First and Second Language Acquisition Commons^™

Effectively Teaching A Second Language: Principles And Practices, Alexander Gatica

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is the amalgamation of the author’s research and experience during his time in the Master of Second Language Teaching program. The first section contains the Teaching Philosophy, which centers on applying effective teaching methods, increasing learner motivation, and incorporating technology into the classroom. The next section consists of three artifacts in which the author further investigates specific aspects of language teaching. The language paper focuses on the effect that identity has on motivation to learn a language. The literacy paper discusses how to increase vocabulary acquisition via a mobile-assisted language learning application called Duolingo. The culture paper addresses …

Culturally And Linguistically Humble: A Preparation For Living Abroad, Diana Gonzalez

Northwestern Review

Presented in 2016 at Baekseok University in Cheonan City, South Korea at the 8^th international conference of the International Association for the Promotion of Christian Higher Education (IAPCHE), this paper lays out the rationale for the approach taken in Northwestern College’s required preparations for students studying abroad. Elements in the preparation include getting students to identify influences on them of their home culture; to talk about their motivations and goals for studying abroad; to engage with Duane Elmer’s Cross-Cultural Connections and David Smith’s Learning from the Stranger; and perhaps most importantly, to engage with E. Hockett, L. Samek, …

Lengua Y Racismo-Motivación, Competencia Y Conciencia Lingüística En La Clase De Español Como Segunda Lengua: Integración De Contenidos Relacionados Con La Dimensión Socio-Política Del Lenguaje En Un Acercamiento Content-Based, Jose Magro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Dentro de un modelo de instrucción lingüística basado en la transmisión de contenidos (content-based instruction), esta disertación trata de averiguar cómo influye en la conciencia lingüística, motivación y competencia lingüística de estudiantes de cursos avanzados de español como segunda lengua, la integración en el programa de contenidos relacionados con la dimensión socio-política del lenguaje (CSP). Desde la perspectiva epistemológica de la lingüística crítica aplicada, se hará un estudio cualitativo apoyado con componentes cuantitativos. Se desarrollarán e integrarán en el programa del grupo experimental materiales con CSP destinados a observar si influyen en el desarrollo de una conciencia lingüística explícitamente antirracista, …

¿Vera O Verra? Using Principles Of Task-Based Language Teaching To Practice Spanish Rhotics, Avizia Long

Faculty Publications

Research on task-based language teaching and learning has demonstrated that tasks may encourage second/foreign language development, specifically by facilitating conditions believed to engage processes that are important for second language acquisition to occur (Robinson, 2011; Skehan, 2014). Recent studies conducted by Solon, Long, and Gurzynski-Weiss (2014, 2015) have demonstrated that tasks designed to make pronunciation task essential do encourage learner attention to pronunciation, and increasing task complexity leads to greater accuracy in the production of the Spanish vowels [o] and [u]. This micro-teaching lesson, inspired by Solon et al., will showcase a task designed to make the pronunciation of the …

Order Of Acquisition: A Comparison Of L1 And L2 English And Spanish Morpheme Acquisition, Kyle A. Mcferren

Senior Honors Theses

This paper examines the order of acquisition for grammatical morphemes in Spanish and English first and second language learners. Brown’s first morpheme order study, conducted in 1973, laid the foundation for what would become one of the most common types of study conducted within the field of second language acquisition. The four orders of acquisition relevant here are examined and compared in order to support the roles of salience, morphophonological regularity, complexity, input frequency, and native language transfer in first and/or second language acquisition. The conclusion is that these five determinants work interdependently in determining the difficulty of acquiring a …

The Effect Of Short-Term Study Abroad On Second Language Spanish Phonetic Development, Silvina Bongiovanni, Avizia Y. Long, Megan Solon, Erik Willis

Faculty Publications

This study explores the impact of study abroad (SA) on second language Spanish phonetic development. Twenty-seven English-speaking learners of Spanish, 15 who were participating in a 4-week SA program in the Dominican Republic and 12 who were studying at their home (AH) institution, were recorded 5 weeks apart (at the approximate beginning and end of their respective programs). Recordings were analyzed acoustically, and four groups of segments were examined: word-initial /p t k/, intervocalic /b d ɡ/, intervocalic /ɾ/ and /r/, and word-final /l/. Productions at Time 1 and Time 2 as well as between the SA and AH groups …

L2 Perception Of Spanish Palatal Variants Across Different Tasks, Christine Shea, Jeffrey Renaud

