The Relationship between Social Identity and Foreign Language Learning Motivation: The Sustainability of Heritage Language Learners

This study aimed to explore the relationship between social identity and language learning motivations of a group of heritage Spanish language learners in a university environment in the United States. Based on the qualitative research inquiry with semi-structured interview and focus group activity tools, a group of 78 Spanish language learners in one university environment in the United States were surveyed. Under the open-coding and axial-coding techniques, the finding of this study indicated that the three main motivations were Latinx Americans with dual identities, interests in career development, and surrounding environments and individuals. Department heads, non-profit organisation managers, and researchers may use this study as the blueprint to reform and polish the current foreign language teaching and learning programmes, courses, and policies to meet the expectations of multilingualism.

An exploratory study on pro-drop in a written description task in L2 Spanish

The present article aims at investigating the pro-drop phenomenon in L2 Spanish. The phenomenon of pro-drop or null subject is a typological feature of some languages, which are characterized by an implicit subject in cases of topic continuity. More specifically, behaviour regarding subject (dis)continuity in Spanish differs from French. This paper will offer a contrastive analysis on subject realisation by French learners of L2 Spanish compared to L1 Spanish speakers. So, the goal of this pilot study is to see if a different functioning in pro-drop in the mother tongue also influences the L2. The study is based upon a written description task presented to the two groups of participants: the experimental group of French mother tongue L2 Spanish language learners and the control group of Spanish native speakers.

A Pedagogical Perspective on the Acquisition of Spanish Writing and Speaking Skills

The research study aimed to deliver a pedagogical perspective on the acquisition of Spanish writing and speaking skills. A research study prospect and methodological schemes in association with the objective of the study has been charted. The study has used the mixed method approach for the collection of data and its analysis. The outcome revealed that the acquisition of the Spanish language writing and speaking skills could be enhanced, empowered and partially retained as a result of using an array of approaches based on delivering phrases and sentence constructions into Spanish written and spoken dialogues and paragraph contexts. It also showed that this practice tends to infuse cognitive skills and developing language competences among Spanish language learners up beginner’s level whose second language is English. The present study is very valuable for Spanish/English bilingual language teachers to deliver assignments based on the acquisition of Spanish writing and speaking skills.

Orthography Analysis-Spanish Graphical Accentuation Setting

This research article is setting up an outlined-linguistic-overview regarding to the use of the “Tilde” in the writing context of Spanish Language. The study looked over various-literature-materials from different sources and added new-insights into its contextual framework to expose Spanish-language-Orthography such as Words-Type; Accents-Type; Vocabulary and Grammar-Patterns. The use of the “tilde” in teaching and learning Spanish as Second Foreign Language (ELE) continue to be a focus of concern and discussion among Spanish language teachers as well as the learners of this particular foreign language subject (FLs). Numerous studies have emphasized on the need to provide accuracy-learning-materials in relation to this orthography-linguistic-trait. Consequently to this observation, the study aimed to deliver valuable text-references through which Spanish language learners know about the application of the “Tilde” in the writing system of Spanish language. Furthermore, methodological schemes are provided to assist Spanish language teachers in formatting and delivering Spanish-language-assignments that fit into the subject-matter-discussed.

Assessing the effectiveness of a web-based tutorial for interlanguage pragmatic development prior to studying abroad

This manuscript reports the results of a research study that investigated the effect of a web-based tutorial (WBT) on 13 Spanish language learners’ pragmatic development during the semester prior to studying abroad in Spain. Students who anticipate living abroad with a host family may be particularly motivated to acquire pragmatic competence in order to better assimilate into the target language culture. The WBT was designed to teach the speech acts of complaints and requests to Spanish language learners whose first language is English. The content in the WBT is based upon available empirical evidence at the time of development. Data were collected at pretest and posttest and the analysis employed a mixed methods approach. The results revealed that the WBT was more effective with intermediate- than with novice-level learners of Spanish. In addition, learners’ comprehension gains were greater than their production gains. In other words, learners improved in their ability to recognize appropriate pragmatic strategy use; however, they still had difficulty producing pragmatically appropriate features after completing the WBT. It is possible that pragmatic awareness may precede learners’ ability to use appropriate pragmatic strategies in their linguistic output.

Methodological Considerations on the Design and Compilation of a Spanish Learner Corpus

As a corpus is a representation of the linguistic reality, it is important to have homogeneous, quantifiable and valid data. This article aims at discussing the issue of elaborating a corpus of oral data from language learners of Spanish. We hereby do not merely focus on the data collection, but also on the difficulties that arise regarding the experimental design, the selection of the participants, the elaboration of a transcription model and the analysis of the data. The discussion will be based upon our own research project, for which oral samples from Spanish language learners of different proficiency levels have been collected in order to be analysed cross-sectionally. Furthermore, this article focuses on the oral experiment specifically designed for this project, similar to those of previous studies on similar subjects. Next to this, we will also discuss the procedure used for the transcription of the data and finally, a codification system will be elaborated.

Manipulating task implementation variables with incipient Spanish language learners: A classroom-based study

A growing body of research has shown a positive role of task-supported instruction in second language (L2) learning (Ellis, 2003a; Loewen, 2015; Van Den Branden, 2006). From a pedagogical perspective, recycling or repeating parts of teaching materials is common practice and theoretical support for such practice is emerging (Bygate and Samuda, 2005). However, determining which aspects to repeat during task-supported interaction that fosters interaction-driven learning opportunities while maintaining student interest is currently underexplored. Further, few studies have considered learners’ perception during task completion. The current study thus examined the effects of task repetition on the production and resolution of language-related episodes (LREs) over time. English-speaking (first language, L1) students of Spanish (second language, L2) from two intact Spanish as a foreign language (FL) classroom ( n = 28) were assigned to one of the following task repetition groups: task with repetition (same task/same content) or task with procedural repetition (same task/new content). Learner–learner interaction produced during two-way decision-making tasks were transcribed and coded for LREs. Learner perception data was collected following task completion and analysed qualitatively. The results indicated that the task repetition had greater benefits on the occurrence and resolution of lexis-based LREs, but that both groups benefited similarly in terms of producing and resolving form-based LREs. Results are discussed in light of speech processing models and pedagogical implications for task-based instruction in FL settings are examined.