Spanish in Chicago: Writing an Online Placement Exam for Spanish Heritage Speakers

Clara Burgo

doi:10.7557/1.2.1.2496

Spanish in Chicago: Writing an Online Placement Exam for Spanish Heritage Speakers

Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics ◽

10.7557/1.2.1.2496 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 199 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Clara Burgo

Keyword(s):

Spanish Language ◽

Socioeconomic Differences ◽

Placement Tests ◽

Hispanic Population ◽

Font Size ◽

Heritage Speakers ◽

The Third ◽

Placement Exam ◽

Spanish Heritage Speakers ◽

Online Placement

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">United States is the third country in the world with the largest Hispanic population (over 45 million of Spanish speaking people). As Fairclough (2003) claims, the national, ethnic and socioeconomic differences of Hispanic immigrants provide a heterogeneous community whose unifying element is the Spanish language. Chicago is third largest city in the country with a significant Hispanic population. In the latest years, Spanish for Heritage speakers’ programs in higher education have developed and effective placement tests are needed.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>

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Developing an Online Placement Exam for Spanish Heritage Speakers and L2 Students

Heritage Language Journal ◽

10.46538/hlj.9.1.4 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 51-76

Author(s):

Kim Potowski ◽

MaryAnn Parada ◽

Kara Morgan-Short

Keyword(s):

Heritage Learners ◽

Heritage Speakers ◽

University Of Illinois ◽

Linguistic Strategies ◽

L2 Learners ◽

Placement Exam ◽

The University ◽

Spanish Heritage Speakers ◽

Online Placement

This paper reports on the development and piloting of an adaptive, online placement exam that will be administered to L2 and heritage learners of Spanish at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Particular attention is given to the structure of the exam and the linguistic strategies employed to distinguish heritage speakers from L2 learners. Results obtained from three pilot phases are presented along with a description of modifications made during each stage. Further challenges and steps are outlined.

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Auditory Processing of Gender Agreement across Relative Clauses by Spanish Heritage Speakers

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages6010008 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 8

Author(s):

Daniel Vergara ◽

Gilda Socarrás

Keyword(s):

Language Proficiency ◽

Auditory Processing ◽

Age Of Onset ◽

Spanish Language ◽

Auditory Task ◽

Auditory Modality ◽

Gender Agreement ◽

Heritage Speakers ◽

L2 Learners ◽

Spanish Heritage Speakers

Processing research on Spanish gender agreement has focused on L2 learners’ and—to a lesser extent—heritage speakers’ sensitivity to gender agreement violations. This research has been mostly carried out in the written modality, which places heritage speakers at a disadvantage as they are more frequently exposed to Spanish auditorily. This study contributes to the understanding of the differences between heritage and L2 grammars by examining the processing of gender agreement in the auditory modality and its impact on comprehension. Twenty Spanish heritage speakers and 20 intermediate L2 learners listened to stimuli containing two nouns with gender mismatches in the main clause, and an adjective in the relative clause that only agreed in gender with one of the nouns. We measured noun-adjective agreement accuracy through participants’ responses to an auditory task. Our results show that heritage speakers are more accurate than L2 learners in the auditory processing of gender agreement information for comprehension. Additionally, heritage speakers’ accuracy is modulated by their Spanish language proficiency and age of onset. Participants also exhibit higher accuracies in cases in which the adjective agrees with the first noun. We argue that this is an ambiguity resolution strategy influenced by the experimental task.

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Factorial Invariance of Child Self-Report Across English and Spanish Language Groups in a Hispanic Population Utilizing the PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales

European Journal of Psychological Assessment ◽

10.1027/1015-5759/a000026 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

pp. 194-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Daniel A. Newman ◽

Christine A. Limbers ◽

James W. Varni

Keyword(s):

Health Care Services ◽

Factor Model ◽

Five Factor Model ◽

Well Being ◽

Factorial Invariance ◽

Spanish Language ◽

Self Report ◽

Hispanic Population ◽

Language Groups ◽

Related Quality

The measurement of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in children has witnessed significant international growth over the past decade in an effort to improve pediatric health and well-being, and to determine the value of health-care services. In order to compare international HRQOL research findings across language groups, it is important to demonstrate factorial invariance, i.e., that the items have an equivalent meaning across the language groups studied. This study examined the factorial invariance of child self-reported HRQOL across English- and Spanish-language groups in a Hispanic population of 2,899 children ages 8–18 utilizing the 23-item PedsQL™ 4.0 Generic Core Scales. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed specifying a five-factor model across language groups. The findings support an equivalent 5-factor structure across English- and Spanish-language groups. Based on these data, it can be concluded that children across the two languages studied interpreted the instrument in a similar manner. The multigroup CFA statistical methods utilized in the present study have important implications for cross-cultural assessment research in children in which different language groups are compared.

