Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades / Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / The present study is intended to research into intermediate TEFL students’ development of their ability to use some of the basic argumentative writing resources that they are expected to develop as part of their academic studies and EFL teacher training. In their future professional role as, mainly, secondary school English teachers, and due to the fact that one of their tasks will be to help their students develop their critical and argumentative abilities (de Zubiria Samper, 2006), EFL teacher trainees need to develop their own critical argumentative discourse abilities in order to meet the needs of their prospective students. On account of its nature and main objective, this study may eventually offer some proposals that might be implemented for the development of TEFL students’ abilities to write argumentative texts.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / This investigation reports on a study of the validation of a rubric for oral exams in a context of standardised evaluation at university level in Chile regarding three aspects of validity: construct validity, face validity and reliability. The study examined the rubric applied in an across the curriculum English programme at USACH. The data was collected from three different formation programmes: Ingeniería en informática, Pedagogía en Lenguaje, Enfermería. The focus of the investigation relies on understanding the elements that contribute to the three aspects of the rubric’s validity. This is a mixed-method study that collected self-reports by relevant stakeholders (students and raters) by applying a survey focused on their perception of the three aspects of the rubric’s validity. Additionally, the actual rubric and associated documents (course programmes, student scores, etc.) were also analysed by applying a matrix of aspects of the three aspects of validity. The self-reports and the rubric were analysed in search for evidence that the rubric reflected adequately the correct functioning of the theoretical constructs of the instrument (construct validity, face validity and reliability). By making preliminary observations, it was expected that perceptions of stakeholders regarding the aspects of validity of the common rubric would reveal low levels of construct validity and reliability, and consequently, of face validity. The results showed that the rubric, indeed, presented problems regarding construct validity and reliability, but surprisingly, not regarding face validity, exposing the positive appreciation of the rubric of both stakeholders. Further research suggests for this issue to be addressed explicitly by considering the observation of variables that could explain this positive evaluation.

Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades / Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / Much of the research work concerning vocabulary learning strategies use confirms the usefulness these strategies have for learners. Relatively recent work on educational psychology has pointed out the influence of learners’ self-regulatory capacity on their performance. The present cross sectional research examines first year undergraduate students’ vocabulary proficiency; identifies their use of strategies and their level of self-regulation. It also seeks to respond if first year students use vocabulary learning strategies, and if there is any relationship among the use of strategies, self-regulation and success in vocabulary acquisition. Results suggest that, in fact, there is a connection in the use of strategies and the level of success. They also indicate that self-regulation enhances the use of learning strategies.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / This thesis presents an analysis of the relation among motivation, aptitude, and academic achievement in foreign language learning. The main focus of the study is on identifying how these individual differences relate to achievement employing a well-recognized battery AMTB, that measures motivation to learn a language, and a more recent battery like LLAMA, that measures language aptitude. The results of the study indicate that motivation is the individual difference that correlates more closely to achievement. On the other hand, aptitude, as measured by LLAMA, seems to be weakly related to achievement in foreign language learning. Finally, although aptitude and achievement seem to be relatively independent from each other, some of the components of aptitude are partially related to the different areas in foreign language learning achievement such as listening or reading comprehension. These results suggest that the extent to which the individual achievement of L2 learners influenced by certain specific motivation and aptitude traits that are measured by the test batteries employed in this study.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / The present study focuses on the cognitive process implemented by learners of English when they encounter unknown lexical items in the course of reading comprehension tasks. Lexical inferencing has been defined as ―the connections that people make when they try to interpret texts‖ (Brown and Yule 1983, Qian 2004). L2 lexical inferencing has been extensively studied by accounting for its different dimensions. Some studies have investigated into the students‘ use of knowledge sources, such as word and sentence knowledge within linguistic sources and world knowledge within non-linguistic sources (Haastrup 2008). Other studies have dealt with the inferential processes whereby students arrive at their conclusions for word meaning, and also with the degree of success of the lexical inferencing process (Haastrup 2008). In general terms, most research studies account for one or two of these dimensions (e.g. Haastrup 1991). In the present study, the following two dimensions are investigated into: learners‘ cognitive processes involved in lexical meaning interpretation, and the lexical inferencing success of their guesses. Thus, the main purpose of this research study is, firstly, to identify the lexical inferencing strategies used by 6 university students of English as a foreign language in the course of a reading comprehension task. These participants form two different proficiency level groups: three of them are intermediate EFL learners and the other three make up a group of advanced EFL learners. Secondly, the study intends to establish a relationship between the type of lexical inferencing strategies used and L2 learners‘ depth of vocabulary knowledge. Thirdly, it also attempts to relate L2 learners‘ use of lexical inferencing strategies and their success in lexical inferencing strategy use.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística, mención Lengua Inglesa / The main purpose of the present study is to account for the oral narratives of personal experience in the interlanguage of Chilean Spanish speaking male and female learners of English. More specifically, the study intends to describe gender differences and similarities in the use of structure elements, the use of extra thematic details, and types of outcomes. The analyzed corpus consists of 30 narratives of personal experience in English. These narratives are made of 502 clauses, 289 of which were produced by male learners, and 213 were produced by female learners. The eliciting technique was a structured interview, where the informants were asked to narrate about an experience of fear of death, their happiest or saddest experience, and the most embarrassing situation they had experienced. The results confirm the presence of gender differences in the interlanguage of the Spanish speaking learners of English, which are consistent with the literature about gender differences in monolingual studies. Also, even though gendered patterns were detected, the results suggest that there is a need to account for the intragroup differences, as indications of an important internal variation was also present.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado(a) en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / This research report presents a study on vocabulary use in the L2 writing performance of a group of students from the program of English Linguistics and Literature at the Universidad de Chile. The data for the study correspond to ten tests used in a previous study (Aranda et al, 2013) and categorized in Top and Bottom groups by four teachers in relation to the quality of their performance. In addition, the study used data from four interviews to the same four teachers in order to know the specific aspects they consider when assessing vocabulary use in L2 writing performance. The tests were analyzed qualitatively in search for lexical diversity and lexical sophistication features that could account for the difference in perceived quality between the two groups. Such features included the Lexical Frequency Profile for each test, the computation of MTLD, the presence of words related to the topic of the tests and the presence of lexical errors. The interviews were transcribed and a list of the most important aspects of assessment of L2 writing according to the teachers was elaborated. The aspects identified include lexical sophistication, lexical diversity, lexical error and topic appropriateness. The results of the tests’ analyses and the interviews were contrasted, looking for the degree of coherence between them. Results show that, even when there is some degree of coherence between the tests’ analyses and what the teachers say they evaluate, lexical error is the most meaningful aspect when comparing Top and Bottom tests. This is so even when teachers considered lexical sophistication as the most important aspect for them when assessing L2 written vocabulary.

Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Lengua y Literatura Inglesa / Current research has established that vocabulary learning is essential in the process of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Since vocabulary learning is an extremely variable practice, choosing the right method to teach it is important so as to achieve proficiency in the target language. In this sense, the Language Planning and Policies (LPP) of different countries lay a fundamental role when establishing language policies and the creation of curricula and textbooks for teachers and students. Following this, the present study focuses on the analysis of the English textbooks from 1st to 4th year of high school, designed for public schools, as well as the curricula from the Chilean Ministry of Education. The aim of this study was to verify if the curricula creation follows what the current academic literature establishes regarding vocabulary acquisition techniques and whether what was presented in the curricula corresponds to what is taught to high school students in their English textbooks. The results show that the teaching of English vocabulary in public education does not entirely follow the major guidelines that have been explored in the literature about vocabulary teaching and learning by different authors, rather, it takes some notions from it, which are not fully developed. Additionally, the Chilean Ministry of Education does not seem to have a clear explicit public policy in regards to English education in the country.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Española / La presente investigación estudia las interferencias léxicas que se presentan en el discurso oral en español de una hablante cuya L1 es el italiano y su L2 el portugués. Verificadas estas interferencias fueron analizadas partiendo de una categorización de errores léxicos previamente definida basada en la propuesta de Fernández (1997:44-45). La mayoría de los estudios empíricos sobre interferencia léxica indagan en la influencia de la lengua materna sobre una segunda lengua (Mitchell & Myles, 2004; Cook, 2001). Es de las escasas investigaciones que vinculan a una tercera lengua que se desprende que la interferencia de las lenguas previas no se manifiesta de igual forma (Cenoz et al., 2001; De Angelis & Dewaele, 2011; De Angelis, 2007). Este estudio es de tipo mixto dado que se aplicaron técnicas de la investigación cuantitativa al cuantificar la aparición de cada error según su tipo y elementos de una investigación cualitativa dadas las observaciones realizadas a los errores. La recogida de datos se realizó mediante tareas destinadas a estimular la producción oral, las que fueron dirigidas solo parcialmente para obtener relatos lo más naturales posibles. Se aplicó a la informante una entrevista semiestructurada, con ella se obtuvo mayor información sobre su proceso de aprendizaje de lenguas y otros datos lingüísticos utilizados para afinar las interpretaciones finales evitando solo juicios propios. Los resultados arrojaron que en la producción oral de una tercera lengua existen diferencias entre los tipos de error derivados de la lengua materna y de la segunda lengua. Además, se demuestra el carácter heterogéneo de las causas que probablemente inducen al error y de los mecanismos utilizados por la informante para suplir su falta de competencia.

Tesis para optar al grado de Magíster en Lingüística mención Lengua Inglesa / In the area of language teaching and second language acquisition, there has recently been an increasing emphasis on learners’ beliefs, since they impose a great potential in the learning process. Hence, learners’ beliefs have become an important part of research in the field. Consequently, research on this matter has been conducted in several countries but not in ours, leaving our perspective as educators with no additional and valuable information to support pedagogical practices when planning lessons and working with students. The present study focuses its attention on Chilean learners’ beliefs about learning English as a foreign language from a contextual perspective according to the themes selected from the BALLI--Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory by Horwitz. This study employed the semi-structured interview method to investigate the nature of learners’ beliefs. Consistent with previous findings, this study revealed that learners’ beliefs were born out of their previous learning experiences. Learners’ beliefs were context specific, related to social background, and individual differences; however, they were not immutable.