Acculturation in learning english as a foreign language…

النوع : Mémoire

This research was conducted to determine the role played by acculturation in a foreign language context in Lebanon, the difficulties encountered by Lebanese students in intermediate private schools as well as the learning strategies and teaching methods which helped these learners acculturate. The subjects of the present study consisted of a sample of the seventh, eighth, and ninth graders (1670 students) studying English as a foreign language in 15 Lebanese private schools. The 15 schools were considered as a single group in which students were administered a pretest and received a treatment. Then, they were post-tested at the end of the study. The pretest and posttest scores were compared using a t-test to determine the effectiveness of the treatment. The pretest took place at the beginning of the school year (i.e., October, 2002) while the posttest took place before the end of the school year (i.e., mid-May, 2003). The results of this study indicated that the mean scores of the intermediate graders on the posttest were higher than their scores on the pretest concerning language level and cultural awareness. Thus, the findings suggest that the treatment students received improved their performance and enabled them to acculturate. However, analyzing the tests and teachers’ questionnaires pinpointed that students encountered several problematic factors that reduced the degree of acculturation. The same analysis highlighted the learning strategies and teaching methods that helped these learners acculturate.