Heritage Language Learners and Spanish for Specific Purposes: Bridging the Gap through Community Service Learning

The growth in the number of Spanish heritage language learners in languages for specific purposes classes has been accompanied by an increase in the number and types of community service learning programs in which these students can participate to better prepare them for future employment opportunities. In spite of the increase in the number of Spanish heritage language learners in the languages for specific purposes classroom, few studies have looked at these students in this setting and even fewer have looked at the role that community service learning can play in developing these learners’ domain-specific abilities. Through an analysis of research in the areas of heritage language learners, Spanish for specific purposes, and community service learning, this article discusses strategies to effectively teach Spanish heritage language learners in language for specific purposes classes and to develop their language and cultural knowledge through community service learning. In addition, we address many of the challenges that arise when connecting Spanish heritage language learners with community partners as well as the obstacles to the integration of community service learning into the Spanish for specific purposes curriculum. The article concludes providing suggestions on how community service can be used to help Spanish heritage language learners not only see the benefits of language for specific purposes courses but also transfer their skills to other fields of study

Practicing Professionalism in Spanish for Specific Purposes Courses: Learning Objectives and Professional Interpersonal Communication

This article builds on an articulation of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages’ (ACTFL) communication standards, namely interpersonal communication, to stress the importance of prioritizing students’ interactive and communicative skills in Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP) courses. The authors examine, through an exploratory analysis of open-access SSP syllabi, how instructors align the practice of interpersonal communication skills with course learning objectives

Spanish for Emergency Room Nursing: A Task-Based Needs Analysis for a Languages for Specific Purposes Context

Language barriers in medical settings can impede access to healthcare and increase the risk of medical error for limited English proficiency (LEP) patients, especially in emergency situations (Bender et al., 2004: Martinez, 2010). Nurses who are competent in their patient’s first language can decrease the risk of these issues and care more effectively for their LEP patients (Altstaedter, 2017; Fernandez et al., 2011). However, general foreign language courses do not prepare students for communication in medical settings, and there are few language courses specifically for emergency room (ER) nurses (Amerson & Burgins, 2005; Hardin, 2015). This dissertation will present the results of a study drawing on Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) and Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) to conduct a task-based needs analysis (NA) to 1) determine the Spanish language needs of primarily English-speaking emergency room nurses in the Southeastern US and 2) inform the design of a potential Spanish for ER Nursing course. This mixed-methods study included three phases of both data collection and analysis, adapted from Serafini and Torres (2015) and Malicka et al. (2019). In Phase 1, a variety of open-ended measures were used to determine tasks common in ER settings as reported by each type of participant. In Phase 2, participants rated the frequency and importance of these tasks. In Phase 3, the participants reviewed the list of tasks in follow-up interviews. Results are presented as a series of tasks performed in the ER context, ranked according to frequency and importance. This study adds to existing LSP research that has to date been limited regarding studies in non-English contexts and improves upon methodological limitations in previous studies that have used a NA. The findings of this study will inform future curricular decisions in a Spanish for ER nursing course as well as address the healthcare inequalities experienced by LEP patients

Community Service-Learning Translations in a Legal Spanish Course

There is growing interest in including service-learning courses in higher education, and abundant literature exists on this subject. Less researched is binomial service learning, specifically related to civic learning and legal translation. Studies on the goals of combining foreign language instruction with civic participation in the Hispanic community through translation have revealed very positive outcomes. This paper presents two different community-related translation activities in a Spanish course for specific purposes (specifically, Legal Spanish), and the corresponding students’ reflections. One is related to El Salvador and to asylum and refugee claims in the US, while the other is linked to a Health Center in Trenton, NJ. The conclusion summarizes the results and evaluates their significance in the context of community-learning service and their success in bringing students closer to a reality that is far beyond their context, while critically thinking about justice-related issues

Promoting development education in Spanish engineering studies, a comprehensive strategy from the non governmental fiels based on a collabroative approach with the univesity

The main goal of this paper is to present the conce pt of ‘Technology for Human Development’ (THD) as a conceptual and particular f ramework for promoting ‘Development Education’ (DE) programmes in engineer ing curricula. The proposal is based on the accumulated experience of the Spanish federation of Engineering Without Borders (ISF-Spain) since the mid-nineties, when th e first specific proposals were consolidated, as well as the on-going work promoted by the network. Remarkably, ‘THD’ constitute a general framework not only for e ducational purposes but also for engineering practice in the international developme nt and the co-operation fields. For ISF-Spain, ‘THD’ constitutes a strategic goal for o verseas development programmes which necessarily include lobbying campaigns, engin eering educational proposals, awareness-raising and research activities. As an ex ample, the ‘DE’ state-level programme for 2005-06 is presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Identifying Spanish researchers’ needs for training in English for Research Publication Purposes: Methodological aspects of a large-scale online survey