Spanish: Faculty Scholarship & Creative Works

While considerable dialectal variation exists, almost all varieties of Spanish exhibit some sort of alternation in terms of the palatal obstruent segments. Typically, the palatal affricate [ɟʝ] tends to occur in word onset following a pause and in specific linear phonotactic environments. The palatal fricative [ʝ] tends to occur in syllable onset in other contexts. We show that listeners’ perceptual sensitivity to the palatal alternation depends upon the task and exposure to Spanish input. For native Spanish listeners, the palatal alternation boosts segmentation accuracy on an artificial speech segmentation task and also reduces latencies on a phonotactically-conditioned elision task. L2 …

Maternal Perceptions Of Agency In Intergenerational Transmission Of Spanish: The Case Of Latinos In The U.S. Midwest, Isabel Velázquez

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

This article examines the ways in which a group of first-generation Latino immigrants to the U.S. Midwest conceptualized their role in their children’s bilingual development. Respondents were asked to identify the individuals or institutions on which their children’s language and academic development depended, as well as household practices perceived as conducive to Spanish maintenance, and perceived obstacles to their children’s use of Spanish in the domains of home, school, and community. Discussion centers on maternal perceptions of agency because of the centrality of the mother in intergenerational minority language transmission. It is argued here that immigrant mothers’ perceptions of agency …

Pedagogía De Hablantes De Herencia: Implicaciones Para El Entrenamiento De Instructores Al Nivel Universitario, Lina M. Reznicek-Parrado

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study researches the differences in pedagogical needs between learners of Spanish as a Foreign Language (FL learners) and learners of Spanish as a Heritage Language (HL learners) at the university level. By using the UNL Modern Languages and Literatures Department as an illustrative case and based on an analysis of the Heritage Language student profile in the context of the United States, this study seeks to explore arguments in favor of providing training for university-level instructors of Spanish that responds to the specific pedagogical needs of Heritage Language Learners.

The relevancy of this study is not only based on …

Aplicación Pedagógica De La Lingüística De Corpus A Una Clase De Gramática Avanzada De Español Como Segunda Lengua, Yanira B. Paz

Hispanic Studies Faculty Publications

Este estudio recoge las experiencias de la enseñanza de un curso de gramática avanzada de español como segunda lengua usando la lingüística de corpus (LC) como herramienta pedagógica. Si bien el uso pedagógico de LC en lenguas como el inglés ha sido ampliamente reportado, son escasos los estudios relacionados con el español. Como se desprenderá de estas experiencias, la LC permite el estudio de las estructuras de la lengua (objetivo de una clase de gramática avanzada) y, al mismo tiempo, permite ver estas estructuras y sus usos en producciones reales y naturales aparte de presentarlas en contextos textuales y culturales …

Aplicabilidad De La Tipología De Funciones Retóricas De Las Citas Al Género De La Memoria De Máster En Un Contexto Transcultural De Enseñanza Universitaria, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

The aim of this paper is to compare the rhetorical functions gathered from the citations of (14) fourteen master´s theses written by seven Spanish and seven Philippine authors. A typology of nine categories was used in order to identify the cultural rhetorical differences that exist in the use of citation from the contrast between contrasting this element in the Philippine and Spanish cultures. The methodology used is textual analysis of the linguistic context of these citations and its subsequent classification within these nine categories. The results show that there are quantitative and qualitative differences between the cultural conventions of citations …

Acquisition Of The Non-Generic Definite Article By Spanish Learners Of English As A Foreign Language, Christina Isabelli, Rachel Slough

Scholarship

This study explains the acquisition of the non-generic uses of the English definite article the by L2 learners. Chilean university students completed a questionnaire containing deleted obligatory uses of the. in all, four identified categories showed to have different accuracy rates. Of the four categories, the one most similar to the L1 was the least difficult to acquire while the most different resulted as the most difficult. This concurs with other research and can be explained by L1 rules that are transferred to the L2. The other two categories did not show the same acquisition rate as compared to previous …

Observing Census Enumeration Of Non-English Speaking Households In The 2010 Census: Spanish Report, Christina Isabelli, Yuling Pan, Lubkemann Stephen

Scholarship

This study was part of an ethnographic research project in the 2010 Census Assessment and Research Program to observe the 2010 Census Nonresponse Followup interviews with households that speak a language other than English, in areas of the U.S. with heavy concentrations of residents with limited English proficiency. A multilingual research team consisting of seven sub-teams in the seven primary languages (Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese) was commissioned to carry out the research in the 2010 Census.

