Conversational language proficiency among international students at the university level: personal hypotheses versus actual practice

• Autores: Christy Y. Lao, Stephen Krashen, Barry C. Gribbons, Janice Schafrik-Arsenault, William Burton Michael
• Localización: ITL International Journal of Applied Linguistics, ISSN 0019-0810, ISSN-e 1783-1490, Nº. 113-114, 1996, págs. 245-262
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • A common assumption is that international students in English-speaking countries have well-developed competence in academic language, but have deficiencies in conversational language. This assumption is in contrast to the situation among limited English speaking children (CUMMINS, 1989). If true, this lack of conversational language is a problem; even if international students do not plan to reside in an English-speaking country after their studies are complete, the status of English today as a world language means that professionals in many fields need to be able to interact with colleagues on an informal basis. To help international students develop conversational language ability, one first needs to ask whether they know how to acquire this ability. If there is a mismatch between their personal theories and the manner in which conversational language is in fact acquired, this mismatch will be a major barrier. Second, if students do know how to develop conversational language, one needs to see whether they are able to act on this knowledge. This study thus has the following goals: (1) to determine whether, in fact, international students perceive that there is a difference in their competence in academic and conversational language. (2) if students perceive a difference between conversational and academic language, to identify the barriers to the development of conversational language. The second goal will be carried out first by attempting to determine students' personal theories of conversational language acquisition, and to ascertain to what extent these personal theories agree with what is known about the development of conversational ability. An examination is then made of what students actually do, whether they engage in activities thought to be helpful or known to be helpful for the development of conversational language ability