1. THESIS PROJECT
 Title: The Effects of Students’ English
Proficiency on Academic Performance
in Philosophy of Education
 Student’s name: María Gabriela
Buenfil Nevárez
 Supervisor’s name: Edith Hernández
Mendez
 Type of research: Qualitative (Case
Study)

2. INTRODUCTION

3. Abstract
The current program for the Lengua Inglesa major
at the Universidad de Quintana Roo is designed to admit
students with no previous knowledge of English and to
gradually prepare them for the content in the core
courses. However, it seems that some students face
many problems in these subjects. This qualitative study
intends to find if there is a relationship between the
English proficiency of the students and their academic
performance in one of most essential courses in their
major, Philosophy of Education. By comparing students’
grades and the English proficiency obtained from their
language courses, this study will demonstrate how well
articulated the language program syllabi are to achieve
a successful performance in the class of Philosophy of
Education.

4. Statement of the Problem
In the Lengua Inglesa major at the Universidad
de Quintana Roo, students get prepared to become
English language teachers. It is important to
mention that having previous knowledge of the
language is not a requisite to enter the major, and
with that, many Lengua Inglesa students start their
bachelors with little or sometimes even no
knowledge of English. Later on in the curricular
program (in fourth semester), their entire core
courses are instructed in English. At this point,
students have fulfilled the mandatory language
courses of English I, English II and English III which
supposedly provide students with enough language
competence to be able to have an acceptable

5. However, in my personal experience, I noticed that
this seemed to not be the case: Many of my classmates
could hardly understand the academic content of the
course of Philosophy of Education, for example, which is
one of the first core courses instructed in English and the
contents are very theoretical and dense. We were
assigned reading material which held a big amount of
academic language and terms unfamiliar to most of us.
They also had very little oral participation in class and a
poor performance in their writing assignments like reports,
essays and reflections. All of this drastically affected their
grades and academic performance in class.
This led me to think that the language courses from
the major were perhaps not providing students with the
necessary language skills to cope with the content of the
core courses. Perhaps students not only need classes to
help them develop language but also classes that are

6. Rationale
Provide empirical data to help as a background
to deal with a real problem at the Lengua Inglesa
classrooms.
It will benefit:
 Teachers at the university
 Curriculum planners and designers
 English Language Learners from the major
 Researchers

7. Research Questions
 RQ1: How may the proficiency level in the
medium of instruction affect academic
performance?
 RQ2: How are the language programs from
English I, II and III at the Universidad de
Quintana Roo articulated with the core course
of Philosophy of Education?
 RQ3: What is the relationship between the
grades obtained in English I, II, III and IV from
the major and Philosophy of Education?

8. Objective(s)
General objective
 Analyze how the factor of English proficiency could be
intervening with the academic performance of Lengua
Inglesa students in the Philosophy of Education class.
Specific objectives
 b) Compare the level of proficiency demanded by the
language syllabi I, II and III and their articulation with the
core course of Philosophy of Education.
 c) Establish the relationship between the grades obtained
at the English language courses and those in the class of
Philosophy of Education.
 d) Analyze how the English proficiency perceived by the
learners and the instructor affects the academic
performance.

9. Conclution of the literature
review
 To the writing of this paper, I still have not
found a study that does research on a case
similar to the one presented here. I believe this
is because of the particularity of the context:
English being the language of instruction on
the academic subjects for future English
language teachers. However, slightly similar
studies show the concern and the importance
of relating a poor language competence to the
academic performance of students.

10. METHOD

11. Subjects
 6 students of the Universidad de Quintana
Roo from the Lengua Inglesa major, more
specifically, enrolled in 5th semester in the
class of Philosophy of Education.
 The students will be selected according to the
grades they have achieved in their language
classes and in Philosophy of Education, so as
to be able to represent students with low,
medium and high grades.

12. Instruments and Materials
 The syllabi from English I, English II, English II
and Philosophy of Education, to compare their
articulation;
 Students’ grades from English III and from
Philosophy of Education, both of which will be
used as reference of students’ academic
achievement.
 Two face-to-face interviews: an ice-breaker
and a semi-structured interview.

13. Procedure
STAGE Gathering materials (students’ grades &
1 syllabi)
STAGE Random selection of participants
2
STAGE Face-to-face interviews
3
STAGE Transciption of interviews
4

14. Data Analysis
 A basic descriptive statistical analysis of the students’
grades will be done using Microsoft Excel, obtaining
information such as the mean, median and mode. This
will allow the researcher to select the sampling for the
interviews.
 All the transcriptions collected from the interviews will
be analyzed looking for patterns, variables and similar
units of meaning given by the student, making use of the
Atlas-ti software, which enables the information to be
organized.
 A content analysis of the programs from English I, II and
III will take place, looking for variables or categories and
comparing their articulation to the syllabus of Philosophy

15. References
 Aguilar Arana, I. Y. (2010). Beliefs about foreign language learning
and their relationship with academic achievement. Chetumal,
Quintana Roo: El autor.
 Montalvo Pool, J. E. (2009). Beliefs about language learning and
their relationship with academic achievement. Chetumal, Quintana
Roo: El autor.
 Goldenberg, C. N. (2010). Promoting academic achievement
among English learners: a guide to the research. Thousand Oaks,
Calif. : Corwin.
 Fakeye, D. & Ogunsiji, Y. (2009). English Language Proficiency as a
Predictor of Academic Achievement among EFL Students in
Nigeria. Nigeria: European Journal of Scientific Research.
Retrieved October 20, 2012 from:
http://www.eurojournals.com/ejsr_37_3_14.pdf
 Howie, S. (2002). English language proficiency and contextual
factors influencing mathematics achievement on secondary school
pupils in South Africa. Enschede: PrintPartners Ipskamp.