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Recent advances in sociolinguistics demonstrate the need to adopt a wider international perspective related to the way in which language variation should be reflected in the work of the institutions that participate more actively in the design of language ideologies in a 21st-century, globalized society. The most recent Pan-Hispanic publications by the Real Academia Española (RAE) and the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE) reflect a will to recognize and promote all Spanish varieties on equal footing. This article analyzes how language variation is becoming an integral part of the Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE) in its successive print and online editions. In addition, beginning with the results of a questionnaire administered to United States’ Spanish instructors, this article discusses how this new Pan-Hispanic approach, aimed at satisfying the needs of Spanish speakers on a global scale, is understood and applied by instructors who teach Spanish as a second or foreign language. In this case, particular attention is also paid to the issues related to the ways in which educators perceive lexicographical progress in recent academic works.

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Los recientes avances en sociolingüística han demostrado la necesidad de adoptar una perspectiva internacional sobre la forma en que la variación lingüística debe reflejarse en el trabajo de las instituciones que participan más activamente en el diseño de unas ideologías del lenguaje para la sociedad globalizada del siglo XXI. Para la lengua española, las más recientes publicaciones de la RAE y la ASALE reflejan la voluntad de reconocer y promocionar todas las variedades españolas en pie de igualdad. En este artículo se analiza la forma en que la variación lingüística se integra en el Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE), en sus sucesivas ediciones impresas y en línea. En relación con ello, partiendo de los resultados de un cuestionario administrado a profesores estadounidenses, se reflexiona sobre cómo el actual enfoque panhispánico, destinado a satisfacer las necesidades de los hispanohablantes a escala mundial, es entendido y aplicado por el profesorado de español como lengua segunda o extranjera. Se analizan con especial atención las cuestiones relacionadas con la percepción por parte de los educadores del progreso lexicográfico en las obras académicas recientes.

Although new technologies are embedded in students’ lives today, there is often an assumption that their use is transparent, inconsequential, or a distraction. This book combines complex systems theory with sociocultural theory and the multimodal theory of communication, providing an innovative theoretical framework to examine how communication and meaning-making in the language classroom have developed over time, how technology impacts on meaning-making, and what the implications are for learners, teachers, institutions and policy makers. Recent studies provide evidence for the disruptive effect of technology which has resulted in a phase shift that is reshaping language education by creating new interaction patterns, allowing for multimodal communication, and introducing real-world communication into the classroom. The book proposes ways of responding to this shift before concluding that the new technologies are radically transforming the way we learn. It is likely to appeal to a range of readers, including students, academics, teachers and policy-makers.

Contenidos

• Introduction
• Theoretical Framework
• Human Meaning-Making: Communication Tools and Modes and Epistemic Practices
• Computer-Mediated Communication and Meaning-Making in the Language Classroom: Disruptions in Learning and Teaching
• What If?
• Implications for Teaching and for Research
• Conclusion

This article lies within the field of applied cognitive linguistics (ACL) and presents empirical work that addresses overlooked effects of assessment typology in second language (L2) learning. It examines whether pairing a cognitive instructional approach with matching assessment design results in greater learning outcomes over the more pervasive notional-functional approaches. The last two decades have witnessed a proliferation of empirical research measuring the effectiveness of ACL-based teaching approaches, yet studies have only been partly fruitful in eliciting data that truly favors ACL. We argue that this is largely due to assessment design, which typically measures performance via correct vs. incorrect tasks. To overcome this caveat, two studies addressing the complex Spanish psych-verb construction (e.g. gustar ‘to like’) were conducted following a pretest/posttest/delayed-posttest design for three empirical conditions (control, cognitive, and traditional): a pilot study (n = 59) and a larger replication (n = 160). Data collection entailed ACL-based assessment for interpretation and production tasks. Results showed that after instruction, the cognitive group significantly outperformed the traditional counterpart in both tasks. These findings lend support to the effectiveness of pairing cognitive instruction and cognitive assessment for difficult grammatical constructions.

Corrective feedback on second language (L2) writing has remained one of the most heavily studied areas in applied linguistics, yet clear guidance for practitioners about how to provide it most effectively remains limited. Previous studies have meta-analysed written corrective feedback (WCF) research revealing conflicting findings in how WCF affects development in L2 writers’ accuracy over time. This study provides a needed update in light of a recent increase in (quasi)experimental WCF studies. It features several methodological advances by introducing a Bayesian approach to conducting a meta-analysis, which provides a more valid picture of the generalizable effects. The analysis allows distinction – for the first time at a meta-analytic level – between short-, medium-, and long-term effects of WCF. Results aggregate data from an initial 52 primary studies that utilized control groups revealing robust evidence of the durability of moderate effectiveness of WCF over time and deeper insight into the relative effectiveness of various types of WCF (e.g. direct, indirect, metalinguistic – all yielding similar effect sizes) across research contexts, writing task types, target error types, and instructional characteristics. We conclude with recommendations to help continue methodological advances in this domain.

