HOW DOES A LACK OF A2 PROFICIENCY IN TARGET LANGUAGE I AFFECT

STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES AND OUTCOMES IN LEI COURSES?

BY MÓNICA LILIANA ROMERO GUTIÉRREZ

INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, English has been becoming the most important language around the
world. It is used in practically all the areas: business, travelling, education, cultural
exchanges, politics, and so on. For this reason, the aim has been to include the
language in the education of Latin American countries and to give children the
possibility of including it in their skills from school.

English in Mexico is taught in schools as a second language, but the level of mastery
can differ significantly depending on diverse contexts.

As we know, learning English in Mexico has two contrasting sides: There are people
who can have the opportunity to learn it in a private school or particular courses,
where English is certainly a subject as important as the others. Then, we have public
schools, where the fact of learning a new language is not that relevant, so, most of the
content is very basic and teachers do not have a proper follow up.

According to Reyes Cruz, Murrieta Loyo & Hernández Méndez (2011) in their
research about teaching English in Mexico, in 1922 some educational institutions
started to create English programs in primary schools as their own initiative. After
that, it has been taught obligatory in public secondary school since 1926.
Nevertheless, the Mexican educative model had a lack of continuity in its teaching
plans, so, it causes deficiencies in the objectives.

In general, we can determine that English has not been learned in the same way by all
the students because they do not have the same conditions of learning, as I mentioned
before, education changes depending on whether it is public or private.
An important problem comes when students get into LEI because in their first
semester, they realise that they probably do not have enough knowledge of English.
We need to consider that Target Language 1 implies the use of a book which is A2
level. So, for the ones with a level lower than A2, it will be complicated to advance in
the same way than those students who got a previous learning of the language.

We could include personal and external difficulties since doing an appropriate

performance of the language include the improvement of different skills: listening,
writing, speaking, and reading, as well as a constant training of them.

LEI pretends to instruct students as future English teachers. It’s crucial to reach Target
Language 5 having the C1 proficiency level requirements, so in the future we can
teach the language properly. However, it’s important to start since the scholars are in
their first semester, if all of them are in a similar level it’s more likely that teachers
can make a better progress of English.

Considering the previous information, this research pretends to identify and to show
the challenges faced by the scholars who are currently in their first semester of LEI.
They can be under a sort or pression because they eventually realise that the course
needs the knowledge of an advanced content (A2). The different difficulties can
significantly affect their efficiency at school, so, it’s important to define those
problems in order to make them visible.

García, J. H., & De La Cruz Villegas, V. (2021). La enseñanza del inglés y el francés en

México. Métodos y políticas públicas. Dilemas Contemporáneos: Educación,

Política Y Valores. https://doi.org/10.46377/dilemas.v9i.2937

https://revistadecooperacion.com/numero12/012-02.pdf
GENERAL OBJECTIVE

Identify the challenges faced by LEI students who do not have the required A2
proficiency level when they are in Target Language 1
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
1. Mention the most common difficulties for students when they do not
have an A2 English level.
2. Analize those issues and expose them in detail.
3. Determine how those problems affect their performance in the degree.
RESEARCH QUESTION
How does a lack of A2 proficiency in target language 1 affect students’ experiences
and outcomes in LEI courses?