Motivated Spanish learning among Anglo-Texan high school students : an exploration of theories, research, and experience, with implications for pedagogy

textResearch into foreign language and second language learning motivation has progressed steadily over the past half century. Several theories and models have been developed to explain how learners are motivated to learn a foreign language. Context-specific research, however, is lacking for Anglo-Texan high school students learning Spanish. This report applies the theories of foreign language learning motivation to this context, using personal experience and anecdotes from the author as a Spanish teacher and student, in order to prescribe pedagogical applications of the research for high school Spanish teachers in Texas who seek to increase their students' motivation.Curriculum and Instructio

Multi-objective Reinforcement Learning

In this talk we present PQ-learning, a new Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithm that determines the rational behaviours of an agent in multi-objective domainsThis work is partially funded by: grant TIN2009-14179 (Spanish Government, Plan Nacional de I+D+i) and Universidad de Málaga, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Manuela Ruiz-Montiel is funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education through the National F.P.U. Progra

Rural meets Urban: Advanced Placement Rural High School Students Supporting Urban Dual Language Learners

High School Advanced Placement (AP) Spanish students from a rural school district in Upstate New York translated picture books for second grade students at Urban Primary, where Spanish is primarily spoken at home. Each child received books that were translated, intended to be read in English, Spanish. This gave the students and their parents opportunities to read in both languages. The purpose of the project was to facilitate language development for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds who are learning both Spanish and English in their homes. Children who come from low-income homes are at risk to enter Kindergarten performing below their middle-class peers. Children who are simultaneously learning two languages are at risk for language and literacy deficits in both languages (Wilson, Dickinson, & Rowe, 2013). This project won the American Council on Special Education 2017 Exemplary Program Award in the area of cross-cultural services

Learning Spanish online : emotions and identity in role-play settings : a thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Second Language Teaching, Massey University

This study focuses on the dynamic interaction between the learner, the context, and the target language using as its framework the learner-context interface model (White 1999, 2003, 2005; White, Direnzo & Bortolotto, 2016). The research considers the online learning context as social, collaborative, interactive and dynamic. Using Spanish as the target language, the analysis is guided by one research question: How do emotions and identity contribute to the construction of the learner-context interface in online Spanish role-plays? Data for this research was gathered from a series of voluntary, non-assessed Adobe Connect online technology role-play sessions for Intermediate Spanish distance students at Massey University in New Zealand, and from two Stimulated recall interviews, where the use of the web-cam became significant for the analysis. The data set consisted of Stimulated recall sessions, students’ questionnaires and diaries, and a teacher’s journal. The four role-play sessions took place over a period of two weeks: two sessions of one hour duration each week. Four students participated and all of them had at least an intermediate level of competence in the Spanish language, as well as previous experience in online learning settings. Making use of the rich data collected the study records and analyses the moment-by-moment interactive emergence of emotions -with salience of humour- and identities and how these impact L2 (second language) learning in a technology-mediated L2 classroom. Insights from this research will offer a contribution to the growing study of emotions in L2 learning, as well as to the study of the complex dynamics of identity and language learning, particularly in relation to role-play settings

English-learning infants’ perception of word stress patterns

Adult speakers of different free stress languages (e.g., English, Spanish) differ both in their sensitivity to lexical stress and in their processing of suprasegmental and vowel quality cues to stress. In a head-turn preference experiment with a familiarization phase, both 8-month-old and 12-month-old English-learning infants discriminated between initial stress and final stress among lists of Spanish-spoken disyllabic nonwords that were segmentally varied (e.g. [ˈnila, ˈtuli] vs [luˈta, puˈki]). This is evidence that English-learning infants are sensitive to lexical stress patterns, instantiated primarily by suprasegmental cues, during the second half of the first year of life

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

Making languages count: modern foreign languages in secondary schools and Learning Pathways 14-19 (information document)

"This document sets out the action to be taken to improve the learning and teaching of modern foreign languages in secondary schools and Learning Pathways 14–19 in Wales. Modern foreign languages are defined in the national curriculum for Wales as European or world languages such as Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish and Urdu." - overview

Bringing Language to Life

Four distinct accents amount to one strong voice for the Linfield College language program. This year, students are learning from native speakers in each of the languages which offer majors: German, French, Spanish and Japanese

Late L2 Acquisition and Phonological Memory Development

The development of phonological memory, a subdivision of short term memory, is crucial to learning and analyzing sequences of sounds to form words and phrases. This process utilizes short term representation and rehearsal to allow for the eventual long term representation of language. Individuals learning more than one language must acquire even more of these language sequences than monolinguals. Previous research agrees that early Spanish-English bilinguals have superior phonological memory to monolinguals, however the impact of second language acquisition on phonological memory remains unknown. This study examined three groups of undergraduate participants studying Spanish as a second language including study abroad students (SA), students currently enrolled in a Spanish course at or above the 300-level (CE), and students not currently enrolled in a Spanish course (NE). Participants completed tests of phonological memory including digit span and sentence repetition at the beginning and culmination of an academic semester. Participants also provided demographic data, L2 acquisition information, and their frequency of language use so that changes could be calculated. Results revealed that CE students were superior during pretest, but during posttest SA and CE demonstrated comparable results. The NE students demonstrated consistently lower scores. These findings suggest that foreign language instruction may benefit phonological memory development, even in late acquisition of the second language. The possible role of years of formal language instruction will be discussed