A Comparison of the Effects of Mindful Conceptual Engagement for the Teaching of the Subjunctive to Heritage- and Second-Language Learners of Spanish

This article investigates the effects that Mindful Conceptual Engagement (MCE) had on the teaching of the Spanish subjunctive on second (L2) and heritage language learners (HL) of Spanish. A total of 26 university-level undergraduate students participated in the study; 12 were advanced L2 students and 14 were intermediate HL students. The methodology used was MCE, which is based on the principles of Concept-Based Instruction (Negueruela 2003; Negueruela and Lantolf 2006). MCE has its origins in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and it proposes that the creation and manipulation of didactic models by students promotes the internalization of complex grammatical concepts that would otherwise require long grammatical explanations. Models need to be generalizable and informative and can include, for example, flowcharts, pictures, or schemas among others. In the present study, the concept of [±EXPERIENCE] (Bull 1965) was used to teach the variable uses of indicative and subjunctive in adjectival relative clauses (Busco unas tijeras que cortan/corten). Students had to create their own models and use them to complete a series of assignments in class and at home. Production and interpretation exercises were used in pre- and post-test questionnaires to gauge their improvement. Feedback questionnaires were administered three weeks after the intervention to measure the attitudes and perceptions towards the use of didactic models. Results indicate that both groups improved their indicative/subjunctive interpretation and production abilities after MCE. However, statistically significant differences exist between HL and L2 students according to type of task and student group. Feedback questionnaire results also show that MCE was regarded as positive and useful by both groups.

Mood Selection in Relative Clauses by French–Spanish Bilinguals: Contrasts and Similarities between L2 and Heritage Speakers

In this paper, we explore three issues related to the acquisition of mood selection in Spanish relative clauses by second language (L2) and heritage (HL) speakers of Spanish: (1) whether HL speakers are more native-like than L2 learners; (2) whether the speakers’ performance differs depending on task modality (written vs. oral), since HL speakers are known to perform better in oral tasks and L2 learners tend to do better in written tasks; and (3) whether knowledge of French as an L1/dominant language (DL) has an impact on the acquisition of Spanish subjunctive, since both languages include this mood in their grammars, but it is used more productively in Spanish. Results from a sentence combination felicity task (SCFT) in Spanish—in written and oral forms—and a written elicited production task (EPT) in French, administered to advanced L2 and HL speakers of Spanish whose L1/DL is French and two monolingual (Spanish and French) control groups, revealed that L2 learners pattern more closely with the control group than HL speakers in the SCFT, both written and orally. In the EPT, all bilingual speakers display higher levels of subjunctive use than the control group, showing a potential influence from the L2/weaker language on the L1/DL.