Browsing by Author "Franco Orellana, Emilia"

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    On how students of the first year at the Foreign Languages Department chose which major to study at the University of El Salvador
    (2012-07-23) Mejía, Estela Marisol; Franco Orellana, Emilia; Melara de Sánchez, Marcela Melany; Gamero Ortiz, José Ricardo; Garay Salinas, Ricardo
    This study delves deeply into the decisions made by students when choosing to study a major in English language teaching and explores the reasoning behind them. We answer how students resolved to study this major, and what kind of information they received in order to understand how educated, suitable and informed their decision may have been. By any definition, professional success is what most students aspire upon enrolling to pursue a degree in university. Needless to say, students may experience various difficulties throughout their journey towards completing their studies in a major. Most students would often struggle to identify the relevant factors that may prevent them from performing as required. Some students may develop poorly due to various elements related specifically to the demands and characteristics of the major they chose(Cupani et al, 2004). In these sort of instances is when fields such as career election may prove to be a wider and more thorough process than most students seem to perceive when making the decision to enroll to a major. There are specific fields of research endeavored to understand why students choose a major and in turn help them identify which major may be more suitable or adequate for them. Areas such as that of career choice and students’ early development are sometimes overlooked due to a wide array of aspects. These aspects can go from simply not being aware Even though most students seem to be somewhat cautious when it comes to choosing a major, we need to realize that most of the process derives from the student’s perception of not only the major and its curriculum but also the implications that both may have towards his or her personal aspirations. We also need to present the issue of capabilities which in tandem with aspirations may become students’ pivotal characteristics to a good and well defined choice. Students who enroll into a major without being completely aware of the implications of choosing a career which is not entirely according to their capabilities, may often experience feelings of uneasiness and what they call “second thoughts” during their year as freshmen (Luis Porta, 2002). We are positive that the students who chose to pursue a major in the Foreign Language Department of El Salvador made the decision to study there based on all the previously mentioned points and taking them into account whether being aware of it or not. Studying students` decision to choose this specific degree, implicates approaching some areas that encompass their academic lives from beginning to end. Areas such as student profiling, and professional development are relevant and explored in this study. As a final note, we need to mention that in order to explore how students came to such decision, it is necessary the use of a dependable instrument that help us gather reliable information. Limitations presented are due to the fact that freshmen have a very limited schedule and demanding workload, we have designed an adequate and precise instrument to collect the required data.