Spanish Learners Research Articles

Spanish for Veterinarians Part 2: A Survey Gauging Student Perspectives on a Profession-Specific Language Learning Experience.

This article describes the distribution and results of a survey that was disseminated among students enrolled in Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) programs in the United States. It is a critical component to a substantial effort being undertaken at Colorado State University (CSU) to overhaul their current Spanish for Veterinarians offerings (outlined and discussed in Spanish for Veterinarians Part 1: An Approach to Weaving Spanish Language Education into DVM Curricula) into a cohesive Spanish language program that offers consistent synchronous exposure to the language and guided practice over several semesters of instruction. The information obtained in this survey informs on veterinary student interest in and availability to engage in Spanish coursework created specifically for the veterinary field, as well as students' previous Spanish language learning experience. Additionally, it investigates the reasons motivating students' desire to participate in a Spanish for Veterinarians program, and their expectations and perspectives about receiving credit and paying for enrollment. It also includes students' online learning preferences and overall suggestions for optimal engagement in a Spanish language learning experience offered during DVM School. The anonymous results indicated that most respondents had taken Spanish only in high school, followed by those with one or two college-level courses. Interest in learning Spanish for the veterinary field is high and most students are willing to dedicate 2 to 4 hours weekly to language learning. This information guides curricular design decisions for a new Spanish for Veterinarians program that is currently being developed at CSU.

Assessing the use of self–regulatory oral communication strategies by Polish learners of Spanish: The feasibility of adapting the OCSI

Language learning strategies (LLS) have evolved from a research construct approached mostly from a functional perspective to one which is investigated in specific contexts of particular skills, subsystems, and types of learners. Moreover, LLS use has been linked to self-regulated learning. From this angle, language learners may be approached as individuals resorting to various ways of enhancing their performance across macro- and micro-skills. Among them, oral communication strategies (OCS) are essential because they directly affect the effectiveness of interaction and, consequently, determine how much the learners themselves may benefit from it in terms of progress. Among inventories developed to assess the use of OCS, the Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI, Nakatani, 2006) is particularly appealing. First, it was developed on a basis of two consecutive studies, one of which was based on insights from a large sample of learners. Second, its scales were distinguished by means of robust factor analysis. For these reasons, it has been used in studies into foreign language learners’ use of OCS (e.g., Pawlak, 2015, 2018). This notwithstanding, apart from the investigation by Yaman and Kavasoğlu (2013), no studies relying on the OCSI (Nakatani, 2006) discuss its adaptability to local conditions in terms of its fulfilment of goodness criteria for psychometric tests. Attempting to bridge this gap in research, the present paper considers the feasibility of adapting the OCSI to assess OCS use by Polish learners of Spanish in extended curriculum settings. Overall, the results of the study show that after some minor adjustments, the inventory may be used as a reliable and valid instrument.

Second Language Acquisition and Cross-Cultural Awareness Using Flipgrid in Higher Education

The use of Flipgrid as a platform that can contribute to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has been understudied. The bibliographic and descriptive research presented in this article seeks to review past investigations on Flipgrid to date. The article also describes and evaluates the implementation of this tool through a pedagogical project to record and share videos, as well as to provide peer feedback. A total of 47 undergraduate learners of Spanish and English as a foreign language in the United States and Spain participated in this project, which focused on the topic of applying for a job. Following a mixed-methods approach, a bibliometric analysis across Scopus and Web of Science databases was conducted and performance indicators of four project tasks uploaded to Flipgrid were examined. Finally, evaluation questionnaires completed by 46 participants were analyzed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics. Qualitative data was processed through content analysis and categorization. The results confirm that language learners’ engagement and peer feedback were effectively fostered, and that the advantages of using Flipgrid to promote SLA clearly outweigh the disadvantages.