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Use of suprasegmental information in the perception of Spanish lexical stress by Spanish heritage speakers of different generations

10.21437/speechprosody.2014-77 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Ji Young Kim

Keyword(s):

Lexical Stress ◽

Heritage Speakers ◽

Spanish Heritage Speakers

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Between positivism and narrativism in Polish methodology of history

HISTOREIN ◽

10.12681/historein.234 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

pp. 75 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Krzysztof Brzechczyn

Keyword(s):

Theoretical Framework ◽

Font Size ◽

Theory Of Science ◽

The Third ◽

Nancy Cartwright ◽

The Status ◽

Scientific Context ◽

Scientific Laws ◽

Covering Law ◽

The 1960S

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This paper has two main purposes. Its primary purpose is to present the reception of the discussion between positivism and narrativism in the Polish methodology of history. A secondary one is to paraphrase, using the notion apparatus of the idealisational theory of science, the issue of the accuracy of explanation. The article consists of six parts. In the first part, Hempel’s deductive-nomological (or covering-law) model of explanation is presented. In the second part, the main tenets and assumptions of the Poznań school of methodology are presented. The emergence of this school at the end of the 1960s delayed the popularisation of narrativism in Polish methodology of history. In the third part, the manifold reasons of this delayed reception are analysed. The popularization of narrativism was only possible in Poland after 1989, but it had a primarily imitative character. This outline of cultural and scientific context allows Chris Lorenz’s proposals (on the problem of the accuracy of explanation) to be put in a wider perspective (part four). Namely, this author describes “a theoretical historical debate” on the status of scientific laws and refers to a post-positivistic approach to science represented by Nancy Cartwright. This approach was to introduce new perspectives to the understanding of lawfulness. In the fifth part, the main assumptions and tenets (for example, modes of explanation) of another post-positivistic approach to science, namely the idealisational theory of science, are presented and compared with the Hempelian model of explanation. In the sixth part, Hempel’s explanatory sketch is paraphrased using the notion apparatus of the idealisational model of science which provides a solution in this theoretical framework, to the problem of accuracy of explanation posed by Lorenz.</p>

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Preposition Stranding in Spanish as a Heritage Language

Heritage Language Journal ◽

10.46538/hlj.12.2.4 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 186-209 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Diego Pascual y Cabo

Keyword(s):

Heritage Language ◽

Comparison Group ◽

Control Group ◽

Heritage Speakers ◽

Heritage Speaker ◽

The Core ◽

Preposition Stranding ◽

Crosslinguistic Influence ◽

Spanish Heritage Speakers ◽

Timing Of Exposure

Previous research examining heritage speaker bilingualism has suggested that interfaceconditioned properties are likely to be affected by crosslinguistic influence (e.g., Montrul & Polinsky, 2011; White, 2011). It is not clear, however, whether the core syntax can also be affected to the same degree (e.g., Cuza, 2013; Depiante & Thompson, 2013). Departing from Cuza’s (2013) and Depiante and Thompson’s (2013) research, the present study seeks to determine the extent to which this is possible in the case of Spanish as a heritage language. With this goal in mind, a total of thirty-three Spanish heritage speakers (divided into sequential and simultaneous bilinguals) and a comparison group of eleven late Spanish-English bilinguals completed a battery of off-line tasks that examined knowledge and use of preposition stranding (i.e., a syntactic construction whereby the object of the preposition is fronted while the preposition itself is left stranded), an understudied core syntactic phenomenon that is licit in English but precluded in Spanish. Overall findings reveal that the sequential heritage speakers pattern with participants from the control group. The simultaneous heritage speakers, on the other hand, seem to have a grammar that is not so restricting as they accept and produce ungrammatical cases of preposition stranding. Herein, we argue that these results do not obtain the way they do due to incomplete acquisition or L1 attrition but crucially because of the timing of exposure to the societal language. We propose that this property was completely acquired, although differently acquired due to the structural overlap observed between the two languages involved (e.g., Müller & Hulk, 2001), and most importantly, to the timing of acquisition of English (e.g., Putnam & Sánchez, 2013).

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Readability and Suitability of Spanish-Language Hearing Aid User Guides

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2021_aja-20-00215 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-6

Author(s):

Laura Gaeta ◽

Edward Garcia ◽

Valeria Gonzalez

Keyword(s):

Health Literacy ◽

Grade Level ◽

Hearing Aid ◽

Spanish Language ◽

Hispanic Population ◽

English Only ◽

Flesch Reading Ease ◽

Suitability Assessment ◽

Low Health Literacy ◽

Readability Formula

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the readability and suitability of Spanish-language hearing aid user guides. Method Hearing aid user guides in English and Spanish were downloaded for analysis. Readability for the English guides was calculated using the Flesch Reading Ease Scale and the Flesch–Kincaid Readability Formula, and readability for the Spanish guides was calculated using the Fernandez–Huerta and Spaulding Formula and Fry Graph. The Suitability Assessment of Materials was used to rate the suitability of each Spanish and English pair of hearing aid user guides. Results Of the nine manufacturers that had materials available in English, only five had guides available in Spanish. Although readability for the Spanish and English user guides was similar, both guides were written, on average, at the eighth grade level. Suitability for the analyzed Spanish and English user guides was 78% and 80%, respectively. Conclusions Spanish-language hearing aid user guides were lacking in readability and suitability. Given that patients with limited proficiency in English, including the Hispanic population, are at risk for low health literacy, providers and manufacturers are encouraged to create more Spanish-language materials. User guides in both languages would benefit from revisions to improve readability and suitability. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14569497

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