Abstract
An individual’s social network is a very important source of linguistic of input. In this paper, we focus mainly on the linguistic input that students who are non-native speakers of English receive while studying at St. Cloud State University. The university has 15,092 students, including 1,374 internationals, from eighty-nine countries 2 . We investigate the social network of five international students to see how much linguistic input they receive outside of normal instructional hours and if this input has any impact whatsoever on their pronunciation of English vowels. The five interact with 20 people in their social networks, nine of whom are native speakers of English. Cumulatively, the live participants spend 224 hours a week with the friends in their social network. Forty-five hours of these interactional times (20.08%) are with native speakers of English, while 153 hours (68.30%) are spent with people who speak the same native languages as the participants. They also spend 26 hours (11.60%) speaking English with L2 speakers of English. The findings are discussed in light of the Social Network Analysis (SNA) framework and Krashen’s i+1 Input Hypothesis.
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Recommended Citation
Koffi, Ettien; Ridpath, Patrick; Al Jumaah, Thana; Arapova, Aizhan; Herrera, Karla Huezo; and Coreas, Joel Pena
(2017)
"L2 English Pronunciation Assessment based on Social Network Analysis and the i+1 Input Hypothesis,"
Linguistic Portfolios: Vol. 6, Article 6.
Available at:
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling/vol6/iss1/6
Author Bio
Patrick Ridpath is a graduate student in the MA-TESL program at Saint Cloud State University. He is also working towards his Minnesota K-12 ESL licensure and desires to help recent immigrant children learn English proficiently so that they will have the opportunity to thrive in today’s diverse culture. His Master’s Thesis will focus on the intersection of ESL and mathematics and how these two disciplines can be used synergistically to accelerate both areas of learning. He can be reached via email at: pridpath@gmail.com.
Thana Al Jumaah is a Teaching Assistant at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She is currently studying in the TESL-MA program at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She can be reached via email at: taljumaah@stcloudstate.edu or at thaljumaah@gmail.com.
Aizhan Arapova is a graduate student in TESL. During her Bachelor's studies in her home country of Kazakhstan she published two articles about translation strategies. Over time she developed an interest in the sociological aspects of Linguistics and plans to continue her education in this field. She can be contacted through her school e-mail address at aaizhan@stcloudstate.edu or at aizhanarapova@gmail.com.
Karla Huezo Herrera is from El Salvador. She received her B.A. in TESL from the University of EL Salvador. She is an MA TESL student and also works as a TA for the IEC program at Saint Cloud State University, MN. She has worked as an English teacher in different private universities and as a professor at Universidad de El Salvador in El Salvador. She has also worked as an interpreter for English speakers for non-profit organizations in her country. She can be reached at keherrera@stcloudstate.edu or at karlae.herrerah@gmail.com.
Joel Pena Coreas is currently doing his Mater's degree in TESL. He teaches in the intensive English center in the English Department at Saint Cloud State University, MN. He has 10 years of experience teaching English as a foreign language in El Salvador. He has also been a teacher at Universidad de Oriente and Universidad Gerardo Barrios. He is interested in Sociolinguistics and language change. He can be reached via email at japenacoreas@stcloudstate.edu or at joelalfredo85@gmail.com.