CONSTRAINTS IN LEARNING SPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: A MIXED-METHOD STUDY

This study aimed to explore the constraints faced by students in learning a foreign language at Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges. The researchers formulated two main questions in this study: (1) What are the constraints in learning Spanish as a Foreign language learning in terms of (a) learning differences, (b) learning language material resources, and (c) classroom activities?; (2) What are the factors that affect the constraints in learning Spanish along with (a) learning differences, (b) learning language material resources, and (c) classroom activities? To answer the research questions, the researchers utilized a mixed-method research design. The researchers used a survey questionnaire for the data gathering. The researchers tabulated and calculated the weighted mean of each student‟s perception based on the questionnaire result given to them. Moreover, the researchers interviewed students chosen based on the criterion to triangulate the study results. In addition, thematic analysis was used to analyze the collected data from the transcribed interviews. Research ethics was properly observed during data collection. Furthermore, the findings showed that the constraints faced by the students in Spanish language learning are negative attitude, low motivation, usage of the different learning styles of students, ineffective language material resources, and classroom activities giving less opportunity for students to practice or perform their Spanish speaking skills. The results also revealed the factorsthat cause these constraints.

Engaging lower proficiency learners of Spanish in collaborative writing tasks

Abstract This study examines the influence of task complexity on collaborative dialogue and written texts with lower proficiency learners of Spanish. English-speaking students of Spanish from two intact classrooms (N = 24) were assigned to a simple or a complex writing group. In dyads, learners completed two information-exchange tasks that differed in complexity and produced two collaborative texts, on two separate days. Interactions produced during the writing tasks were transcribed and coded for collaborative dialogue, operationalized as language-related episodes. Written texts were rated holistically for originality, engageability, and quality. Results show that collaborative dialogue about lexis was most frequent, regardless of the task complexity. Further, increases in task complexity appeared to have influenced opportunities for collaborative dialogue and for the production of more engaging texts. Results are discussed in light of current scholarship on collaborative writing and insights are offered on the value of implementing writing tasks with lower proficiency learners.

The effects of frequency, duration, and intensity on L2 learning through Duolingo

Abstract Instructed second language (L2) research has frequently addressed the effects of spacing, or, alternatively, the distribution of practice effects. The present study addresses Rogers and Cheung’s (2021) concerns about the ecological validity of such work via a natural experiment (Craig et al., 2017). Learners’ self-determined exposure and in-app behavior were examined in relation to language gains over time. Duolingo learners of Spanish or French (N = 287) completed a background questionnaire, scales measuring L2 motivation and grit, and two tests of L2 proficiency before and after a six-month period of user-controlled app usage. Total minutes of app exposure exhibited a correlation with written but not oral proficiency gains. More dependable correlates of gains were frequency- and curriculum-oriented measures. Additionally, L2 grit and motivation were weakly to moderately correlated with several in-app behaviors. We conclude with implications for how apps can best be leveraged to produce L2 gains.

Use of word lists in a high‐stakes, low‐exposure context: Topic‐driven or frequency‐informed

AbstractThe awarding organizations that create and administer high‐stakes assessments for beginner‐to‐low‐intermediate 16‐year‐old learners of French, German, and Spanish in England provide optional topic‐driven word lists as guides for teachers and textbook writers. Given that these lists are developed by the awarding organizations, they exert a powerful washback effect on teaching and learning. However, we do not know how much of these lists have actually been used in exams. We therefore analyzed the extent to which these lists have been used when developing the General Certificate of Secondary Education listening and reading exams, a corpus totaling 116,647 words. One key finding showed that approximately half of the awarding organizations’ lists had never been used in any of the exams to date. Given recent changes to curriculum policy, we also investigated how word list type—frequency‐informed versus the awarding organizations’ topic‐driven lists—affected lexical coverage of the exams. Overall, our findings suggested that using the topic‐driven lists was likely to be a suboptimal use of lesson time, as they did not provide learners with enough words to understand any given text with ease. Frequency‐informed word lists, however, seemed to better prepare learners for the exams.

