Elia - 2008 - Nº 8
URI permanente para esta colecciónhttps://hdl.handle.net/11441/2484
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Artículo The acquisition of additional languages(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) Cenoz, JasoneArtículo Promoting acquisition of academic vocabulary in English-medium secondary education in the USA(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) Pratt Johnson, YvonneIn U.S. secondary schools, particularly in large urban areas, many English language learners (ELLs), which term here designates those who immigrate to the United States and learn English as their second language while attending school, demonstrate an impressive command of oral skills. Some students who have been in the country for only a few years speak English well in day-to-day situations. However, this level of language proficiency may cause others to overestimate these students’ readiness to handle academic subjects in English, as ELLs often have acquired only the vocabulary of daily social interaction. Social encounters are context embedded and do not require technical or specialized vocabulary. Many ELLs who are competent to handle these encounters in English have not yet acquired a higher level of language proficiency that encompasses the vocabulary and skills necessary to succeed in school.This level of language proficiency is needed for formal academic learning of subject-specific material, for which the context is considerably reduced and the conceptual tasks are more challenging. ELLs need to be able to use complex, abstract vocabulary to understand and succeed through academic English. This article examines the unique challenges that ELLs encounter when acquiring academic vocabulary in their core subjects and presents practical and, where possible, research-based strategies to foster the acquisition of vocabulary that can be used across the content domains.Artículo Class size reduction in the second language classroom(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) García Bayonas, Mariche; Gottschall, HolliIn this study, class size reduction (CSR) was implemented in six sections of second semester, university level Spanish classes in which the enrollment cap was lowered from 27 to 20 students. The methodology for the study included a student opinion questionnaire, classroom observations, and student course grades. The study aimed at finding the effect of CSR on student participation, motivation, passing rates and dropout rates. Results showed that students in smaller classes have a higher number of As and Bs whereas students in larger classes have a higher number of Cs and Ds. Observations revealed that students in smaller classes participate twice as much as students in larger classes. Students’ self-reported motivation was higher in classes where CSR was implemented.Artículo Spanish verb support constructions from a learner perspective(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) Buckingham, LouisaFew studies exist on verb-support constructions (VSC) from a didactic perspective; however, the scant evidence available suggests that learners tend to employ these structures less frequently than native speakers. Didactic materials and dictionaries provide only very superficial treatment of these collocations. This corpus-based study of VSC in Spanish identifies a group of typical items for a specific genre (social sciences), and then describes certain morphosyntactic and semantic challenges that the extracted corpus examples present to English and German-speaking learners. Using these same concordances, we then develop model didactic exercises to focus on form, meaning and use.Artículo The effect of topic on rate of speech(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) García Amaya, LorenzoThis study reports on the influence of a given topic on rate of speech, one measure of oral fluency. Twenty college-level learners of Spanish from four learner populations participated in a thirty-minute interview. The four groups were classified as follows: fifth semester with no experience abroad (AH1), seventh semester with no experience abroad (AH2), seventh semester with one or two semesters abroad (SA), and first year students with experience in an intensive overseas immersion program (IM). A total of twelve common topics were found to appear within the course of each interview. A quantitative analysis followed, and an overall mean rate of speech was calculated for each topic across all participants’ interviews. A Mixed Model was run to determine if significant differences occurred between topics and groups. Results showed that averaging among groups, there was a significant difference in the response according to topic as well as a significant interaction between Group and Topic, indicating that differences between groups depended on the topic discussed. Implications are drawn for future work on fluency measures, given the findings of the current analysis.Artículo V+N miscollocations in the written production of university level students(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) Zinkgräf, MagdalenaThe study of collocation – the restricted way in which two or more words combine across texts – has recently gained much relevance. The acquisition of these combinations has proved an important obstacle for non-native speakers of a foreign language as evinced in recorded unusual combinations of words. This paper analyses nonstandard collocations present in the written production of Spanish-speaking university students of English as a foreign language (EFL), in search of recurrent patterns and strategies that may explain these inappropriate collocations as a way to contribute to EFL teaching and learning. The results show a considerable influence of learners’ mother tongue, which induces them to translate literally from L1 into L2 one or both elements in any given collocation. Semantic overlap between appropriate forms and possible synonyms of either the base or the collocate appears to be another factor leading to error. The study also points to some verbs which in this particular context might require consistent and explicit teaching.Artículo Dictionary use and vocabulary choices in L2 writing(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) Elola, Idoia; Rodríguez García, Vanessa; Winfrey, KatherineArtículo On becoming cultural translation(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) Aranda, LucíaArtículo Praxis and classroom L2 development(Universidad de Sevilla, 2008) Lantolf, James P.