Analysis about the relation between external exposure to English language and the language competence of students in fifth grade from San Pedro School in Bucaramanga Janice Lizzette Rondón Franco Licenciatura en Lengua Extranjera Inglés Decanatura de Universidad Abierta y a Distancia (DUAD) Facultad de Educación Bogotá 2020 1 Analysis about the relation between external exposure to English language and the language competence of students in fifth grade from San Pedro School in Bucaramanga Janice Lizzette Rondón Franco Director Hebelyn Eliana Caro Licenciatura en Lengua Extranjera Inglés Decanatura de Universidad Abierta y a Distancia (DUAD) Facultad de Educación Bogotá 2020 2 Table of Contents List of tables and Figures 4 Acknowledgements 5 Abstract 6 1. Contextualization 7 2. Research Statement 9 General Objective 10 Specific Objectives 10 3. Literature Review 11 3.1 Language Exposure 11 Media 11 Encouragement 12 3.2 Language Competence 13 4. Design 16 4.1 Connection between the Study and the Epistemological Foundations of the 16 Subproject. 4.2 Context Description 19 4.3 Instruments 21 3 5. Data Analysis 22 5.1 Data collection procedures 22 5.2 Methodology for data analysis 24 5.3 Categorization 26 Identifying language exposure 26 Analyzing language competence of students 29 Relation between language exposure and language competence 33 6. Conclusions, limitations, and implications 37 7. References 40 8. Annexes 44 8.1 Consent form 44 8.2 Samples of instruments 45 Survey 46 Interview 49 8.3 Artefacts 51 8.4 Data Analysis graph 53 8.5 Data Analysis chart 54 4 List of tables and Figures Table 1 27 Table 2 30 Figure 1 15 Figure 2 18 Figure 3 26 Figure 4 31 Figure 5 32 Figure 6 51 Figure 7 52 Figure 8 52 Figure 9 53 5 Acknowledgements I would like to recognize the absolute help and support of many individuals who make this research project a reality. To them I offer my sincere gratitude for guiding me and encouraging me in this significant process. Foremost, I thank God for the opportunity of developing this research and contributing to the improvement of the teaching and learning experiences for a better quality of education in our country. Without his blessing and inspiration, this project would be meaningless. I extend my thanks to my supervisor teacher Hebelyn Caro Aguilar for her contributions to the progress and enhancement of my work. Her kindness and assertiveness made possible an accurate research process, thus, the successful completion of this paper. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my husband, my family, my friends and my students and their families who have always been a source of love, support, and guidance in my life, and constantly supported me during this process. My heartfelt thanks. 6 Abstract This study emerged out of the researcher’s personal experience of English as a foreign language learner and teacher, and its aim was to comprehend how this process and students’ competence is related to the external exposure to the language they can have. A profound analysis about how these external factors can be determinant for the success of their learning experience in the classroom was addressed, and thanks to the application of some surveys, questionnaires and interviews to a selected group of participants between 10-11 years age from elementary in a local school, it was possible to reflect upon student’s habits, resources, perceptions, family roles and other relevant factors concerning language exposure, identifying its relation with the language competence. By means of a thematic analysis, significant findings emerged regarding self-motivation in terms of confidence, expectations and consciousness; moreover, extrinsic motivation concerning family encouragement were discerned as means of language exposure that can determine the proficiency in the language learning, thus, the competence of students. 7 1. Contextualization With globalization and the rise of technologies and innovative resources at hand, it is becoming increasingly evident that external factors may have a significant role in the learning processes of students, thus, in the learning of a foreign language. However, it is evident the increasing interest of schools to continue contributing to the improvement of this learning process of acquisition of English as a foreign language. Under this premise, a fundamental question about the relevance of the role of family and home environment in this process and the final explicit performance in the classroom emerges. From this interrogative, the researcher developed this investigation which aims at analyzing how experiences promoted at home are related and could contribute to the learning of English as a foreign language in students of fifth grade from San Pedro Claver school, Bucaramanga. To explore this research idea, the researcher started questioning her own experience in learning English, taking into account she grew up in a family with a few members that could speak the foreign language; also, she had the opportunity to attend public schools where English was taken once per week and even some of the teachers had a lower level than students. Despite these facts, her family always encouraged her when she started showing interest in the subject, especially because she and her sister enjoyed listening and singing music in this language all the time. They used to participate in every event related to representing schools in music festivals, so their mother always rewarded them with books or cassettes in the foreign language. At the end of high school and without any extra training she could finish school and attend university with a B2 English level (according to the CEFR). When she decided to become an English teacher, she was always reflecting about these positive factors that inspired her to improve her communicative skills constantly. With that in mind, this research idea emerged to understand the relevance of children's experiences at 8 home and the opportunities they could have to be exposed to the foreign language. Now, after six years working as a teacher the same question arose, especially after identifying the great difference of performance she could meet in the same classroom. This leads the researcher to think that there would be meaningful experiences beyond the resources and methodologies teachers could apply in classes. These personal experiences could be related to the engagement or “detachment” of children with the English learning process, and these facts could take place in the most important setting of social and cultural human behavior: home. These personal reasons, the issue of English education in our country and the evident lack of studies related to these external factors and the language acquisition of English as a foreign language inspired the researcher to immerse in this inquiry. With this study, teachers, students and families in the EFL area particularly not only will understand the relationship of family habits and English learning, but they also could identify the factors that can support our goals of becoming a bilingual country like the Colombia Bilingüe project expects. In this study, the researcher wants to identify the nature and scope of the external factors (at home) and also investigate how these could shape students' EFL performance in class. Through this investigation, it could be possible to identify the different opportunities of exposure to the language at home with positive or negative effects, and at the same time, describe the level of relation that social and cultural factors at home could have in the learning of a foreign language. The main purpose of this research is the comprehension of student’s family habits and attitudes in order to do an analysis that could help to propose the application of language learning strategies at home that could support the learning process of children. At the same time, this research will help pre-service and actual teachers to understand language contexts and factors involved in these processes beyond teaching practices in order to improve school experiences of learning English as a foreign language, according to the B.A. program. 9 2. Research statement San Pedro Claver school is part of the international educational community “Compañia de Jesus” which for many years has been dedicated to improving their educational proposal, having now 6 of their 9 schools in Colombia certified as bilingual institutions. Being the San Pedro School one of the few who has still not received this accreditation, it started recently the process of becoming a bilingual school making a considerable effort to update its teachers payroll and improve the performance of students in this area specially, students from fifth and eleventh grades who are asked to take every year the “Pruebas Saber”, International Cambridge test and Asoclaver test, which measure the level of knowledge and communicative skills in this foreign language. Uncertainly, every year the results of these national tests have shown a remarkable difference in the performance of students from the same groups. As an explanation of this issue, it could be considered the fact that the school receives a great number of students every year, however, most of the students from this institution are old and have been linked to the school from preschool, discarding this as a retaliation. Regarding this fact, the researcher started to consider that there would be other factors beyond the school that could be related to the language performance of students. Such is the case of students from