Date of Graduation

2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

Committee Chair

Johan Seynnaeve

Abstract

In this work I defend the notion of the necessity for ESL learners to undergo some sort of identity shift process. This process would be a smooth and gradual evolution by reason of which ESL learners (and, by extension, learners of any foreign language) would develop a second identity that would encompass all the aspects associated to the L2 of their choice, apart from its exclusively linguistic and structural components. I introduce mainly the necessity of building awareness among teachers, especially—but not exclusively—among monolingual foreign language instructors. The strategy that I propose to promote this awareness is the guided reading of Paul Auster’s City of Glass . The reader, given proper guidance, will be able to discover a parallelism between the identity shift process suffered by the protagonist of this book and the one that ESL learners need to undergo.

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