scholarly journals Tertiary Ecuadorian Students' Beliefs About Learning a Foreign Language: A Descriptive Study

Author(s):  
Jardel Santos ◽  
Vanessa Veiga

This descriptive study aimed at identifying tertiary Ecuadorian students' beliefs about learning a foreign language. The sample was composed of 200 (n=200) students enrolled in the first semester of Agriculture, Nursing, Pedagogy, and Psychopedagogy in a public university in the Los Rios province, Ecuador. Among the participants, 168 were female (84%), and 32 were male (16%). The mean age was 21.49, varying from 18 to 44 years old. The data was collected using the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory questionnaire (BALLI), and it was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results demonstrated that participants reported strong beliefs in the categories of aptitude for learning the language, motivation and expectations, and learning and communication strategies. The results of this research will unblock a new field of studies to be conducted in the country. The authors recommend doing qualitative studies to deeply understand the reason for each one of the most salient beliefs.

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziyafet Uğurlu ◽  
Sultan Kav ◽  
Azize Karahan ◽  
Ebru Akgün Çıtak

Introduction: The changing proportion of older adults in society necessitates the need to determine the attitudes of health care professionals toward older adults. The purpose of this study was to explore attitudes of ageism and its correlates among health care professionals working with older adults. Method: This descriptive study was conducted in seven hospitals in five cities in Turkey. A total of 628 health care professionals participated in this study. The Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA) was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, student’s t test, one-way analysis of variance and multivariate linear regression were used for data analysis. Results: The mean total score from the FSA was 56.9 ( SD = 8.0). Education (β = −.18, p < .001) and difficulty with the care of older adults (β = −.10, p < .05) were statistically significant predictors of the FSA score. Conclusions: The attitudes of health care professionals toward older adults were generally positive and affected by difficulty in providing care and the educational status of the health care professionals.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1/4) ◽  
pp. 24-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristiane Maia Lopes ◽  
Elaine Maria Leite Rangel Andrade ◽  
Maria Helena Barros Araújo Luz

Pesquisa descritiva que teve como objetivos caracterizar o perfil demográfico de graduandos de enfermagem do últimosemestre de uma Universidade Pública do Paiuí e identificar o conhecimento deles sobre úlcera por pressão (UPP). Amostra de23 graduandos cujos dados foram coletados após aprovação do Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa (CEP). A maioria 14 (60,9%) era dosexo feminino e tinha idade média de 23 anos. O conhecimento sobre UPP foi insuficiente. Para avançar o conhecimento sobreUPP, é necessária a difusão das diretrizes para prevenção e tratamento.Descritores: Úlcera por pressão, Conhecimento, Diretrizes para a prática clinica, Enfermagem.KNOWLEDGE OF UNDERGRADUATE NURSING STUDENTS ON PRESSURE ULCERThis descriptive study aimed to characterize the demographic profile of last semester undergraduate nursing students ata public university in the state of Piaui, Brazil, and to identify their knowledge on pressure ulcer (PU). Participants were 23undergraduate students whose data were collected after approval by the Research Ethics Board (REB). Most students, 14(63.6%), were female and the mean age was 23 years. The knowledge on PU was insufficient. To improve knowledge on PU thereis need to disseminate the guidelines for prevention and treatment.Descriptors: Pressure ulcer, Knowledge, Practice guidelines as topic, Nursing.EL CONOCIMIENTO DE ESTUDIANTES DE PREGRADO EN ENFERMERÍA ACERCA DE ÚLCERA POR PRESIÓNEste estudio descriptivo tuvo como objetivo caracterizar el perfil demográfico de estudiantes de pregrado en enfermería delúltimo semestre de una universidad pública de Piauí, Brasil, e identificar el conocimiento de las úlceras por presión (UPP).Participaron 23 estudiantes universitarios cuyos datos fueron recolectados después de aprobación por el Comité de Éticaen Investigación (CEI). La mayoría, 14 (63,6%), eran mujeres y la media de edad de 23 años. El conocimiento acerca de la UPPfue insuficiente. Para mejorar el conocimiento sobre las UPP es necesaria la difusión de las directrices para la prevención y eltratamiento.Descriptores: Úlcera por presión, Conocimientos, Guías de práctica clínica como asunto, Enfermería.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Sidrah Afriani Rachman

The purpose of this study is to find out the students’ strategies in learning English. This research is a descriptive study with a qualitative approach and was conducted at the Faculty of Education UNM Campus VI Watampone in the academic year 2019/2020. The researcher involved 25 first semester PGSD students with TOEFL prediction score ≥ 400 as subjects in this study. To measure the use of students' English learning strategies, researchers used the Strategy Inventory of Language Learning - SILL version 7.0 designed by Oxford. The results of this study reveal that the language learning strategies that are often used by the students are memory strategies and cognitive strategies with an average of 3.74 and 3.71 that fall into the high category. Compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies are in the medium category that is sometimes used.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 228
Author(s):  
Zailani Jusoh

