This thesis project examines the benefits of an internship at a Self-Access Center (SAC) for English pre-teachers and students. The objectives are to identify positive and negative effects on pre-teachers, see the impact pre-teachers have on students, and determine how beneficial the internship is. Research questions address effects of the internship, techniques used in speaking corners, impact of teacher-student age differences, teacher preparation, and differences in attitudes by major. Variables studied are English levels, majors, techniques, and teaching experience. Data will be collected through interviews, observations, and surveys.

1. THESIS PROJECT
ELT STUDENTS’ INTERNSHIP IN THE SELF
ACCESS CENTER (SAC): BENEFITS OF THE
PRE-TEACHERS AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE
STUDENTS WHO ATTEND SAC.
Students’ name:
Mora Ángeles Rosa Guadalupe
Sacapala Ficachi Nayeli
Supervisor’ s name: Mariza Méndez López
Type of research:Qualitative

2. OBJECTIVE(S)
1.-The objective of this thesis is to identify the
positive and negative effects for students of ELT
who are doing their internship in the Self Access
Center
2.- Another objective is to see the impact the pre-
teachers have over the students who attend the
SAC.
3.-The last objective is to see how beneficial is for
pre-teachers to do their internship there and for
the students who regularly attend the SAC to

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
RQ 1. Does it have a positive effect doing the
internship in the SAC?
RQ 2. What techniques do the pre-teachers use
when they plan speaking corners?
RQ 3. Do the students who attend the SAC learn
better with pre-teachers of the same age?
RQ 4. Do they feel that pre-teachers are well-
prepared?
RQ 5. What are the differences in attitudes towards
learning English across majors?

4. VARIABLES OF THE STUDY
1) The English level of the students who are
doing their internship at the SAC. Not all of
them have the same knowledge and
performance, although most of them are
taking the same English course.

5. 2) The English level of the students who attend the
SAC. The ones with an introductory level need an
instructor who can help them to improve their
speaking skills. On the other hand, some other
students have an advanced level and if they feel
that the person in charge of the speaking corner
does not have an advanced level, they will not help
them to improve their skills.

6. 
3) The different majors of the students who attend
the SAC. Some of the students are less interested in
English and do not want to participate in the
speaking corners because English is only a
compulsory subject for them for the reason that they
are from different majors.

7. 
4) Techniques and methods used in the speaking
corners. According to the degree program at English
Language Teaching of the Universidad de Quintana
Roo, by fifth semester, ELT students have already
studied about the different theories and
methodologies of education; in this case, they will be
making use of that knowledge in order to provide
successful speaking corners and good tutorials since
they are now in seventh semester.


8. 5) Teaching experience of ELT students doing the
internship. Some students start working as teachers
when they are studying the first semesters of the
major. In these cases, it is easier for them to face a
group of students than for inexperienced students
who are starting from scratch this experience.

9. Literature Review
In order to do this research, we would like to point
out some information related to the topic and some
interesting findings about self-access centers, the
relationship between students and teachers, some
experiences of beginning teachers and the methods
and strategies used by them when planning their
classes.

10. Method
In this project, we are going to base our
results in several instruments which are open-
interviews, surveys and observations. The
participants will be students who are doing
their internship at the Self-Access Center in
the University of Quintana Roo, campus
Chetumal.

11. Participants
The participants of our research have an English
level between intermediate and advanced. Some of
them have taught English before so we would like to
compare the differences and similarities of this
experience from both sides (the ones who have
taught English before and the ones who have never
done that).

12. Instruments or
materials
The data of this research will be collected through open
interviews, classroom observations and a survey to be
answered by the students who attend speaking corners at the
Self-Access Center.
- The open interviews will be for the students doing their
internship at the SAC.
- Observations refer to attend the speaking corners of these
students at different levels and see which methods and
techniques are used by them.
- The survey will be focused on what the students who attend
the SAC think about the students who help them in their
self-learning activities at the SAC.

