Browsing by Subject "Foreign languages"
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Item The place of language and intercultural abilities : the experience of global business professionals(2014-05) Echavarría, María Luisa; Kelm, Orlando R., 1957-Recent surveys of international business professionals indicate that foreign language abilities and cultural sensitivity are important competitive advantages in today's globalized economy. The current study interviewed 71 practicing global professionals currently working in cross border transactions in diverse fields. Biographic, demographic and second language data were collected, including information on experiences and opinions on the use and importance of foreign language and cultural awareness abilities in the professional world. Research questions include: (1) Who are the global professionals applying L2 abilities at work? (2) How do they apply these abilities? (3) What are the profiles of advanced and non-advanced proficiency users? (4) How important are linguistic abilities and how much of a competitive advantage do they represent? (5) What language strategies and communication strategies are used? (6) What are the most common beliefs on the role of foreign languages and culture awareness in business? (7) How well do intercultural communication models explain the culture views and experiences reported by working professionals? Results indicate that learners with self-reported advanced proficiency regularly apply the four language abilities (listening, reading, speaking and writing) at work, albeit in varying degrees, depending on the level of complexity of the task (phone, email, face-to-face meeting, etc.). For the majority of informants, foreign language and culture abilities are considered important for professional effectiveness. For those who reported advanced foreign language abilities, they also exhibited a greater appreciation for increased exposure to foreign language learning, had received more foreign language instruction, and had more experience working and living abroad. Those advanced in foreign language abilities were also more likely to be non-native speakers of English, have earned a university degree while using an L2, had family or community connections to the target language, have emigrated, or have a spouse with a different L1. The study also ranks and identifies the informants' strategies used to deal with language and culture issues. Participants' anecdotes were analyzed in light of current cultural analysis models applied in International Business Communications. Suggestions are presented for curricula changes to improve foreign language proficiency in professional settings.Item Virtually speaking : comparing foreign language speaking performances in distance education and face to face classes(2010-08) Volle, Lisa Marie; Abrams, Zsuzsanna; Horwitz, Elaine K.; Moore, Zena T.; Resta, Paul E.; Schallert, Diane L.The purpose of this study was to investigate the performances on speaking assessments in a first semester Spanish course to determine if there are differences among four sections based on required speaking tasks and mode of class delivery. Two of the classes were conducted online in a distance education delivery mode and two of the classes were conducted in the classroom. One section of delivery mode was required to fulfill speaking tasks throughout the semester while the alternate sections were offered the same speaking tasks as optional activities. Furthermore, the study investigated testing items repeated prompts versus new prompts to determine if there were differences in performance. Finally, the study investigated student performance confidence and beliefs about course materials. The data were collected through quantitative methods (oral rubric scores) and qualitative methods (open-ended questions). A total of 64 students participated in the study. Eight students completed the distance education course with optional speaking tasks. Thirteen students completed the distance education course with required speaking. Eighteen students completed the classroom course with optional speaking, and 24 students completed the classroom course with required speaking. In general, all classes made improvement between the first assessment and the second assessment. However, the mean performance scores for three of the four speaking prompts did not show significant difference among the four classes. In addition, there were no significant differences in mean scores of performances at the introduction of the two new speaking tasks on the final assessment. Only with one speaking repeated measure was there a significant difference. The significant difference was between the classroom with required speaking section and the distance education with optional speaking section. With an analysis of the Target Language Use, it was determined that the differences were due to lexical complexity and morphological complexity. In general, the self-report of confidence levels on the final oral assessment showed no significant differences among the four classes. There was a significant drop in confidence on one of the two new assessment prompts for all classes. Student comments indicated that there were frustrations with cognitive overload and dealing with ambiguity.