Learning a foreign language is a monumental undertaking for many adult learners. This study was conducted to mainly explore university students’ beliefs about foreign language learning. It was also to investigate whether differences in their beliefs were present among different foreign languages. Students, pursuing diploma in TESL in a public university in Malaysia, were chosen as respondents. An instrument, BALLI, which is a measure of students’ beliefs about language learning was the primary instrument for data collection. Since this is a quantitative study, statistical techniques namely descriptive and a one-way ANOVA were employed. Findings indicate that generally, the beliefs held by the student teachers are positive. Nonetheless, significant differences in the beliefs were noted among the foreign languages. The findings have a number of pedagogical implications. One of which is the importance of instilling realistic beliefs among students in learning foreign languages.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyemin Kim ◽  
◽  
Elaine Vernadine A. Liongson ◽  

Abstract: Although a number of studies have been done about Foreign Language Anxiety among Korean students, limited studies have been done on foreign language anxiety toward Korean college students in the Philippines. This paper seeks to find out the factors that may affect foreign language anxiety of both male and female college students in learning English, their foreign language learning anxiety in terms of gender, and the factor that may decrease the anxiety of the participants. Data was gathered through the use of a Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), a Likert scale adopted from Yassin (2015) and was analyzed by getting the mean, while the findings were interpreted using the mean scale proposed by Mamhot, Martin & Masangya (2013). Surprisingly, the result revealed that foreign language anxiety is not significant among Korean students. Moreover, the female participants showed higher confidence in speaking and using the language compared to male participants in some aspects. Keywords: EFL; FLCAS, foreign language anxiety; gender


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eulices Córdoba Zúñiga

<p>This article reports the findings of a qualitative research study conducted with six first semester students of an English as a foreign language program in a public university in Colombia. The aim of the study was to implement task-based language teaching as a way to integrate language skills and help learners to improve their communicative competence in English. The results suggest that the implementation of task-based language teaching facilitated the integration of the four skills in the English as a foreign language context. Furthermore, tasks were meaningful and integrated different reading, writing, listening, and speaking exercises that enhanced students’ communicative competences and interaction. It can be concluded that task-based language teaching is a good approach to be used in the promotion of skills integration and language competences.</p>


Author(s):  
Debbita Ai Lin Tan ◽  
Bee Choo Lee ◽  
Malini Ganapathy ◽  
Shaidatul Akma Adi Kasuma

Kahoot! is a gaming system designed for interactive learning and can be utilised for students of all ages. The present study involved two groups of Malaysian ESL students (n = 57) enrolled in a remedial English proficiency course in a public university. All 57 participants were exposed to weekly Kahoot! sessions over a period of one semester; the sessions covered various English language learning components including vocabulary and reading comprehension, but focused largely on grammar. At the end of the semester, the participants completed a 34-item questionnaire comprising closed- and open-ended items. The questionnaire was tested for reliability with returned values indicating high internal consistency, thus making the instrument a reliable option for use in future studies. The study's findings indicate that the students found Kahoot! to be beneficial in terms of: 1) inducing motivation, and 2) fostering and reinforcing learning. The students were also of the opinion that Kahoot! would be useful for foreign language learning (for instance, Spanish and French).


2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ilyas

Some students in the university got some difficulties to express their ideas, especially expressing in foreign language such as English. How to start comunication and interaction sometime need someone to stimulate. The phenomenon often encountered in various levels of education even to the students college. The students tended to be very subjective towards topics, their peer or even partner. In the teaching and learning process, the teacher not only transfer the information to the students but also facilitate the students, stimulate to learn English and provide the technique suitable with the students’ need. Teaching English language might be carried out through several techniques, one of them was CLL (Community Language Learning). In this technique, students were treated as clients who could express their problems to the counselor as well as in the community. In addition, the teacher played the role of translator to help students express themselves using English. This means that learners had enough opportunities to speak without worrying about their limitations in using English. The results showed that CLL helped students to express ideas systematically. The ideas were organized well, understandable, and standardized. In addition, CLL improved the result of students’ score in speaking skill. The mean score increased from 54.74 in pre-test to 72.86 in post-test. It means that CLL gave good influence on students’ speaking skill.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-333
Author(s):  
Toni Indrayadi

This study examines each reading comprehension indicator and reading comprehension in general. Forty-five first-semester students of the English Education Department at Public Islamic Institute Jambi, Indonesia, which comprised of twenty-one males and twenty-four females voluntarily participated in this study. They were purposively selected as the sample of the research. This study used six indicators of reading comprehension and reading comprehension in general data. The descriptive quantitative approach was employed in this study as the research methodology. The descriptive statistic of SPSS 23 was applied to analyze the mean and standard deviation of six reading comprehension and reading comprehension in general. The criteria referenced interpretation and norm-referenced interpretation investigated interval of six reading comprehension and reading comprehension in general. The result of descriptive statistics and criteria referenced interpretation, and norm-referenced interpretation analysis showed five reading comprehension indicators in terms of author purpose, topic details, reference, and vocabulary in context in moderate criteria, except the main idea in which in high criteria. The reading comprehension was in moderate criteria similar to five reading comprehension indicators. Therefore, English lecturers hope to select an appropriate strategy and be well prepared to teach reading.


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