Previous English Linguistic competences in first-year student, FAREM-Matagalpa, UNAN-Managua. Nicaragua: Case study

Abstract

This article deals with the preliminary advances of a doctoral study, whose first objective was to identify the previous linguistic competences of English that the students bring with them upon entering their teacher training program in this language, in order to propose didactic actions that mitigate the difficulties that may be found. This study uses a mixed method approach, where qualitative and quantitative are combined. For data collection purposes, an English diagnostic test was administered to 42 students, considered a unit of analysis within the case study strategy. The test evaluated the four macro skills of the English language and the micro skill of grammar. For the descriptive statistical analysis, the SPSS software and the Excel program were used. Likewise, the analysis of the results obtained in the diagnostic test used as a reference the CEFR descriptors (2002) at levels A1, A2, B1. According to the results, it can be determined that first-year students reached a basic user level A1 according to the scale of descriptors, which indicates that they have basic sufficient skills to interact in very simple and daily conversations. The skills in which the participants showed greater difficulty were: listening comprehension, oral and written expression.