Sociocultural connections, language learning anxiety, and communities of practice: insights and perceptions of the adult online Spanish learner

摘要

This dissertation investigated the perceptions and experiences of online adult languagelearners in higher education. This was a qualitative study of thirteen women enrolled inonline Spanish courses at two south-central Texas institutions of higher education. Threefindings emerged.Given the participants? awareness of the social nature of language and theircollective appreciation that language must be practiced orally to be acquired, they tookresponsibility for their learning by creating their own communities of practice withnative Spanish speakers at work and at home. They bore the primary responsibility fortheir learning and shaped their acquisition contexts to include Spanish experts from theiroffline communities. This allowed the students to contextualize and personalize theirnew language knowledge and embody multiple learning roles.Language learning anxiety for these students was not located in the actual onlinelearning tasks, but instead centered on socioculturally constructed understandings aboutlanguage and their own personal and cultural connections to Spanish. The participants? revealed the importance they place on demonstrating respect for culture through correctand precise language use. But instead of resulting in a barrier to their learning, theanxiety they experienced may have acted as an impetus in their continued Spanish study.Their insights into the sociocultural influences on language in formal and informalacquisition practices deepen our current understanding of foreign language affect andlanguage learning anxiety.Finally, an in-depth analysis was done on the subgroup of participants identifiedas heritage language learners. Their belief in the cultural metanarrative of the ?properTejana? led this group of south-central Texas women to reject the Texas-Spanish dialect,Tex-Mex. The need to acquire proper Spanish and to live linguistically and culturally intwo distinct worlds of English and Spanish significantly affected their acquisitionprocesses.The findings offer insights into Spanish learners? perceptions of online languagelearning, their affective experiences learning Spanish as an adult, and the socioculturalconnections they make to the Spanish language. The implications for future pedagogicaldesign, online and off, are presented.