The Effect of Aptitude toward the Adaptability in Social Interaction

DOI

10.2991/conaplin-16.2017.81How to use a DOI?

Keywords

social interaction; adaptability; aptitude; international students; PLAB; EFL

Abstract

Social interaction is believed to be the catharsis of the success of English as L2 learning (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Sadly the practice of social interactions will be highly more challenging for learners coming from different cultures. The ability to adapt to new environment itself is a challenge, let alone the ability to be engaged in social interactions using the socially accepted language to facilitate the English learning. In short, international students studying English in Indonesia are truly in constant paradoxical situations, i.e. to improve their EFL they must interact with local students speaking local languages without which they cannot start the social interaction in the target language, EFL, which they may find lacking in themselves. This paper will try to uncover the reality experienced by some international students learning EFL in an Indonesian English institution. Using data triangulation method, it wants to see whether their initially presumed aptitude levels influence their adaptability that will further hamper their success in getting involved in the social interactions. The measurement of their English language aptitude employs Pimsleur Language Aptitude Battery (PLAB) (Lightbown & Spada, 2006) incorporated by teachers' evaluation of the first year of studying EFL to clarify their self-perceived aptitude on EFL. Hopefully, the results can offer more formal means to both the students and institutions to see whether their aptitude level becomes significant factor in coping with the paradox.

Copyright

© 2017, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuniatri Intan Kusumaningrum
PY  - 2016/11
DA  - 2016/11
TI  - The Effect of Aptitude toward the Adaptability in Social Interaction
BT  - Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Applied Linguistics (CONAPLIN 9)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 350
EP  - 353
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/conaplin-16.2017.81
DO  - 10.2991/conaplin-16.2017.81
ID  - Kusumaningrum2016/11
ER  -