Thinking of university students from international programmes about their process of learning Spanish as a second language.

摘要

This thesis investigates the ideations that comprise a student's thoughts in the process of learning a second language, considering the personal and social aspects of this thought.Since the ideations and beliefs that comprise a student's thought powerfully condition their perception of the learning experience, this overall goal of research is to study the thought of a group of university students in international programs on their process of learning a second language in the context of regular course of E/L2 (Spanish as a Second Language) with the aim of general communication, in multicultural and multilingual surroundings.The research adopts a qualitative methodology in accordance with the subjective nature of its object of study, and follows an ethnographic approach to the collection and analysis of the data, so as to gather them in their natural context and interpret them considering the perspective of the participants in the research. The data that constitute the corpus were gathered in the Spanish as a Foreign Language courses of the University of Deusto, through procedures proper to ethnographic studies (interviews, diaries and participant observation).The results of the research show that university students in international programs consider it fundamental for the L2 classroom to be a space for communication in which they can actively experience language learning through interaction, in an egalitarian and relaxed atmosphere. In order to achieve this, they think that learning needs to involve them in the creation of a community of sustainable learning, which expresses socialization in the classroom as a process.Two key components for the students, which promote their progress and their autonomy in class, are the perception of a motivating atmosphere, and reflective attention to their own process. The importance that the university students give to these two aspects of their learning development raises the challenge of recreating in the L2 classrooms an optimal environment to promote the autonomy of the students, helping them to determine their own goals, to develop their abilities to maintain enjoyment and to carry out internally motivated learning actions, so that learning a second language can be a stimulating and significant task.