scholarly journals Alternative guidelines to design pedagogical resources with compounds in Spanish as a second language

Author(s):  
Barbara Marqueta Gracia

The aim of this paper is to present and argue for alternative didactic resources with Spanish compounds. The working assumption is the idea that the principles that govern compound formation are crucial as a means of improving a number of student skills in L2 Spanish. Compounds constitute valuable lexical additions to a speaker’s repertoire, and to a wide range of communicative goals. They also show certain properties (e.g., meaning motivation, membership of marked registers) that render them especially useful for a number of learning targets, such as encouraging students’ metalinguistic reasoning, fostering their creativity, and stimulating their curiosity about Spanish language and culture. To guarantee diverse learning results, several pedagogical resources were analyzed, and the activities were tested with Chinese learners of Spanish. Methodological guidelines were followed akin to those used in the task-based approaches and gamified learning. The activities are mostly cooperative and aimed at working on both comprehension and production (auditive and written) around a grammatical topic (e.g. plural) or a communicative task (e.g. description).

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 119-126
Author(s):  
I. V. Guseva

The article is dedicated to the investigation of the phraseological expressions in the Spanish language that contain names of profession or trade. Idiomatic expressions are combinations of words that present greater difficulty in the process of learning a second language and in intercultural communication in general. Spanish phraseological units include several names of professions (barber, apothecary, coal, butcher, carpenter, carter, hunter, cook, etc.) and religious occupations (abbot, canon, chaplain, priest, friar, monk, bishop, parish priest, sacristan). We have focused our research on 40 paremias related to the occupations of priest and friar. Based on the analysis of semantic aspects and the cognitive interpretation of phraseological units, we have defined their denotative characteristics, stylistic, expressive and historicalcultural connotations. The study reveals the obvious anticlericalism of Spanish sayings and proverbs and exposes possible causes of the negative connotations developed in phraseology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-123
Author(s):  
Chan-Chia Hsu ◽  
Richard Hill Davis ◽  
Yu-Chi Wang

Abstract A learner corpus, i.e., a principled collection of contextualized texts produced by second language learners, can be of invaluable help in identifying learners’ needs. Previous learner corpus research has indicated that an area for improvement in second language writing is learners’ use of logical connectors as cohesive devices. While most previous studies have been general surveys that examined a wide range of English connectors, the present one is a more focused investigation, probing into Chinese-speaking learners’ use of concessive connectors. The data is taken from a self-constructed corpus of argumentative essays written by Taiwanese freshmen, who were placed into four proficiency levels. Common errors, including orthographical, syntactic, and semantic ones, were identified and categorized. The frequency distribution of the attested concessive connectors reveals Chinese learners’ development in their use of individual connectors. Difficulties may be attributed to the linguistic complexity of concessive connectors in English and L1 transfer. Moreover, previously identified lexico-syntactic characteristics in learners’ use of English connectors were reconfirmed by our corpus data. More importantly, the pragmatic function of concessive connectors in Chinese learners’ argumentative writing is also addressed. The findings have important pedagogical implications. Pragmatics is an area in need of further attention in learner corpus research, and we have gone some way toward enhancing our understanding of that area.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 197-206
Author(s):  
Siti Bariroh

The people of Indonesia are heterogeneous, in terms of religion or kepecayaan, culture, ethnicity, language and culture, because Indonesia is a country that Berbhineka Tunggal Ika, with a classification of social, cultural and excellence culture and geography, is one of the biggest advantages of a multicultural world , The roots of multicultural education, coming from intensive care to spread the views on the importance of the background of learners, both in terms of aspects of culture, ethnicity and religion. Educational attention in earnest background of learners is the forerunner for the emergence of multicultural education.        Multicultural education is composed of two terms, namely education and multicultural. Education means the development process and the attitude of a person or group of conduct in an attempt to mature through teaching, training, processes, and how to educate. Multicultural interpreted as cultural diversity, a variety of politeness. The concept of multicultural education in the journey widespread, especially countries that have ethnic diversity, rationalism, religion and culture like Indonesia.   SMA Negeri 1 Brits Brebes are public school students come from various backgrounds, ranging from the academic year 2011-2016 has been practicing multicultural education, given its students are not from the same religion, namely Islam, but there are also students who are non-Muslims are Catholic and Protestant, with an approach and interviews with parents guardians and students, they are welcomed, the provision of teaching of religious education non-Muslims, and runs well without any intimidation and discrimination, because the kids are already observed by the schools in following the teachings of his religion, although in the District brebes no teacher of Religious Education in addition to Islam, with the help of the church, can run smoothly, from planning, mobilization, organization and evaluation and control are done by the school, school committees and offices of National Education and Ministry of Religious Affairs Brebes Brebes. In this research use, qualitative research methods, by presenting a wide range of anchovies in favor, with the data collection through: observation, interviews, and questionnaires to the school principal, school committees, teachers Muslims and non-Muslims, and elderly parents are Muslim and non-Muslims, as well as the students were Muslims and non-Muslims to Obtain valid the data, the number of students taking the population of parents and guardians are non-Muslims, principals, school committees and teachers partly that Muslims and non-Muslims.


