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Culture as a Catalyst in L.Looking for L: Life, Learning, Love, Language, and Led Zeppelin
 
 byLarisa SegidaA Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitobain partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATIONDepartment of Curriculum, Teaching and LearningUniversity of ManitobaWinnipegCopyright © 2005 by Larisa Segida
 
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Abstract
The key postulation of the research is: learning a second or an additional language should gotogether with learning its culture. Through personal experience as an EAL learner and EFLteacher, the researcher examines the interconnected system of the learner’s motivations, premising that language cognition could engage a meta-cognitive search for 
L
, as a symbolof the researcher’s inner world, and arising from
L
such concepts as
L
anguage,
L
earning,
L
ife,
L
ove, and
L
ed Zeppelin. The latter embraces in the researcher’s case a cultural stratum,on which she develops her I-world. Quest and examination of those concepts analyze sense-data, the researcher’s short literary works written in Russian and translated into English. Narrative inquiry is the focal method for the analysis. The canvas of the author’s writing is presented in a symbolic form of literary and musical Islands with which she creates her arts-informed research of new learning-teaching interactions with the learning component asdominating in this interaction. The researcher looks for new perspectives on education as alifelong process that takes place between I-world and They-world through internalization andexternalization.
 
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Acknowledgments
This work would not have the spirit that it has without the invaluable academic, educational, psychological, and human support and belief in me as a writer and researcher, provided by thefollowing scholars:
Dr. Clea Schmidt, Assistant Professor:
 I am very grateful to you for returning to me faith in myself. Within two years of our academiccooperation, I have been like a cherished babe in the hands of her loving mother. Beside you, Iexperienced
the bearable weight of academic being 
, paraphrasing Kundera’s “unbearablelightness of being”. You tenderly led me out to the beauty of English, to the delicate philosophical wisdom of being in its environment with all your tact, diplomacy, and sincerity.You patiently and laboriously corrected my stylistic mistakes and awkwardnesses. You caredabout my every step on my stairway to knowledge heaven. Despite my passing perplexities, youencouraged me to continue my journey in search for Life, Learning, Love, Language, and LedZeppelin. I have found their manifestations in you as a teacher, adviser, friend, and a human being.
Ms. Pauline Broderick, Professor:
 To create, we all need an inspiration, an “ocean breeze” for which we are eager to crossthousands of miles just to feel its reviving touch. You have been for me such a breeze, impulsive,inspiring, and enlivening. Having met you for the first time, I felt that we had known each other all our lives. You have given to me the rare mutual understanding that occurs instantly on a deepemotional and rational levels provided by love of art and, first of all, music. Dr. Schmidtintroduced us to each other, knowing that our relations should take place. It is not easy to be ableto keep the
 fragile desire of creating 
alive despite daily ups and downs. Your breeze was in mylungs while I was writing. I inhaled and exhaled it creating in its vital aura. Thank you for your tolerant “fixing my road” to the English proficiency.
Dr. Francine Morin, Professor:
 Your main maxim “
 Philosophy underpins Education
” stimulated me to apply my prior  philosophical education to my current study. All locks became open in my mind and resulted inour written philosophical conversations during your course and in my philosophizing thesis. Iadmire the clarity of your elucidations and requirements. The ornateness and ambiguity of mywriting and thinking needed the transparency and intelligibility of your academic vision.Together with it, I felt the safety of earth while ascending my stairway to knowledge heaven.
Dr. Robert Renaud, Professor:
 We are all different, and our understanding of each other may only begin on a crossroad of our tastes and interests. Thanks to our love of Led Zeppelin and music on the whole, from acolourless and stumbling English student, I became a person whose thesis interested your precisemind of a quantitative researcher. I feel honoured to have you as a representative of differentthinking in my thesis committee. It stresses humans’ dissimilarities that unexpectedly may become their similarities. The truth is only; ways to it are innumerable.
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