Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: vocabulario

Resumen:

This study examines the effects of word frequency and typographical enhancement (i.e., words in bold) on the learning of single words in Spanish L2 reading activities in a classroom setting. Learners read a text in which target words appearing in bold occurred one, five or 10 times. A parallel text was also provided in which those same words appeared un-bolded. Students were tested three times on both spelling and meaning of the target words: before, immediately after and two weeks after the reading activity. Results show that: (1) after five or 10 encounters, both spelling and meaning recognition skills increase; (2) words appearing in bold only lead to learning gains at a form recognition level immediately after the test is taken and do not contribute to the acquisition of meaning in the post-test; and (3) there is no interaction...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: enseñanza/aprendizaje de vocabulario

Resumen:

This article presents the results of a research project investigating how a student?s ability to successfully learn vocabulary of four word classes (nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs) is affected by the activity through which it is practised. Two-hundred and ninety-two B1 SL students of Spanish were presented with one of three different activities requiring different involvement loads: (1) choosing the appropriate definition; (2) filling in gaps in sentences; and (3) writing sentences that include target words. The analysis shows that participants recalled and recognised more nouns and fewer adverbs?the only non-inflected word class. Additionally, sentence-writing is the activity through which learning new words is the easiest; and the least effective is the definition-choosing activity.

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Este...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: trabajo teórico

Temas: prosodia

Resumen:

Spanish and Finnish have a similar, syllable-timed, rhythm but very different stress and intonation patterns. Based on the ?Frequency Code,? whereby meanings of confidence and aggressiveness are associated with low pitch, and those of submission and smallness with high pitch, we establish a taxonomy of the functions and meanings of intonation with examples in Spanish and Finnish. These functions can be grammatical, attitudinal, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic. To teach intonation to Finnish L2 Spanish students of an advanced level, we raise their awareness through the comparison of the intonational patterns of the two languages and through inductive reasoning. Our proposal fosters a multimodal approach based on the imitation of native speech, on the visual representation of prosody through software like Praat, and on the use of...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: trabajo teórico

Temas: prosodia

Resumen:

Based on previous research, this paper aims to provide the first steps towards a model for the teaching of Spanish prosody to Swedish learners by identifying main prosodic characteristics, referred to as Core Prosodic Features (CPFs), for the teaching of Spanish in a Swedish setting. The study addresses salient prosodic features of L1 Spanish in comparison to L1 Swedish, and discusses whether the Swedish L1 features are likely to be transferred into L2 Spanish. Another central issue of the paper is whether such transfer is likely to interfere with communication. Three Prosodic Core Features are identified: (1) focal-accent location, (2) vowel duration patterns, and (3) prosodic patterns in rising boundary tones.

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El presente trabajo propone establecer una primera etapa en el desarrollo de un modelo para...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: pragmática

Resumen:

This article presents the results of a study focused on the management of the speech act of giving advice and its linguistic realizations by Spanish second-language learners and heritage learners enrolled on two advanced courses of Professional Spanish. We analyzed how two groups of students gave advice in three discourse completion tasks with different scenarios. Results indicate that both groups relied on a few basic structures with limited consideration of the proposed contexts, and highlight the need for a pragmalinguistic approach in Spanish for Health Care courses. We then propose a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the role of critical reflection, increases language competence beyond medical terminology, and focuses on an understanding of cultural parameters guiding health care interactions.

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: pragmática

Resumen:

This study examines the development of speaker and listener assessments by second language (L2) learners of Spanish during a semester abroad in Spain. Assessments express the speaker?s judgment, attitude, or affect towards what is said and perform the crucial functions of closing a topic and displaying shared understanding with an interlocutor. The results indicate that learners increased their use of listener assessments, as well as their use of specific structures and lexical items in speaker assessments. Participation in everyday conversation as well as explicit instruction represented ways that students could learn to make assessments. The article concludes with suggestions for teaching assessments in the Spanish L2 classroom.

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Este estudio analiza la adquisición de evaluaciones de hablante y oyente...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: revisión bibliográfica

Temas: pragmática

Resumen:

Texto completo

The development of learners? pragmatic competence is considered one of several components of communicative competence and represents an important goal in Spanish language teaching and learning.

We offer a short literature review of theoretical and practical advances in pragmatics and Spanish language teaching,

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: pragmática

Resumen:

The present study investigates the way in which second-language Spanish learners conceptualize impolite behavior in intercultural interactions while abroad. The data were collected through a prompt that asks participants to write a narration of an impolite situation that occurred while they were studying abroad in Spain or Latin America. Fifty impoliteness events were analyzed for perceived offense type. The results show that learners perceived greater offense to their ?quality face? and ?social identity face.? Sociocultural and linguistic competence characteristics with respect to the perceived offenses are then discussed. As a result of the analysis, this study concludes with pedagogical recommendations for the teaching of impoliteness in the classroom.

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El presente estudio investiga la manera en que...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: traducción

Resumen:

In an Integrated Plurilingual Approach (IPA), translation is used as a natural plurilingual learning strategy to advance language learning and plurilingual communicative competence (PCC). The focus lies on exploring the use of translation in other learning contexts (TOLC), i.e., not directly related to professional translation training, by seeking relevant connections between Translator Training and Additional Language (AL) Learning. Here I will present partial conclusions from an ongoing study that explores: (1) teacher strategies; and (2) best practices for the combination English-Spanish-Catalan. Our pedagogical framework follows socio-constructivist premises and prioritizes transferrable skills and concept-based instruction. The use of translation did not prove detrimental to language learning, and it favoured the development of...

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Tipo: artículo

Metodología: estudio empírico

Temas: traducción

Resumen:

Rooted in socio-constructivism, the present article investigates the effects of type of collaborative translation on Spanish L2 development, triangulating data from task performance, learning outcomes, and learners? perceptions. Thirteen dyads of college students participated in a within-subjects repeated-measures experimental study, translating authentic texts in two ways: collaborating from the get-go and after working alone first. Results showed that while participants translated more lexical items accurately when working together from the get-go, both types of collaborative translation propelled similar learning gains in lexis and grammar. Of the two, only lexical learning was retained after one week. Participants, contrary to results, reported a clear preference for working alone first, which they perceived as more conducive to...

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