Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / The present study aims at comparing the efficacy of a deductive approach against an inductive approach in the teaching of passive voice in English in a college context. The participants of this study were 36 second year psychology students from Universidad Austral de Chile in Puerto Montt, Chile. The students were divided into two groups that were taught the passive voice of simple past, simple present and simple future. One of the groups was taught using a deductive approach while the other was taught using an inductive approach. After the passive voice was taught a posttest was given in order to determine which approach proved more effective. The results seem to indicate a relevance of the deductive approach in the context studied but also of bias toward the deductive approach in the methodological design of the posttest. A re-evaluation of previous research indicated how the methodology used in certain inductive approaches can be affected by deduction.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa. / El trabajo que se informa se enmarca dentro de los estudios que buscan dar cuenta de la estructura discursiva de la conversación espontánea o casual y de las funciones de los enunciados presentes en ella. La conversación espontánea es la forma de discurso oral más predominante en lo que respecta al uso del lenguaje; sin embargo, es la que menos atención ha recibido en comparación con otras formas de discurso hablado y escrito

Second language acquisition (SLA) research arose from the developments of the proposals made by Chomsky (1965) regarding the concept of The Language Acquisition Device (LAD), a language faculty that enables children to infer hypotheses about the rules of a certain language given that they are exposed to a considerable amount of linguistic input. Furthermore, Chomsky suggested that all languages are structured according to a set of universal principles; then, it is assumed that children have an innate knowledge of these universal principles which enables them to acquire the native language quickly, easily and efficiently. Added to these ideas, Chomsky’s mentalist theory of language acquisition contains the concept of linguistic competence, which consists in the mental representations of linguistic rules that constitute the speaker-hearer’s internal grammar, and linguistic performance, realized through the use of this grammar in the comprehension and production of language. Although Chomsky’s theory was developed within the field of the acquisition of the mother tongue (also known as L1), it had an effect on SLA theories since it showed that the acquisition of a given language could not be explained in terms of habits or imitation as the behaviorist view stated. When applying Chomsky’s proposals to the learning of a second language (L2), the differences between languages are not relevant issues to be considered in such process. Hymes (1971) extended the distinction of the concepts of linguistic competence and linguistic performance to include the communicative aspects of language, i.e. to cover linguistic and pragmatic knowledge. As a result, nowadays, SLA aims at the description and explanation of the learners’ linguistic or communicative competence by examining their performance.

The present study focused on oral classroom interaction and consisted of two stages. In the first one, the types of corrective feedback strategies used by a language teacher with a group of university students of English as a foreign language were identified. In addition, the learners’ responses to these strategies were identified. The taxonomy of corrective feedback proposed by Lyster and Ranta (2007) was used for the identification and classification of the strategies and of learners´ responses. The second phase of the study focused on the analysis of recasts on the basis of proposals made by Sheen (2006). The second stage also included an analysis of the relationship between teacher recasts and learners’ uptake and repair.

The present study aims at identifying and describing a set of syntactic choices made at discourse-text level by native speakers of English and advanced EFL learners in spontaneous production of oral, informal narratives, relating them to the cognitive constrains of the spoken medium.

El presente trabajo de investigación trata de averiguar sobre el papel que toman parte el método didáctico Enfoque Comunicativo y el método Gramática – Traducción en el desempeño académico en el conjunto de alumnos del idioma inglés del nivel básico en el Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad Peruana Los Andes de Huancayo. Se ha formulado la hipótesis: El desempeño académico de los alumnos que estudian el idioma inglés del nivel básico con el Enfoque Comunicativo, es significativamente diferente al desempeño académico de los alumnos que estudian con el Método Gramática – Traducción en el Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad Peruana Los Andes de Huancayo. La población de estudio fueron los alumnos matriculados por primera vez en el 8° ciclo en el idioma inglés del nivel básico del Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad Peruana Los Andes de Huancayo en el período 2010. Se tomó una prueba escrita de acuerdo al nivel de dicho idioma empleando un diseño de pre test y post test, dividiendo a los 37 alumnos de la población en grupo experimental y de control. Además, se cotejaron 5 fichas de observación de clase para confirmar el empleo apropiado de los métodos Gramática – Traducción y el Enfoque Comunicativo, además de la expresión oral. Los resultados muestran que el desempeño académico al inicio era muy bajos pues la mayoría de alumnos (94.4%) tenían calificaciones que oscilaban de 1 a 8.5 puntos, y luego de realizado el procedimiento experimental se percibió diferencias estadísticas significativas en el desempeño académico del grupo que adoptó el enfoque comunicativo (grupo experimental) con relación al grupo que recibió el método gramática – traducción (grupo de control). Es preciso destacar que el grupo de control Post Test tuvo una promedio de 11 y el promedio del grupo experimental Post Test fue de 15, o sea 4 puntos más que la primera, distinguiéndose que el grupo experimental tuvo un mejor desempeño académico. Se concluyó en que el método didáctico Enfoque Comunicativo ha mejorado significativamente el desempeño académico de los alumnos de inglés del nivel básico del Centro de Idiomas de la Universidad Peruana Los Andes de Huancayo. / --- The present research tries to find out about the role that take part the didactic method Communicative Approach and the Grammar - Translation method in academic performance in all english language students of the basic level at Los Andes Peruvian University´s Language Center in Huancayo. It has been hypothesized: The academic performance of students studying the english language of the basic level with the Communicative Approach is significantly different from the academic performance of students studying with the Method Grammar - Translation at Los Andes Peruvian University´s Language Center in Huancayo. The study population consisted of students enrolled for the first time in the 8 th cycle in the english language of the basic level at Los Andes Peruvian University´s Language Center in Huancayo in the period 2010. It took a written test based on the level of the language using pre test and post test design, dividing 37 students of the population into experimental and control group. In addition, 5 class observation forms were matched to confirm the appropriate use of the methods Grammar - Translation and Communicative Approach, as well as speaking. The results show that academic performance at baseline were very low as most students (94.4%) had scores ranging from 1 to 8.5 points, and then performed the experimental procedure was perceived statistically significant differences in academic performance from the group adopted the communicative approach (experimental group) compared to the group that received the grammar method - translation (control group). It should be noted that the control group had a Post Test average of 11 and the average experimental group Post Test was 15, or 4 points higher than the first, distinguishing the experimental group performed better academically. It was concluded that the Communicative Approach teaching method has significantly improved the academic performance of the english language students in the basic level at Los Andes University Peruvian´s Language Center in Huancayo.