Scroll, Copy and Paste: Students of Spanish Searching for Information Online

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study foreign language students’ agency when searching for specific information online in Spanish. The research questions ask: How do students surf the web when searching for specific information in a work session about Spanish speaking countries? What surfing choices are made?How are digital resources present in the students’ searching and learning process within their session?What do the digital resources used in this learning situation offer? A web-searching task was formed in cooperation with two Spanish teachers. Data collected and analyzed from the two students include screen cast recordings, prompted interviews and video film. Data was analyzed and discussed within the field of Designs for Learners, stressing the role of student agency. Some results show that the students ”look at” rather than ”read” the texts; the idea that they visit web sites comes to mind. They emphasize work product rather than work process, work fast, multitask and select/copy/paste. They often listen to music, look for headlines rather than to use web site menus and find it difficult to evaluate sources. They choose various sources such as text sites, Wikipedia, image banks or travel agency sites in different languages. Other resources used were translation and vocabulary services, quick commands, copy and paste. They do not use the teacher or any non-digital resources. Key words: student agency, information searching, foreign language studies