This paper mainly aims to report on the survey method employed in Phase 1 of the ENEIDA project to fulfil the following aims: a) locating those researchers at the five institutions participating in the project who might be interested in receiving ERPP training and in collaborating in subsequent phases of the project; b) identifying their specific needs vis-à-vis ERPP; and c) providing a context for future studies of Spanish-English intercultural rhetoric for research publication purposes. The paper also offers an overall characterisation of the informants to our survey, discusses some of the results to assess the relevance and viability of further phases of the project, and evaluates the database thus created. 24 researchers were first interviewed in-depth from one research-only institution and two universities. Interview responses were then used to design a structured questionnaire comprising thirty-seven questions related to both English and Spanish for research publication purposes. The questionnaire was piloted with 200 researchers selected from the total population of staff with doctorates (8,794) at the three institutions mentioned above, plus another two universities. The questionnaire was then sent out to the total population, yielding responses from 1717 researchers, which are kept in the ENEIDA Database. The findings suggest high levels of interest in ERPP amongst participants in that not only were 64% of respondents interested in future ERPP training, but also in that 96% of them were willing to receive information about how to participate in subsequent phases of the project. It is hoped that the information contained in the ENEIDA Database will allow us to: a) carry out precise needs analyses of specific groups of informants (e.g. according to specific disciplines); b) carry out in-depth studies of how relevant factors affect writing for research publication purposes of Spanish researchers, and c) design multiple case studies of their difficulties writing for research publication purposes grounded in sound researc

Language for Specific Purposes: Using Hispanic Films and Current Hispanic Issues to Teach Specific Vocabulary and context related to the Professions Online

In this study I explain how an advanced Spanish conversation course can be created for virtual students using Spanish for Specific Purposes. The course is divided in different online homework students need to work on using four Hispanic films. This course is taught online and asynchronously. Students need to watch four films in this course, work on quizzes about the films, work on debates, and group presentations that are uploaded on VT (VoiceThread). The most important aspect of creating an advanced Spanish conversation course online is to define the goals and outcomes of the course very well and find the films that best serve to teach Spanish language and vocabulary related to the professions. Most films had a main topic, but there were other themes as well in the films students could learn about and use as interesting topics for their presentations in Spanish

EriBERTa: A Bilingual Pre-Trained Language Model for Clinical Natural Language Processing

The utilization of clinical reports for various secondary purposes, including health research and treatment monitoring, is crucial for enhancing patient care. Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools have emerged as valuable assets for extracting and processing relevant information from these reports. However, the availability of specialized language models for the clinical domain in Spanish has been limited. In this paper, we introduce EriBERTa, a bilingual domain-specific language model pre-trained on extensive medical and clinical corpora. We demonstrate that EriBERTa outperforms previous Spanish language models in the clinical domain, showcasing its superior capabilities in understanding medical texts and extracting meaningful information. Moreover, EriBERTa exhibits promising transfer learning abilities, allowing for knowledge transfer from one language to another. This aspect is particularly beneficial given the scarcity of Spanish clinical data

English for specific purposes in spanish higher education settings: a diagnostic focus on students‟ preliminary language awareness, attitudes and expectations

The present study tries to illustrate and analyse the initial or preliminary level of ‘ESP awareness’ that Spanish students from different scientific degrees have when first joining an ESP course. It also seeks to examine their motivations, expectations and attitudes towards the subject. By means of an anonymous questionnaire filled in during the first session of the course, Spanish students from Pharmacy, Biology and Environmental Sciences degrees reflected on the ESP teaching-learning process. The results obtained have revealed the (too) many aspects of specialised languages that students are not familiar with and the preliminary lack, in general, of basic English language knowledge from their disciplines. Presumably, as this and further studies on the topic will try to corroborate, this may be due to a nearly total lack of exposure to English language both in their everyday life and in their degrees, something illogical given the lingua franca status of this language nowadays and thus its importance in the transmission and spreading of scientific knowledge and results. On the basis of students’ answers and views on the different aspects posed, a series of conclusions have been drawn and a broad course of action grounded on awareness-raising practices and students’ attitudes and expectations has been suggested with the aim of overcoming the problems and inconsistencies brought to light by the questionnaires. Hence, this study is intended to be the first in a series analysing final performance and thus the evolution experienced

Creatividad en la enseñanza de español para negocios

Creativity is part of learning, especially in SFL, also in Spanish for Specific Purposes like Spanish for business. Creative process put order in new knowledge or contents and, at the same time, the results make the student happy. In other words, we learn better when we are interested in the task or it produces us emotions. In general, there are two types of creativity tasks: some of them need computer programs and others are rhetorical or literary. In the tasks that are proposes here the student is the protagonist of his learning and he has to create of nothing some original and unpublished text. Finally, creativity is useful but it has been adapted to the specific group. Key words: creativity, SFL, Spanish for Specific Purposes, Spanish for business, B1-B2