Native and foreign language orthotactic probability and neighborhood density in word learning

Abstract Laboratory studies on word learning in a foreign language (L2) have identified several variables involved in the learning process, key amongst them the orthotactic probability and neighborhood density of new words relative to learners’ native (L1) lexicons. More recently, learners’ sensitivity to orthotactic probability and neighborhood density relative to their developing L2 lexicons has come into focus. Past studies on word learning have largely focused on early stages of learning, in controlled studies spanning hours or days. Few studies have considered large corpora of ‘real-life’ learning data, spanning several weeks. In this study, we validate past findings outside of controlled laboratory conditions, by analyzing a dataset collected from Duolingo (Settles et al., 2018), a popular language learning app. Effects of orthotactic probability and neighborhood density observed in controlled studies persist under uncontrolled, big-data conditions for learners of Spanish, but not French. As learning progresses, we observe a previously unreported reversal of the effects of L1 orthotactic probability and neighborhood density, challenging theoretical models of word learning. Finally, we confirm the importance of orthotactic probability and neighborhood density relative to learners’ developing L2 Spanish lexicons, lending support to theories which posit that the same processes underly both L1 and L2 acquisition.

Using intonation to disambiguate meaning: The role of empathy and proficiency in L2 perceptual development

AbstractThe present study investigates the interplay between proficiency and empathy in the development of second language (L2) prosody by analyzing the perception and processing of intonation in questions and statements in L2 Spanish. A total of 225 adult L2 Spanish learners (L1 English) from the Northeastern United States completed a two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) task in which they listened to four utterance types and categorized them as either questions or statements. We used Bayesian multilevel regression and drift diffusion modeling to analyze the 2AFC data as a function of proficiency level and empathy scores for each utterance type. We show that learner response accuracy and sensitivity to intonation are positively correlated with proficiency, and this association is affected by individual empathy levels in both response accuracy and sentence processing. Higher empathic individuals, in comparison with lower empathic individuals, appear to be more sensitive to intonation cues in the process of forming sound-meaning associations, though increased sensitivity does not necessarily imply increased processing speed. The results motivate the inclusion of measures of pragmatic skill, such as empathy, to better account for intonational meaning processing and sentence comprehension in second language acquisition.

The effects of distributed versus massed corrective feedback on the acquisition of Spanish differential object marking

AbstractThis study compares the effects of distributed versus massed corrective feedback (CF) on Spanish differential object marking (DOM). Forty‐eight Spanish learners completed three communicative tasks with a researcher on three consecutive days, one task per day. Partial recasts were used to reformulate DOM errors. The distributed group (n = 16) received feedback in all three tasks. The massed group (n = 16) received feedback in the last task. The control group (n = 16) received no feedback. The total amount of CF provided to the two CF groups was controlled. Learners completed oral production and grammaticality judgment pre, post, and delayed posttests. Results showed that the massed group scored significantly higher than the control group across test types and times. However, the distributed group scored significantly higher than the control group only on the immediate and delayed oral production tests. We argue that the temporal contiguity, intensity, and consistency of feedback instances in the massed condition might be responsible for the relative superiority of the massed CF.

A call for critical and open pedagogies in Spanish heritage language instruction: Students as knowledge producers of Open Educational Resources (OERs)

This paper stresses the urgent need to implement critical and open pedagogies in language teaching, especially in the Spanish heritage language classroom. Language courses are often compulsory in secondary and higher education and typically employ traditional pedagogical models that are structured by grammar and/or communication tasks. This study introduces how heritage language teaching emerged as a field of study in the United States and offers a brief overview of critical and open pedagogies and their connection to open educational resources. This paper then introduces critical and open pedagogies to teaching Spanish as a heritage language, followed by a critical look at the existing Spanish teaching material. As an alternative to this material, this article shares a project titled “Discovering El Barrio” which addresses an innovative and productive pedagogical practice carried out by a Spanish heritage language class at Lehman College, CUNY. In this project, Spanish heritage language learners (HLL) became producers of authentic teaching and learning materials for second language (L2) Spanish learners.

Measuring the development of lexical richness of L2 Spanish: A longitudinal learner corpus study

AbstractResearch has indicated that lexical richness is an important indicator of second language (L2) proficiency. However, most research has examined written, cross-sectional English L2 corpora and does not necessarily indicate how spoken lexical use develops over time or whether observed trends are stable across L2s. This study adds to previous research on the development of spoken vocabulary by investigating lexical features of L2 Spanish learners over a 21-month period, using the LANGSNAP corpus. Multiple lexical richness indices used in previous studies were examined including lexical diversity, word frequency, word concreteness, and bigram strength of association. Linear mixed-effects models were run to examine changes over time. The results suggest that although some features of lexical richness (e.g., word frequency) see meaningful change over time, others (e.g., bigram T score) may not be indicative of L2 oral development.

Speaking anxiety and task complexity effects on second language speech

AbstractThe association between speaking anxiety and L2 speech production, including L2 pronunciation, remains largely under‐researched, especially in relation to task complexity. The present study investigates the effect of task complexity on speaking anxiety and their impact on specific dimensions of L2 speech production: speaking fluency (speed, breakdown, and repair) and accuracy (grammar, lexis and pronunciation); and global assessments of L2 speaking performance: accentedness and comprehensibility. Forty‐two Spanish learners of English performed simple and complex versions of a monologic oral narrative task. The results indicated that task complexity affected learners’ anxiety levels and was detrimental to their L2 speaking fluency, pronunciation accuracy, and accentedness. Moreover, higher self‐perceived anxiety was associated with lower breakdown fluency and less lexico‐grammatical accuracy. Last, once the contributions of L2 proficiency and working memory were controlled for, anxiety accounted for a significant 13%–15% of variance in breakdown fluency.

Prosody of Preferred and Dispreferred Speech Acts: L2 Spanish Learners’ Intonation and Fluency in Acceptances and Refusals

Abstract This exploratory study examined L2 Spanish learners’ tone choices and oral fluency when producing preferred and dispreferred speech acts, specifically acceptances and refusals. Participants were 27 college students enrolled in intermediate-level Spanish classes. They completed a video-based speaking task that elicited four acceptances and four refusals in response to imaginary scenarios (two status-equal and two status-unequal scenarios for refusals and acceptances, respectively). After reading a scenario, they watched a short video depicting the scenario and then produced an acceptance or refusal directed to the person in the video. All responses were recorded and analyzed using the Spanish Tones and Break Indices framework (Sp_ToBI; Estebas-Vilaplana and Prieto, 2009). Participants’ tone choices (rising or falling) and speech rate (average number of words spoken per minute) were analyzed and compared between acceptances and refusals. There was a tendency of the participants using more rising tone and less falling tone in refusals in comparison to their acceptances. Similarly, there was a tendency of them speaking more slowly in refusals than acceptances. However, these tendencies were not statistically significant, indicating that intermediate-level learners were not able to differentiate intonation and fluency between preferred and dispreferred speech acts.

Phonetic variation in Italian L2: An acoustic analysis of sibilant fricatives in the speech of L1 Spanish learners


 
 The present study investigates the acoustic features of Italian sibilant fricatives (/s/, /z/ and /ʃ/) in the speech of L1 Spanish learners. Segmental duration, degree of voicing and place of articulation of learners’ productions are analysed alongside those of a control group of L1 Italian speakers to investigate the fine-grained phonetic differences between native and non-native pronunciation. Results from a quantitative analysis suggest that factors such as the degree of typological markedness of the phoneme and the influence of the L1 in perception and production affect L2 pronunciation to a different extent for each of the target sounds.
 

Phonic mitigation markers for disagreement in interviews of university learners of Spanish as foreign language

Abstract In previous studies of the mitigators that occur when a speaker wants to show disagreement with his or her interlocutor, morphosyntactic markers occupy the most relevant part. In oral communication, however, phonic markers play a central role. This research presents the analysis of these markers in a corpus of interviews with B1 level university exchange students (CEFR). The aim is to check for the presence of phonic attenuation markers when foreign students express a divergent opinion in Spanish from that expressed by the native speaker. The analysis leads to a categorization of these markers and attempts to provide empirical basis for a better understanding of the phonic markers in the academic interlanguage.

