Una nueva mirada en la mediación pedagógica al encuentro con el sentido del aprendizaje en los procesos educativos

Universidad Nacional: Una nueva mirada en la mediación pedagógica al 142 as an on-going assessment diagnosis while using the platform. Researchers applied an instrument to identify the grammatical structures students had trouble with and their performance when using the target language. The instrument was a written exam with speaking, listening, reading, and writing activities. Researchers decided to design and implement a website for this group of 16 students from the second year of Diplomado en Inglés, Universidad Nacional, Sede Chorotega, Campus Liberia to provide a tool for them to practice their English grammar knowledge through contextualized grammatical exercises. Key words : Website, grammar, micro skill. Problem Identified Grammar is a very important area that people need to manage when learning and producing a language in order to communicate clearly and coherently. In the case of the students from the second year of the major “Diplomado en Inglés”, which is offered at Universidad Nacional, Sede Chorotega, Campus Liberia, producing clear communication in their second language is an essential element since nowadays society requires them to have a high command of the foreign language. Guanacaste is a region where international tourism is one of the most relevant job opportunities for many people. Many visitors in Guanacaste speak English as a native or foreign language. Therefore, speaking English fluently is a must to get a position within the tourism industry. Araya and Cordoba (2008) stated that in Costa Rica “teaching-learning English is not only a right but also a duty that language teachers and students have to accomplish in order to activate the national economy” (p. 2). This duty has been accomplished but according to different perspectives, there is still a need to reinforce the English language learning process in the province of Guanacaste. Alfaro (2014) stated that the director of the human resources department at Hotel Garden in Liberia had said that university students did not have an acceptable level of English proficiency. She continue to say that her hotel only hired people who had an 80% or 90 % of English proficiency and that it was difficult to find people with this level of English competence in Guanacaste. This previous information alarming for the educational institutions in Guanacaste, such as the campuses of the Universidad Nacional in Nicoya and in Liberia, which offer people an opportunity to learn English as a foreign language. To obtain an objective point of view of this issue, the researchers of this project developed two diagnostic instruments with the purpose of identifying specific aspects about their English language production. One instrument was designed to assess grammar performance when producing the language in a written and oral way. The second instrument was designed to get to know what activities students were using when learning English as well as their perception about their own needs. The results were not positive since some of the students presented grammar difficulties during their oral and written production in English. Therefore, this also caused difficulties when students tried to communicate accurately. Most of the students mentioned that they would like to learn grammar with more dynamic activities. For this reason, researchers decided to design and implement a website to reinforce grammatical micro skills. To start with this project the following research question was asked: