Some second language learners are more successful than others. Students in
the University of British Columbia/Ritsumeikan Joint Academic Exchange
Programme, a sheltered English-as-a-second-language (ESL) immersion program,
have in the past exhibited varying degrees of gain in English proficiency in their
writing, reading, speech, and academic achievement during their stay in Vancouver.
The explanation of why some learners become proficient in a second language may
lie in our understanding the interactions of such individual attributes as the
learner's age, language aptitudes, autonomy and motivation, attitudes, personality,
cognitive style, learning strategies, background in language and knowledge of other
languages.
In this study the gain in English proficiency of all the students in the program
was examined first and then the gain of two different groups of students who were
categorized and "low" and "high" on the basis of their entry level scores on the Test
of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The standardized tests used in this
program were supplemented with two additional tests to measure gain in
proficiency. A language experience questionnaire was given to all students and
interviews of selected students from each group were conducted. The results of the
standardized tests were analyzed and a significant difference in the gain of English
proficiency between these two groups was found. An evaluation of the individual
language learning histories and the interview data was conducted to further
understand the language proficiency gains found from the psychometric measures.
Implications for instruction and further research were reached. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/4466 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Crittenden, Rose Elizabeth |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 8716853 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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