A study of student and teacher attitudes and experiences towards an immersion course in a Technological University in Veracruz, Mexico

Abstract

Mexico is experiencing a growing need of qualified professionals able to work and receive training in international companies. For this reason, education authorities in Mexico have created technological universities and, in recent years, a new model for them called BIS model (Bilingual, International and Sustainable). It is a bilingual model which starts with an immersion course followed by a bilingual program whose objective is to graduate technicians and engineers with a high level of English language proficiency. This research intended to study the attitudes and experiences of students and teachers who participated in an immersion course in a BIS model university in Veracruz, Mexico to identify the attitudes of both students and teachers towards the course to help designing future courses to avoid potential language learning problems related to attitudinal and motivational factors. In order to do this, quantitative and qualitative paradigms were used through the application of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to sixty-five students and teachers as well as class observations. The results showed that while students and teachers generally had a positive attitude towards the program, there are a number of factors that affected their performance such as the students’ profile, their motivations to study the language, their motivations to study a bilingual program and the course planning.