This inquiry examines observations made by nine former participants in the 1996 Dalhousie University Summer Language Bursary Program (SLBP) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The SLBP is a five-week residential total second language immersion characterized by its intensity. In individual interviews, the informants were encouraged to explore whether and to what extent they had perceived changes in themselves as a result of their participation in the immersion program. These changes were not related to target-language proficiency. Rather, they focused primarily on aspects of the informants' self-perceived or other-perceived identities, which are conceived of as contextual, multiple, fluid and dynamic. Analysis of these observations indicates that changes to identity may indeed be an important byproduct of intensive second language immersion. Elements of such personal growth include perceived increases in participants' senses of resourcefulness, self-confidence, wanderlust, autonomy, open-mindedness, and sociability. Informants also enumerate the SLBP's unique factors which promote changes in self-perception. Changes in participants' perspectives on identity are not viewed simply as incidental immersion outcomes. Rather, they are viewed as components of 'personal competence', both as factors in and results of successful participation in residential total second language immersion.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.30142 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Armstrong, Robert A., 1969- |
| Contributors | Maguire, Mary (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Second Language Education.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001744254, proquestno: MQ64125, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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