Communicative competence within the proyecto de cursos libres de idiomas extranjeros at Universidad del Atlántico

The development of the Communicative Competence is currently a crucial factor. Any study centered on the specificity of the development of Communicative Competence framed by its social context: the classroom, mediated by the teacher and the material will surely bring fruitful insights to the understanding and operationalization of such theoretical construct and its application in the field of Language Teaching. The research reported here aimed at describing how the materials and the methodology implemented by a third level teacher at the Cursos Libres de Idiomas Extranjeros (CLLE) at Universidad Del Atlántico contributed to the development of the students’ Communicative Competence. An in-depth understanding of what went on in a particular classroom, in terms of the development of communicative competence during the development of one complete unit, was analyzed. For the present study, qualitative approach was chosen. Communicative competence, the focus of this study, is a construct which is not measurable. In order to approach it, it needs to be observed, analyzed and described. This research did not intend to establish direct cause effect relation in order to make generalizations, but rather to examine how in a particular case the teaching and the materials influenced the development of communicative competence in a specific group of students. Consequently, for the present study, ethnography and case study was combined in an ethnographic case study. In order to carry out the case study, techniques proper of ethnography were employed, such as observation, interview, field notes and document analysis.MaestríaMagister en la Enseñanza del Ingle

Citation Practices in Colombian Undergraduate English Teachers’ Academic Writing

Citation is a crucial rhetorical aspect that plays a fundamental role within academic writing and it is a problematic area for novice writers, especially nonnative undergraduate English   teachers. However, little is known about how these teachers cite in the theoretical framework chapters of their monograph. This articles aims at describing the citation practices in a corpus conformed by 22 theoretical framework chapters of monographs written by undergraduate English teachers (UETs) in Colombia. The analysis was constituted by the citation typology of Swales (1986,1990) and Petriḉ’s (2007) functional taxonomy of citations.  The results indicate that integral citation is the most used citation type in the corpus of UETs which depicts a simple for of citation. Related to functions, the attribution is highly dominant   in this corpus which entails an undergraduate English teachers’ limitation in the variety of function citation. This study can be used to raise awareness on nonnative undergraduate English teachers towards better citation practices in their disciplinary academic papers

Exploring Communicative Competence Development in an EFLT Classroom at Cursos Libres

The present article is intended to report on a study carried out with students of level three at Proyecto de Cursos Libres de Idiomas Extranjeros de la Universidad Del Atlántico. The research focused mainly on describing how the materials and the methodology implemented by the teacher contributed to the development of the students’ Communicative Competence. To reach that research objective, a qualitative approach along with an ethnography-case study design was used. Observations, interviews to students and the teacher, and were employed as data collection instruments. The results showed that due to the limited scope of the material on the construct of the Communicative Competence and the teacher’s wrong notion of this competence, there was a precarious balance for the development of the Communicative Competence.Se pretende en el siguiente artículo presentar el estudio realizado a los estudiantes de tercer nivel del  Proyecto de Cursos Libres de Idiomas Extranjeros  de la  Universidad del Atlántico. La investigación se centró principalmente en describir cómo el libro guía y la metodología implementada por el docente contribuyó al desarrollo de la Competencia Comunicativa de dichos estudiantes. Para la consecución de tal objetivo de investigación, se empleó un enfoque cualitativo junto con un diseño etnográfico de estudio de caso. Se realizaron observaciones, entrevistas a los estudiantes y al docente como instrumentos de recolección de datos. Se esperan que los resultados contribuyan al desarrollo de la competencia comunicativa en contexto áulico

Exploring Communicative Competence Development in an EFLT Classroom at Cursos Libres

Se pretende en el siguiente artículo presentar el estudio realizado a los estudiantes de tercer nivel de los Cursos Libres. La investigación se centró principalmente en describir como el libro guía y la metodología implementada por el docente contribuyó al desarrollo de la Competencia Comunicativa de dichos estudiantes. Para la consecución de tal objetivo de investigación, se empleó un enfoque cualitativo con un diseño etnográfico de estudio de caso. Se realizaron observaciones, entrevistas a los estudiantes y al docente como instrumentos de recolección de datos. Se espera que los resultados contribuyan al desarrollo de la competencia comunicativa en contexto de aula

Rhetorical structure in Problem Statement Section of Foreign Languages Undergraduate students’ Monographs

The Problem Statement (PS) section communicates the issue that targets a study. Having a clear understanding of its rhetorical moves facilitates its communication. However, undergraduate students are not generally worried about this important writing aspect. The purpose of this descriptive study intended to explore the rhetorical moves in Colombian FL undergraduate monographs. 20 samples of PS written in English by Foreign Languages (FL) Undergraduate students were analyzed following Swales’ (1990) Create-a-research-space (CARS) model. Findings revealed that the lack of knowledge about rhetorical aspects on the part of the students affects negatively the writing of the PS. The analysis also showed that some students did not communicate the problem due to an unbalanced frequency of moves and steps. Students’ awareness of the genre, its formal instruction, and frequent training might contribute to improve their academic writing