The objectives of this research were to identify: (1) how language and socio-cultural factors affect the enumeration of non-English-speaking populations …

Acquisition Of Spanish Gender Agreement In Two Learning Contexts: Study Abroad And At Home., Christina Isabelli

Scholarship

The goal of this study is to describe the acquisition rate for gender acquisition in Spanish and to show whether individual variability and language contact may affect this rate. The participants were intermediate second language Spanish (first language English) learners in the study abroad and at-home contexts over a 4-month period. The participants received grammaticality judgment tests coded for morphological class of the modified noun as well as attributive and predicative adjectives. Data were also collected on social behavior and language contact in Spanish and English in order to explain data outcome. The findings suggest that no difference exists between …

El Análisis De Errores Ortográficos De Estudiantes Filipinos En El Aprendizaje De Español Como Le Y Su Aplicación Didáctica, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

La presente investigación fue presentada en 2006 en la Universidad de Salamanca, como memoria final del Máster en Enseñanza de Español como Lengua Extranjera. Este estudio se realizó en la Universidad de Filipinas y en el Instituto Cervantes de Manila, para el que se encuestó a un total de 258 informantes. La tesis principal de la investigación partía de la hipótesis de que los errores ortográficos cometidos por los estudiantes filipinos de español eran fruto de unas dificultades específicas que no coincidían con las causas de los errores ortográficos que generan este tipo de error en los estudiantes nativos, especialmente …

La Clasificación De Los Hablantes De Herencia De Español En Los Eeuu: Generación, Simplificación Modal Y Mantenimiento Del Español, Maria Martinez-Mira

Modern Languages & Literatures Articles

A study of the” Enciclopedia del español en el mundo: Anuario 2006-7 " carried out by the Cervantes Institute (http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/anuario/anuario_06-07/lengua.htm) presents a comprehensive picture for the future and development of the Spanish language in the world and in the United States in particular. According to the data provided by Cervantes, approximately 14 million people study Spanish in the world, of which 6 million study Spanish in the United States. It is precisely in this country that the study and presence of the Spanish language has a special significance.

NOTE: This abstract is a translation from the original Spanish

Phonological Facilitation Through Translation In A Bilingual Picture-Naming Task, Paul Amrhein, Aimee Knupsky

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

We present a critical examination of phonological effects in a picture-word interference task. Using a methodology minimizing stimulus repetition, English/Spanish and Spanish/English bilinguals named pictures in either L1 or L2 (blocked contexts) or in both (mixed contexts) while ignoring word distractors in L1 or L2. Distractors were either phonologically related to the picture name (direct; FISH–fist), or related through translation to the picture name (TT; LEG–milk–leche), or they were unrelated (bear–peach). Results demonstrate robust activation of phonological representations by translation equivalents of word distractors. Although both direct and TT distractors facilitated naming, TT facilitation was more consistent in L2 naming …

Health Perceptions Of Low-Income, Immigrant Spanish-Speaking Latinas In The United States., Donna Hartweg, Christina Isabelli

Scholarship

The health outcomes and health practices of immigrant Latinas tend to decrease with acculturation to U.S. culture. The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate health perceptions of first- and second generation, low-income, Spanish-speaking women from Mexico and Central America to learn their views of health and also to identify any differences between subcultures. This investigation was the first phase of a larger study to understand the relationship of physical activity to health, as Latinas define it. Seven focus groups were conducted in Spanish with women, ages 25 to 64, by country of origin. Fifteen themes emerged, with more …

Study Abroad Social Networks, Motivation And Attitudes: Implications For Second Language Acquisition., Christina Isabelli

Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Asynchronous Computer Mediated Communication On Enhancing Cultural Awareness, Elizabeth Zeiss, Christina Isabelli

Scholarship

This study investigates the effect of CMC participation on language learners’ willingness to learn more about the target culture through study abroad. Also, it seeks to discern whether CMCactivities improve language learners’ self-perception that they have learned more about the target culture. An experimental group of 23 U.S. university students engaged in CMC with Mexican university students with a control group of 38 students from the U.S. university. We administered a questionnaire grouped thematically around seven topics. The data suggest that CMC may have a more positive effect on the acquisition of cultural awareness of students that engage in CMC …

Dilemmas Of Politics And Spontaneity In The Contemporary Teaching Of Languages “La Sal De La Vida”, Patricia Pedroza

MA TESOL Collection

This document describes my philosophy of teaching. My primary interests are in Pedagogical Psychodrama and Feminist Pedagogy. This document is a compilation of my experiences, insights, and dilemmas in my practice of teaching Spanish as a second language and also in teaching feminist classes.

Development Of Oral Communication Skills Abroad., Christina Isabelli

Scholarship

This study examines the impact of a semester study abroad experience in Argentina on the second language acquisition of three American university Spanish learners. The goal is to measure development of two aspects of oral communication skills: fluency and performance in the oral functions of narration, and description and supporting an opinion.