Author(s):  
Hui Chang ◽  
Lilong Xu

Abstract Chinese allows both gapped and gapless topic constructions without their usage being restricted to specific contexts, while English only allows gapped topic constructions which are used in certain contexts. In other words, Chinese uses ‘topic prominence’, whereas English does not. The contrast between English and Chinese topic constructions poses a learnability problem for Chinese learners of English. This paper uses an empirical study investigating first language (L1) transfer in the case of Chinese learners of English and the extent to which they are able to unlearn topic prominence as they progress in second language (L2) English. Results of an acceptability judgment test indicate that Chinese learners of English initially transfer Chinese topic prominence into their English, then gradually unlearn Chinese topic prominence as their English proficiency improves, and finally unlearn Chinese topic prominence successfully. The results support the Full Transfer Theory (Schwartz, Bonnie & Rex Sprouse. 1996. L2 cognitive states and the Full Transfer/Full Access model. Second Language Research 12. 40–72) and the Variational Learning Model (Yang, Charles. 2004. Universal Grammar, statistics or both? Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8. 451–456), but contradict the proposal that the topic prominence can never be transferred but may be unlearned from the beginning in Chinese speakers’ acquisition of English (Zheng, Chao. 2001. Nominal Constructions Beyond IP and Their Initial Restructuring in L2 Acquisition. Guangzhou: Guangdong University of Foreign Studies Ph.D. dissertation). In addition, the type of topic constructions that is used and whether or not a comma is added after the topic have an effect on learners’ transfer and unlearning of topic prominence. It is proposed that the specification of Agr(eement) and T(ense) as well as the presence of expletive subjects in English input can trigger the unlearning of topic prominence for Chinese learners of English.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-226
Author(s):  
Dan Jiang

AbstractThe roles of interaction have been studied for several decades. Recent studies have turned to investigate “the details of which components of interaction might be more or less effective in which contexts with which learners” (Loewen, Shawn & Masatoshi Sato. 2018. Interaction and instructed second language acquisition. Language Teaching 51(3). 285–329: 286). This case study, based on three unstructured interactions outside the classroom between two L2 Mandarin Chinese learners, investigates the learning opportunities these interactions brought about in terms of helping them to increase in control over forms that had already been encountered inside the classroom. Using the concept of the language-related episode (Swain, Merrill & Sharon Lapkin. 1998. Interaction and second language learning: Two adolescent French immersion students working together. The Modern Language Journal 82(3). 320–337), this study sets focus on learning opportunities for lexis- and grammar-related items. It finds learning opportunities arise as the two peers negotiate for meaning motivated by the need to comprehend, strive to use the L2 to express/co-express themselves, and improve their form through the other’s feedback. In addition, lexis-related learning is found to be very positive in this study. The dictionary played an indispensable role in facilitating the learners when they encountered lexis-related issues. Further, it enabled the learners to learn new vocabulary when driven by communicative needs. In comparison, the grammar-related learning is found to be relatively complicated. And the fact the learners had nowhere to resort to concerning grammatical issues attributed to it. In terms of the different types of interactions, compared to learning through negotiation for meaning and feedback, output and co-construction/collaboration were found to be most productive in promoting the learning.


2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 01 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roumiana Ilieva

On the basis of personal experiences with immigration and current conceptualizations of culture in anthropological and culture teaching literature, this article outlines an approach to cultural instruction in adult second-language education, named "culture exploration," which calls for the recognition of ambiguity embedded in cross-cultural encounters. Culture exploration consists of employing techniques of ethnographic participant observation in and outside the classroom and holding reflective, interpretive, and critical classroom discussions on students' ethnographies. It is argued that through culture exploration students can develop an understanding of humans as cultural beings, of the relationship between language and culture, and of the necessity of living with the uncertainty inherent in cross-cultural interactions. Through this process of naming their experience of the target community culture and reflecting on it, it is hoped that students will be in a position to develop their own voice and will be empowered to act to fulfill their own goals in their new environment.


Author(s):  
Seyhun Topbaş

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) around the world are likely to provide clinical services to Turkish speaking people with communication disorders. Most non-Turkish SLPs are not fluent in Turkish as a second language to serve bilingual or minority clients. This paper introduces the reader to basic information about the Turkish language and culture, followed by considerations for clinicians working with Turkish-speaking clients and their families.


1991 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Ellis

This article takes a critical look at grammaticality judgment tasks in second language acquisition research. It begins by examining the theoretical assumptions that underlie grammaticality judgment tasks, pointing out that previous studies have reported considerable differences between the results obtained from grammaticality judgment tasks and from other, production-oriented tasks. A description of the design features of grammaticality judgment tasks that have been used to date is then provided. There follows an account of a small-scale study designed to investigate the nature of learner judgments. Twenty-one adult advanced Chinese learners of English were asked to judge sentences designed to test their knowledge of dative alternation. The results indicated that the learners rarely used the “not sure” option in the test. Eight of these subjects were then administered a reduced version of the original test as a think-aloud task 1 week later. The results showed that these learners were inconsistent in 22.5% of their judgments. The think-aloud protocols showed that they resorted to a variety of strategies in making judgments. The article concludes by arguing that grammaticality judgment tasks elicit a particular kind of performance that needs to be understood much more thoroughly before it is used as a basis for investigating second language acquisition.


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