13. Procedure
In order to have reliable results, we are planning to
observe pre-teachers of the Self-Access Center (SAC)
in the University of Quintana Roo because we want
to see what techniques the pre-teachers apply and
how they manage the speaking corners. Also, we are
going to do open interviews to six of the pre-teachers
and ten students who attend the SAC.
Also, we are going to use some surveys in order to
measure the performance of the teachers and
techniques used.

14. Data analysis
This thesis will analyze the qualitative data through
observations, recorded open-interviews and surveys;
we are going to look patterns, differences and
variations in the data in order to categorize the data.

15. REFERENCES
 Academia.edu (2012). An Investigation of Experienced and
InexperiencedPrimary School Teachers’ Teaching Process in Scienceand
Technology Classes in Terms of Metacognitive Strategies. Retrieved from
http://www.academia.edu/1265178/An_Investigation_of_Experienced_and_
 American Psychological Association (2012). Improving Students'
Relationships with Teachers to Provide Essential Supports for Learning.
Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/education/k12/relationships.aspx
 Cantún D. Solangel G. Learning strategies used by students of the university
of Quintana Roo who study english at the language teaching center (CEI),
Chetumal, Quintana Roo : El Autor, 2012.

16. REFERENCES
 Dörnyei, Zoltán. Motivational strategies in the language
classroom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
 Eggen, Paul D. Estrategias docentes : enseñanzas de
contenidos curriculares y desarrollo de habilidades de
pensamiento / Paul D. Eggen y Donald P. Kauchak,
México : Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2009.
 Ellis, R. (1985). Understanding Second Language
Acquisition. Oxford University Press.

17. REFERENCES
 Habash, Y., Gudiño, L. (2010). Causes of failure in the English courses
from the students’ perspective: the case of the 2004 generation of the
English Language Major at Uqroo.
 Hobson, A., Malderez, A., Tracey, L., & Kerr, K. (2005). Teachers’
experiences of initial teacher preparation, induction and early
profesional development in England— does route matter?. Journal of
Education For Teaching, 31(2), 133-135.
doi:10.1080/02607470500127293. Retrieved from
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=378c7b86-c1db-4878-b618-70e

18. REFERENCES
 IEEE Xplore (2012). A Study of the Effect of Self-access
Center on Non-English Major Students' Listening Ability.
Retrieved from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?
tp=&arnumber=5232505&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp
%3Farnumber%3D5232505
 International Institute for Science, Technology and
Education (2012). Students' Motivation for and Attitudes
towards Self-Access Language Learning Centre. Retrieved
from
http://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JEP/article/view
/1163

19. REFERENCES
 Matos V. Sairy. Factors affecting the independent
learning : the case of the B.A. in English Language
Teaching, Chetumal, Quintana Roo : El Autor, 2002.
 McMurry, B, L., Tanner, M. W., & Anderson, N. J. (2010).
Self-Access Centers: Maximizing Learners’ Access to Center
Resources. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 1(2),
100-114. Retrieved from
http://sisaljournal.org/archives/sep10/mcmurry_tanner_a
nderson/

20. REFERENCES
 Professional Growth Among Preservice and Beginning
Teachers. Review of Educational Research Summer 1992
62: 129-169. Retrieved from
http://rer.sagepub.com/content/62/2/129.short
 Richmond, V., Gorham, J., McCroskey, J. (1987). The
Relationship between Selected Immediacy Behaviors and
Cognitive Learning. En Instructional Communication.

 Torres, B. (2007). English Teaching Experience in an EFL
Context.

21. REFERENCES
 Velasco A. Rafael A. Teaching writing experience in
teachers of the language center of the university of
Quintana Roo, Chetumal, Quintana Roo. : El Autor, 2010.
 Watkins, C., & Whalley, C. (1993). Mentoring beginner
teachers--issues for schools to .. School
Organization, 13(2), 10. Retrieved from
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