers of English and native speakers of Spanish realize the speech acts of request and refusal in their respective mother tongues; to determine the extent to which the pragmatic norms of the L1 (Chilean Spanish) influence the strategies and sub-strategies that formal learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) at different proficiency levels use when producing the speech acts of request and refusal in English.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / The English present perfect is a grammatical construction that denotes an event happening at a past point of time and relates to the present time in either a continuative manner or implying that the event is relevant to the present. Thus, the present perfect conveys both aspectual and temporal meanings. The present study investigates into the acquisition and development of the English present perfect by Chilean EFL learners as part of their interlanguage aspectual-temporal system. Specifically, the study makes an account of the main semantic characteristics of the Chilean learners’ interlanguage present perfect in order to determine the semantic prerequisites involved in the acquisition of the different meanings of the construction. It also focuses on the semantic negative transfer from the learners’, L1, Spanish, and the development of the following semantic notions: ‘reference time’,’ anteriority’ and ‘current relevance.’ The research methodology comprised the following procedures: a) data collection by means of two writing tasks elicited from 68 intermediate EFL Chilean university undergraduates enrolled in the English teacher-training course programme at Universidad de Santiago de Chile; and b) the classification of instances of the use, underuse or misuse of the target structure. The quantitative results emerging from the data analysis reveal that the present perfect construction is used in the expression of temporality or aspectuality depending on such semantic categories as ‘current relevance’ and ‘recency’. The analysis also demonstrates that Chilean EFL learners do not seem to be able to activate the concept of temporal recency of a past time event. It also reveals that they tend to use the preterite and the present perfect construction as being semantically equivalent constructions mainly because of the operation of the semantic negative transfer from the L1 temporal aspectual verbal system.

No description available.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüítica, mención Lengua Inglesa / This thesis examines the effects of focus-on forms instruction on the recognition and production of the English Present Perfect. A study was conducted that observed gains in a series of adapted tests measuring the grammatical judgment, level of production and acquisitional patterns of the English Present Perfect in the written performance of a group of intermediate EFL learners. Participants were 31 intermediate undergraduate Chilean students (Spanish L1) from the morning and evening courses of a teacher training program. The evening course was exposed to a focus-on-forms type of training and therefore considered as the experimental group. One set of judgments regarding the recognition of the proper use of the English Present Perfect and two sets of L2 writing tasks were collected for the study. Effects of the focus-on-forms instructions were then observed in the collected data along with the acquisitional pattern found after the intervention. Results of the study show modest but statistically significant gains in the recognition of the English Present Perfect and its different types of undergeneralizations in the experimental group. Less systematic gains were also observed in the written production of the English Present Perfect. Concerning the effects of focus-on-forms instruction on the pattern of acquisition no modifications were observed.Finally, results suggest that focus-on-forms instruction provides effective tools for the acquisition of the English Present Perfect. The study also contributes with a much needed description of the acquisitional path that Chilean Spanish learners of English as a foreign language develop in relation to the acquisition of the English Present Perfect.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / This work aimed to investigate about the way Chilean students acquire English Prepositions ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’. Through the identification of the most common strategies used by students when choosing one these three prepositions, the researcher aimed to find out about the difficulties the learners face when using those particles. The data analysis is based on the cognitive aspects of interlanguage, as well as some different notions on the learner´s knowledge. This work shows the way modern Linguistics has considered this kind of words and emphasizes their semantic roles. The data was collected through the use of Cloze Tests and interviews made to primary and secondary students from The Deutsche Schule in Los Angeles, Chile. The aim of the researcher with the interviews was to find out about the reasons why the students chose a particular preposition for their cloze tests. The results showed the students used several strategies to choose among ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’, like overgeneralization of basic uses, inference, application of rules, mental images, among others. The researcher could conclude that learners do have tools to deal with the knowledge they already have and the knowledge they do not yet, which may contribute to the development of more appropriate approaches for teaching English prepositions, to make learning a more meaningful process for the students.

Ingeniero Civil en Computación / En esta tesis se presenta el diseño, desarrollo y resultados de validación de una aplicación iPad que permite a niños de los primeros años de enseñanza básica aprender vocabulario en inglés, a través de distintas alternativas de interacción. La enseñanza de idiomas extranjeros es una parte fundamental de la educación. En particular, el aprendizaje de vocabulario es crítico para el progreso, ya que es la base de la puesta en práctica de las demás habilidades. Si se lleva a cabo en los primeros años de enseñanza (entre los cinco y siete años), una de las barreras que deben superar los niños es la motivación. El estudio de idiomas puede ser estresante y producir rechazo en algunos estudiantes. La tecnología surge como una forma de reducir esta aversión, debido, entre otros factores, a la posibilidad de presentar atractivos recursos multimedia, y formas de interacción novedosas que inviten a los niños a acceder al contenido. La hipótesis es que, a través de la tecnología, es posible tanto facilitar como motivar el aprendizaje de vocabulario en inglés para los niños de primeros años de enseñanza básica. La solución propuesta tiene dos objetivos globales. Por un lado, ayudar al aprendizaje de vocabulario, con una interfaz centrada en la asociación entre expresiones y significados, a través de gestos sobre la pantalla. Por otro lado, mantener el interés en el estudio y motivar a los alumnos que pueden sentirse excluidos, ofreciendo distintas formas de interacción. Se implementó la solución como una aplicación iPad, que permite al usuario estudiar expresiones en inglés a través de distintas formas de interacción. Estas formas incluyen el uso de distintos gestos sobre la pantalla táctil (toque, arrastre, pellizco, pulsación múltiple) y la interpretación del movimiento del dispositivo en el espacio (mediante el acelerómetro incluido en el dispositivo). Se realizó una actividad de validación de la aplicación, con niños de edades entre cinco y siete años. Los análisis realizados permiten observar que la aplicación es efectiva y motiva a los alumnos al aprendizaje. Se obtuvieron resultados positivos al medir la retención de expresiones, y se logró determinar el tipo de interacción que atrae más a los niños, que los motiva a utilizar la aplicación nuevamente. Además, se observó que el prinicipal factor incidente en la preferencia de una u otra forma de interacción es la dificultad para realizar el gesto, y que existen grandes diferencias en la ejecución de gestos entre niños de distintas edades, y entre niños y adultos en general.