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: factores afectivos

Resumen:

This study investigated differences in students' foreign language anxiety and foreign language self-efficacy related to skill-specific foreign language tasks (i.e., speaking, listening, reading, and writing) across five levels of university foreign language coursework. A total of 206 participants in 12 university Spanish classrooms (ranging from Beginning Spanish I to Intermediate Spanish II) were surveyed for this study. The findings revealed that students who have higher levels of skill-specific foreign language anxieties provided corresponding lower ratings on skill-specific foreign language self-efficacies. Analyses also revealed that students' ratings for foreign language anxiety for each foreign language-learning skill were not significantly different across the five levels of coursework. However, students' ratings of foreign...

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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: revisión bibliográfica

Temas: pragmática

Resumen:

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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: 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: trabajo teórico

Temas: traducción

Resumen:

Translation for language learning has reemerged during recent years as an additional asset for foreign language instruction. In this time, the professional practice and training of translation has moved to a technological paradigm in which virtually all translation activities are computer mediated and this complex activity is conceptualized as human-computer interaction. Translation is therefore now inseparable from the physical computer, translation technologies, tools and resources found online and the interconnectedness provided by the Internet. This article reviews these technologies in the context of Spanish language learning. For these purposes, three main areas of interest are discussed and placed in the context of language learning. First of all, the role of machine translation (MT) both as an assistance in reading and writing...

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