Spanish and Portuguese Department

In this paper, I suggest an approach to Heritage Language teaching that is critical and comprehensive in nature because (1) it puts into question the social and economic power relationships that have been created surrounding the status of standard and local varieties; (2) it empowers students to reflect critically on the intrinsic value of the variety they bring with them into the classroom; and, more in line with comprehensive approaches to HL teaching, (3) it considers that preventing our students from exposure to academic or standard language would be negligent on the part of teachers and takes into consideration the different realities and attitudes that HL learners might face after they leave the classroom. This approach fills the gap in the Critical Pedagogy literature on why, how and when local and standard varieties should be incorporated into the HL curriculum in order to improve the learning experience for students both in the HL classroom and beyond.

This paper compares the degree of the impact that metalinguistic knowledge (MK) has on the acquisition of the subjunctive by foreign language (FL) and heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish. Preliminary results show that 1) FL learners improve in their mastery of subjunctive and MK across levels 2) HL learners improve significantly only in their MK in Spanish across levels; 3) correlations between MK and accuracy in the use of the subjunctive in FL learners of Spanish are positive and significant; and 4) correlations between MK and accuracy in the use of the subjunctive in HL learners of Spanish are non-significant. These results entail important consequences for curriculum design, since they support the long-advocated idea by HL specialists that Spanish programs should offer two separate FL and HL tracks where the focus on grammar needs to be addressed by differing approaches.

One of the most controversial topics in Applied Linguistics is the role of learners’ metalinguistic knowledge (MK) in foreign language acquisition. There seems to be no agreement between those who propose that MK is at least facilitative for learning (Schmidt, 1990; Ellis & Laporte, 1997; Lightbown, 1998; Herdina & Jessner, 2000) and those who believe that it can be detrimental (Felix, 1981; Krashen & Terrell, 1983; Stokes & Krashen, 1990). This paper investigates the relationship between MK (understood as a combination of terminology knowledge and explicit, verbalizable knowledge of grammatical rules) and subjunctive accuracy by learners of Spanish at three levels. MK was assessed through a set of four terminology and grammaticality judgment tasks both in English and Spanish, whereas mastery of the Spanish subjunctive was evaluated through a set of five receptive and productive tasks. Findings include 1) improvements in both subjunctive accuracy in Spanish and MK in Spanish and English across levels, 2) a positive correlation between English MK and Spanish MK, and 3) a positive correlation between MK and accuracy in the use of the subjunctive. These findings show that MK indeed is positively correlated with accuracy in the use of this challenging structure as hypothesized.

Según los estándares de los Program Standards for the Preparation of Foreign Language Teachers (ACTFL/NCATE 2002), es esencial que los futuros maestros de lengua extranjera posean un conocimiento detallado de las propiedades fonéticas de ese idioma. Para ello, es imperativo que los estudiantes tomen clases de fonética y fonología que incluyan actividades de concienciación lingüística que los ayuden a darse cuenta de las diferencias entre los sistemas lingüísticos de la primera y la segunda lengua y que no sólo incluyan una mera corrección de errores de pronunciación. En este artículo propongo que, con un poco de imaginación, se puede hacer la fonética y la fonología para subgraduados una clase accesible y divertida. Algunos de los conceptos y abstracciones que tanta dificultad suelen presentar para los estudiantes (fonema, alófono, semivocal, etc.) pueden ser fácilmente explicados a través de analogías y metáforas de la vida real que harán no sólo que los estudiantes los comprendan mejor, sino que también los recuerden por más tiempo. A la vez, y a través de estas analogías, podemos contribuir a que los estudiantes vean la lengua como un sistema y no como una lista de reglas abstractas e interconectadas que tienen que aprender de memoria.

Academic dishonesty (or “cheating”) is a serious, yet common problem in educational institutions across all age levels (Anderman and Murdock, 2007). Research has focused mainly on how many students cheat, why and how they go about it, as well as how to prevent them from doing it (Beasley, 2004; Berry, Thornton, and Baker, 2006; McCabe, 1993; Park, 2003; Staats, Hupp, Wallace, and Gresley, 2009). Additionally, there is an interest in how faculty deal with this problem and why many do not take the required judicial measures expected by their institutions (Keith-Spiegel, Tabachnick, Whitley, and Washburn, 1998; McCabe, 1993).

In the Second Language (SL) classroom, unique and specific types of academic dishonesty occur that are not found in other disciplines, for example 1) assignments initially written in the native language (original or copied from a website) are translated into the target language with the help of online translators, or 2) help provided by native or proficient speakers (anything from asking for a single word, an expression, or a complete review, i.e. “going over the paper”).