At the turn of the new millennium, in an article published in Language Teaching Research in 2000, Dörnyei and Kormos proposed that ‘active learner engagement is a key concern’ for all instructed language learning. Since then, language engagement research has increased exponentially. In this article, we present a systematic review of 20 years of language engagement research. To ensure robust coverage, we searched 21 major journals on second language acquisition (SLA) and applied linguistics and identified 112 reports satisfying our inclusion criteria. The results of our analysis of these reports highlighted the adoption of heterogeneous methods and conceptual frameworks in the language engagement literature, as well as indicating a need to refine the definitions and operationalizations of engagement in both quantitative and qualitative research. Based on these findings, we attempted to clarify some lingering ambiguity around fundamental definitions, and to more clearly delineate the scope and target of language engagement research. We also discuss future avenues to further advance understanding of the nature, mechanisms, and outcomes resulting from engagement in language learning.

Texto completo (español)
Texto completo  (inglés)

En este informe nuestro objetivo es analizar la situación del español en el ámbito universitario estadounidense, que comprende: (a) escuelas técnicas (community / junior / technical colleges), con programas de dos años que otorgan certificaciones de formación profesional o de los dos primeros años de una titulación universitaria superior; (b) escuelas universitarias (colleges), cuyos programas se distribuyen a lo largo de cuatro años, y (c) universidades, donde se combinan los programas de grado de los colleges con otros programas de postgrado y doctorado. Con este fin, las próximas secciones ofrecerán, primero, una breve panorámica del español en los Estados Unidos. A continuación, se presentarán datos estadísticos relevantes y se discutirá la situación de la enseñanza de español en el nivel universitario. Por último, el informe apuntará algunas perspectivas de futuro.

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Our objective in this report is to analyze the situation of the Spanish language at the university level in the US, comprising: (a) technical schools ("community/junior/technical colleges"), with two year programs that grant certifications of professional training or the first two years of a university degree; (b) colleges, whose programs are distributed over four years, and (c) universities, where college degree programs with are combined other graduate and doctoral programs. To this end, the next sections will offer, first, a brief overview of the Spanish language in the United States. Then, relevant statistical data will be presented, and the state of teaching Spanish at the university level will be discussed. Finally, the report will provide some prospects for the future.

A growing body of evidence suggests that second or foreign language learners stand a lot to gain from mastering a variety of multiword units, such as idiomatic expressions and collocations. Although most of the research on this formulaic dimension of language and its relevance for language learners has so far dealt with English, there are solid grounds for believing that formulaicity is part and parcel of natural languages in general, and that pedagogues should therefore give due attention to multiword units also in other target languages than English, such as Spanish. Contemporary textbooks for language learning have started to include a focus on lexical phrases generally and on collocations in particular, albeit mostly through decontextualized exercises where learners are required in one way or another to match words that form partnerships. Often, these exercises do not first provide the learners with exemplars of the correct, intact target collocations that are to be assembled in the exercises. Instead, these exercise types appear to rely on trial and error as a pathway for learning. We report a small-scale experimental study where learners of L2 Spanish tackled a series of collocation exercises that relied either on corrective feedback (i.e., trial and error) or on prior consultation of exemplars (i.e., errorless practice). Pre-test to post-test comparisons reveal no overall difference in effectiveness between the two procedures. However, when students under the trial-and-error procedure supplied a wrong response in the exercises, the corrective feedback seldom had a remedial effect.

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Existe una creciente evidencia que sugiere que es beneficioso para los aprendices de una segunda lengua o lengua extranjera conocer una variedad de expresiones fraseológicas tales como las expresiones idiomáticas y las colocaciones. Aunque la mayor parte de la investigación con respecto a la relevancia de la dimensión formulaica de la lengua se ha centrado en el aprendizaje del inglés como lengua extranjera, muchos indicios sugieren que la formulaicidad es inherente a todas las lenguas naturales, por lo que los docentes deberían prestar la debida atención a las expresiones fraseológicas en la enseñanza no solo del inglés, sino también de otras lenguas meta, como el español. Es cierto que los manuales de enseñanza de lenguas actuales han empezado a dar más énfasis a las colocaciones, aunque mayoritariamente mediante ejercicios descontextualizados en los que se pide al aprendiz que relacione las palabras que forman una colocación. En muchos casos, estos ejercicios no presentan anteriormente a los aprendices ningún ejemplo de las colocaciones meta en su forma correcta y completa. En cambio, estos ejercicios parecen basarse en una práctica de aprendizaje de ensayo y error. Presentamos un ensayo experimental a pequeña escala en el que aprendientes de español como L2 hicieron, en un caso, unos ejercicios de colocaciones basados en los beneficios del feedback correctivo (es decir, de ensayo y error) y, en otro, en los beneficios de presentarles unos ejemplos correctos (es decir, un método de aprendizaje cuya práctica evita trabajar con muestras erróneas). La comparación de los avances en el aprendizaje general, por medio de una comparación de los resultados en los test previos y posteriores, no revelan diferencias generales entre los dos métodos. Sin embargo, en el caso de las respuestas erróneas en el método de ensayo y error, el feedback correctivo raras veces llevó a una mayor corrección por parte de los estudiantes.