Acquisition of estar + adjective in L2 Spanish by L1 French and Portuguese speakers

Abstract This paper reports the developmental stages of the acquisition of estar in stage-level predicate constructions in the L2 Spanish grammar of native speakers of French and Portuguese. Copular verbs exist in the L1s of both learner groups; however, only in Portuguese is there an aspectual contrast, with copula selection conditions that partially differ from those of ser and estar in Spanish. The study used data extracted from the Corpus de Aprendices de Español (CAES), made up of written texts produced by L2 Spanish learners from CEFR A1 to C1 levels. We attempt to analyse whether, and to what degree, these L2 learners are sensitive to estar copula restrictions in adjective constructions. Our analysis of the written production of 143 L1 French speakers and 361 L1 Portuguese speakers showed differing acquisitional patterns depending on the L1. We consider that the estar overextension, found in the learners’ productions, is related to the process of developing the ability to identify the specific features that distinguish the use of copular verbs in the interlanguage of our learners. Our findings, thus, provide a more fine-grained description of the semantic representation and access of interpretable features in L2 Spanish with special relevance to current hypotheses on Second Language Acquisition such as the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere 2009).

Experiences of African American Spanish Learners in the US: mitigating racialization and fostering belonging through an inclusive curriculum

ABSTRACT This study investigates experiences and investments in Spanish language learning among African American graduates of a university in the southeastern US. In response to evidence of African American underrepresentation in this field, findings will forward those factors which may encourage advanced Spanish study and create a sense of belonging as learners and speakers. Data emerges from eight language learning autobiographies, each written by a self-identifying African American who completed a Spanish major or minor at university. Inductive coding and narrative analysis methods yield the following themes: (1) Limited family/community connections to TL speakers, but wide family interest/support for language learning; (2) Inspiring teachers, formal learning environments, and content, but with significant content omissions; (3) Navigation of racialization in classrooms and TL communities and (4) Learning Spanish shapes career paths, provides empowerment and self-understanding. Findings ultimately suggest that family support and positive experiences during formal learning can encourage continued study, and some learners navigate acute obstacles relating to racialization. The data further evidences the necessity for culturally relevant and social justice pedagogies which facilitate inclusive learning communities and curricular revision. Such revisions would include content representative of African-descended people, histories, and cultures; and an understanding of racialization in the Spanish-speaking world.

Peer-feedback of an occluded genre in the Spanish language classroom: A case study

Learning how to write occluded genres is an elusive task (Swales, 1996) – even more so in the case of students writing in a second or additional language. To achieve discourse competence in the use of one of these genres, in this case the ‘statement of purpose’ typical of post-graduate programme admission forms, it is first necessary to fully understand its features at both the macrotextual and microlinguistic levels (Gillaerts, 2003; Bhatia, 2004). This qualitative study focuses on the writing of learners of Spanish as an additional language to analyse whether feedback provided by peers impacts the quality of the statements of purpose they write. Through a dual discourse analysis of their written work and in-class interactions during peer- feedback sessions, our study finds that, when properly trained and using tailored assessment tools, students can use peer-assessment profitably to improve the quality of their statements of purpose, as well as to acquire appropriate metalanguage to guide others. Our results thus reconfirm the beneficial effects of helping students to achieve feedback literacy.

New in, old out: Does learning a new language make you forget previously learned foreign languages?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that learning a new foreign language (FL) makes you forget previously learned FLs. To seek empirical evidence for this claim, we tested whether learning words in a previously unknown L3 hampers subsequent retrieval of their L2 translation equivalents. In two experiments, Dutch native speakers with knowledge of English (L2), but not Spanish (L3), first completed an English vocabulary test, based on which 46 participant-specific, known English words were chosen. Half of those were then learned in Spanish. Finally, participants' memory for all 46 English words was probed again in a picture naming task. In Experiment 1, all tests took place within one session. In Experiment 2, we separated the English pre-test from Spanish learning by a day and manipulated the timing of the English post-test (immediately after learning vs. 1 day later). By separating the post-test from Spanish learning, we asked whether consolidation of the new Spanish words would increase their interference strength. We found significant main effects of interference in naming latencies and accuracy: Participants speeded up less and were less accurate to recall words in English for which they had learned Spanish translations, compared with words for which they had not. Consolidation time did not significantly affect these interference effects. Thus, learning a new language indeed comes at the cost of subsequent retrieval ability in other FLs. Such interference effects set in immediately after learning and do not need time to emerge, even when the other FL has been known for a long time.