For this study an online survey was administered to 81 SL instructors across 22 US colleges and universities. The questionnaire, among other questions, asked teachers to list the types of cheating they have encountered and rate the seriousness of the offense. It also asked what procedures, if any, they follow when encountering acts of academic dishonesty, how they decide the penalties to be imposed and what they do to promote academic integrity.

Results show that, although almost all instructors have encountered several cases of cheating, as many as a third decide to deal with students one-on-one rather than following the institution’s procedures, because: 1) they are not familiar with them, 2) they consider them to be too cumbersome, 3) they think procedures or penalties are too harsh on students, or 4) they believe that first-time offenses can be handled “locally”.

Forensic Linguistics (FL) is a relatively new subfield within applied linguistics that studies the different intersections between language and the legal field, which is heavily linguistic by nature. In order to have a fair, legal and effective procedure, anyone involved in a legal process (lawyers, judges, police officers, members of a jury, etc.) benefits from possessing a certain awareness of linguistic principles. With this purpose, the expert testimony of a linguist could contribute to the understanding or recognition of possible interpretations or points of view that might have gone otherwise unnoticed. This article provides the general linguist with an overview of the broad field of FL and highlights the different ways the discipline can contribute to the criminal justice system. It presents a summary of some of the most well-known and discussed legal cases and outlines the intersections between applied linguistics (mainly pragmatics, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics) and this emerging field in three interrelated areas: (1) language as the medium of communication between law enforcement authorities and suspects/witnesses or as the medium of legal argumentation in the courtroom, (2) language of the law (issues of intelligibility, interpretation and construction of legal language), and (3) crimes of language and linguistic evidence (use, validity, and reliability in the courtroom). Challenges and limitations of the field are also discussed.

Although academic dishonesty has received considerable attention in recent years, there is little research on how non-serious cheating issues in a discipline such as biology or chemistry can become highly serious offenses in the context of instruction in the modern languages (MLs). One of these grey areas is (unauthorized) editing by a tutor and/or a native speaker: Given that a substantial part (if not all) of the grade in a ML assignment is language usage (be it grammar, vocabulary, spelling, or organization), any assistance received that improves linguistic form (and as a consequence the student’s grade) should be considered as an act of punishable academic dishonesty. Still, and even if it seems obvious, it is not uncommon for language instructors to come across assignments that contain advanced linguistic forms or colloquialisms that do not belong to the linguistic repertoire of the student who wrote it (Correa, 2011).
In this paper I address the following questions: Is the use of a tutor/native speaker accidental plagiarism (Beasley, 2004), pseudepigraphy (Walker & Townley, 2012), or contract cheating (Clarke & Lancaster, 2006)? Who is at fault? How can it be prevented or minimized? Should students be allowed to have tutors at all? Is there a double standard when it comes to graduate students and faculty?

If you can not beat them, join him [sic] (Google Translation of Spanish Si no puedes con tu enemigo, únete a él). Academic dishonesty is widespread in schools and colleges across the world, and with the advent of technology, cheating is easier than ever: While computers and the internet provide students with all the tools they need to plagiarize from the comfort of their own home, instructors find themselves playing “forensic linguist” in order to gather evidence of cheating. Academic dishonesty in the foreign language classroom is not that different from academic dishonesty in other disciplines except for two areas: unauthorized editing by a proficient/native speaker and the use of online translators (OTs). While these two are not usually an issue for assignments in chemistry or psychology, they are two well-known types of academic dishonesty in the foreign languages. In this paper, I examine the use of OTs: how are they different from an online dictionary? How can they be detected? How can their use be prevented? Finally, I propose using them as part of the class in order to discourage/minimize academic dishonesty and raise metalinguistic awareness.

Linguistics enjoys a paradoxical place in second language (SL) teaching. Unlike students majoring in Linguistics who see it as “study of the mind”, those who take it as part of a language degree see it as relevant as far as it supports language learning. However, a good command of the language is not sufficient for effective teaching. I address the need to revise the place of linguistics in SL curricula and present an innovative teaching approach that analyzes language in a scientific, systematic manner while focusing on those aspects of language that are of direct relevance to future language teachers.

Poor speech intelligibility, inarticulate speaking skills and lack of confidence in oral communication often result in speakers being judged as unknowledgeable, unable to make intelligent decisions, or lacking credibility. Meanwhile, it is common for second language (L2) instructors to feel that their students, even at the advanced level, have serious pronunciation difficulties. In fact, students speak fluently (they are not afraid to talk), but they might experience challenges in being understood by native and non-native speakers of the target language.
This paper proposes the use of audio recordings and provides examples of self-awareness activities and self-analysis projects to help improve students’ L2 pronunciation. These suggestions also provide pre-service L2 teachers and instructors in other fields involving communication with tools to detect, diagnose and manage their own students’ pronunciation.

Since the foundation of the Khan Academy (2006), a great deal of attention has been generated to the term flipped classrooms (also known as reverse or backwards classrooms), which is a (new) pedagogical movement that reverses the traditional paradigm of class lecture and homework. This approach subordinates teacher-centred lectures to a secondary level of importance and proposes that lectures should be carried outside of class time in the form of screencasts/video recordings that students can watch at home. As a consequence, this newly freed class time can be used for discussion, questions and assisting students with meaningful practice and hands-on activities.
This article first defines what a flipped foreign language (FL) classroom is, and what it is not. The discussion then moves to the fundamental tenets of critical pedagogy (following Vygotsky and Freire), namely: (a) the opposition between banking education and problem-posing education, (b) scaffolding and the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and (c) accountability of the student’s own learning. It is argued that flipped classrooms and problem-posing models of education are in fact two sides of the same coin. Then, the author addresses some of the most common concerns among FL instructors regarding the flip and proposes possible solutions. Finally, the limitations are discussed.

Taking an Information Processing (IP) approach to language learning as a framework, this dissertation investigates the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and grammatical accuracy by three groups of learners of Spanish (at beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels of proficiency). Their metalinguistic awareness/knowledge is assessed through a set of terminology and grammaticality judgment tasks. Their mastery of the Spanish subjunctive is evaluated through a set of receptive and productive tests involving ...

Most heritage language learners (HLLs) of Spanish cannot produce grammatical terminology, simple grammatical analysis, and/or simple grammatical items on demand. Possible causes are: the naturalistic manner in which language was acquired, lack of opportunities to learn basic concepts in beginning courses (because they were skipped), or the belief by some instructors that over-emphasising the mastering of grammatical rules may be negative for this population. This study examines and compares the level of verbalisable metalinguistic knowledge (understood as the ability to identify grammar terminology and provide grammatical rules) among HLLs (n = 9) and foreign language learners (FLLs) (n = 43) present at the beginning and at the end of an introductory Hispanic linguistics course (third year of college). Results show that although HLLs start with a considerable disadvantage over FLLs – which is not overcome in the short period of time of the course – they still improve at the same pace as FLLs, which has important implications for curriculum development.

Over the past 40 years there has been a considerable amount of research on the effects that teaching focus has on second language (L2) learner accuracy. Those instructors who prefer teaching with a focus on meaning are often accused of not emphasizing grammatical accuracy and those who choose to focus on accuracy may be accused of not emphasizing fluency of communication. The main motivation to support one or the other point of view is closely related to the role that metalinguistic knowledge (MK, defined as “that part of explicit knowledge that is potentially verbalizable” (Isemonger, 2007, p. 113)) is believed to play in language acquisition: those who believe that explicit instruction poses no substantial benefits for L2 acquisition (Felix, 1981; Krashen, 1982; Krashen & Terrell, 1983) support a teaching approach based on fluency and communication, and those that believe that L2 acquisition benefits from some form of explicit instruction (Ellis & Laporte, 1997; Lightbown, 1998; H...

Although academic dishonesty has received considerable attention in recent years, there is little research on how non-serious cheating issues in a discipline such as biology or chemistry can become highly serious offenses in the context of instruction in the modern languages (MLs). One of these grey areas is (unauthorized) editing by a tutor and/or a native speaker: Given that a substantial part (if not all) of the grade in a ML assignment is language usage (be it grammar, vocabulary, spelling, or organization), any assistance received that improves linguistic form (and as a consequence the student’s grade) should be considered as an act of punishable academic dishonesty. Still, and even if it seems obvious, it is not uncommon for language instructors to come across assignments that contain advanced linguistic forms or colloquialisms that do not belong to the linguistic repertoire of the student who wrote it (Correa, 2011). In this paper I address the following questions: Is the use...

One of the most controversial topics in Applied Linguistics is the role of learners’ explicit knowledge (including metalinguistic knowledge) and explicit instruction in second language (L2) learning and teaching. There seems to be no agreement between those who propose that explicit knowledge is essential for L2 learning and those who believe that it can even be detrimental for L2 acquisition. Additionally, the subjunctive has been reported to be one of the most difficult structures to master for L2 learners of Spanish. It has been suggested that the subjunctive is acquired fairly late in an acquisition hierarchy of Spanish grammar and that, as a consequence, learners must reach a stage where they can produce syntactically sophisticated utterances in order to be “ready” for acquisition. Taking an Information Processing (IP) approach to language learning as a framework, this dissertation investigates the relationship between metalinguistic knowledge and grammatical accuracy by three ...