about something specific, then I came across this, which seemed to be interesting,
which makes obvious that she is the one that has to decide on where to orient her
attention. For, A, on the contrary, the guidance has to be external:
A: I know that now, I have a problem that I have faced before: too general
objectives. But I do not know how to cope with the problem... I feel that
I need to stay with the same material until I finish it, even I think that I
do not progress. The reason is that I don’t know the materials. They tell
you “choose what you want”. But we need some kind of orientation about
a specific piece of material, what it does, what its advantages are. I feel
that will help to know where to start, to realise the difference, to know my
level.
7.2.1.2 Degree of selectivity
The second element involved in orientation is the degree of selectivity on the part
of the learners in relationship to the target language. Here I mainly found two different
situations: the learners who were selective about their way to focus their attention and
those who think that everything is important for them. The first group is very well
represented by Ga, who openly stated her belief about these matters:
Ga: the key for succeeding in the SAC is to know where to start, if not
you are lost.
On the other hand, we can find K who thinks that everything is useful to Ieam the
language:
K: I don’t look for anything in particular. Everything is useful for me. I want
to Ieam everything.
Most people are placed somewhere in the middle of the cline, but their particular
situations are very different. For instance, although F agrees with K that everything is
useful, he is now more interested in language, particularly in learning formulaic
expressions, while K’s main interest is culture. Gl and J expressed that everything is
important but stated their worries about listening and speaking. In the case of A and E,
their sense of “being lost” makes them avoid the extremes. To opt for everything would
make their problem worse. They seem to be waiting for a guide to be able to be selective.
Fig. 7.9 shows the two aspects of orientation in a two axis diagram, and the place of
some of the participants according to their information.
As the reader can notice from Fig. 7.9, Ga and F are mentioned twice and placed
in two different positions. According to their view, both of them were aware that as
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