Beliefs in proficiency and learning Spanish as FL through elicited explicit metaphor

Creencias sobre el aprendizaje y dominio ELE mediante la metáfora explícita suscitada

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study aims at presenting, identifying and analyzing the beliefs shown by a group of Danish university students about language learning and proficiency in the context of Spanish as Foreign Language. Participants completed the prompts Learning Spanish is like… and Knowing Spanish is like…. Their answers allowed us to access their conceptualization learning and mastery. Metaphor elicitation allowed us to gain insight into the mechanics of metaphoric thought and its systematicity. Moreover, metaphors help to identify the students’ experience as learners, enabling them to reflect on implicit beliefs. A significant part of the students opted for embodied experiences as means of metaphoric conceptualization. The elicited metaphors allowed both students and researcher to acknowledge a much more accessible, complex and comprehensive perception of how learners construe their learning reality experience.

Keywords: Beliefs, foreign language, learning, metaphor.