Challenges and experiences of foreign language teachers and learners through the aupair immersion program

Abstract

The present research study aims at providing a voice to foreign language learners and pre-service teachers, in need of external training for their foreign language fluency and /or cultural awareness, apart from what the academic possibilities of their university preparation in Colombia can offer. All this with a meaningful purpose: Provide effective language fluency training and cultural awareness to new EFL or foreign language teachers and graduates. It has been observed, that this need responds to their desire for more efficient performance in the language for either their academic and/or professional demands. It consequently brings up an evident problem: A large part of language learners and teachers are not entirely trained in language fluency and cultural awareness, by means of the formal education in physical settings in contexts where the official language is different. Therefore, they tend to seek for external training through immersions programs abroad. This research is specifically focused on carrying out narratives of participants of an immersion program abroad called “Au Pair”, with the purpose of describing their development and challenges that are not actually designed with academic purposes, but serve as a tool for their professional career. The “Au Pair” program has been increasingly the more feasible way moneywise, long lasting and preferred immersion among young people and through their narratives, we make their voices be known towards the academic community, as a basis-study for further researches in ELT. These narratives about the immersion program Au Pair mainly focus on responding to the question: What are the challenges and experiences of young Colombian foreign language learners and teachers have to face into the Au Pair program abroad? According to the intended contributions and desire with this narrative, researchers I have also established one main objective: to narrate the stories and experiences of progress and challenges in regards to language fluency and cultural awareness acquisition of young Colombian foreign language teachers / learners, through the Au Pair program cultural immersion abroad. Later, two secondary objective raised 1. To identify the foreign language teachers / learners’ learnings in regards to cultural awareness and sociolinguistic factors during their Au Pair program year. 2. Understand foreign language teachers / learners’ progress in their language fluency during their Au Pair program year. Since this narrative project will be mostly about describing the cultural awareness and language fluency acquisition through the Au Pair program where authentic experiences happen, the research method for data collection is qualitative oriented, because it will be concerned with human psychological and behavioral factors, along with the learning processes to be described. The instruments used included semi-structured interviews for the participants and a self-narrative that have produced relevant data for analyzing in depth to identify common patterns and differences in a population with similar characteristics. Data was later analyzed through a thematic analysis process that ended up in three main categories: 1. Benefits and challenges in learning the language that the participants found in the Au Pair program as immersion, 2. Participants experiencing and gaining cultural awareness in the Au Pair program as immersion, 3. Change of identity in the foreign language learners.