Influence of Writing Instruction on Spanish Heritage Learners in Heritage-Only and Mixed Courses: A Longitudinal Study

Irati Hurtado,Kacie Gastañaga

doi:10.3390/languages6020109

Abstract

University Spanish courses designed specifically for heritage language learners (HLLs) are becoming more common, and researchers have indicated that empirical research is needed to evaluate their effectiveness. This longitudinal study investigates the writing development of 24 HLLs as a result of instruction over the course of the semester. Nine were enrolled in a heritage-only section of a Spanish composition course, and the remainder were from mixed HL/L2 sections of the same course. Both section types were taught online. The major assignments the students produced were two 500-word essays, and students also completed bi-weekly forum posts. We examined the development of lexical density, sophistication, and diversity as well as syntactic complexity and accuracy by comparing each student’s first and final essay and forum posts. Findings indicate that there were significant differences between the scores received on the forum posts in comparison to the essays. However, there were no significant developmental differences in terms of group. Implications, avenues for future research, and pedagogical suggestions are discussed.

Highlights

While the body of research on the effectiveness of instruction for heritage language learners (HLLs) is steadily growing, there are still many areas of instructed heritage language acquisition (IHLA) left to explore
This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of writing instruction for HLLs by measuring the development of lexical density, lexical diversity, and lexical sophistication as well as syntactic complexity and accuracy in the writing of HLLs of Spanish over the course of one semester (16 weeks)
This study examined the effect of writing instruction on a group of 24 HLLs, some of them enrolled in a heritage-only section (n = 9) and the remainder enrolled in mixed HL/L2 sections (n = 15)

Summary

Introduction

While the body of research on the effectiveness of instruction for heritage language learners (HLLs) is steadily growing, there are still many areas of instructed heritage language acquisition (IHLA) left to explore. Writing development is one of the realms of IHLA in which there is a particular dearth of research. This is troublesome, as surveys have found writing to be the language skill that HLLs most hope to improve when they take language classes (Carreira and Kagan 2011). At the same time that universities are working to create courses or even whole tracks for HLLs due to their unique language skills and backgrounds, they must respond to the growing demand for online courses, making research on online language learning for HLLs vitally important. We measured the development of their writing over the course of one semester of instruction using lexical measures, syntactic measures, and measures of accuracy

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion