Weblogs have exploded on the internet scene in recent years. They are among the technologies indicating changes in the way information is created, managed, and exchanged on campuses and offer powerful opportunities for online collaboration for both language professionals and learners. The interactive nature of this technology offers an enticement to spend more time working with the language and hence lengthens students contact time with the second language. While working on a weblog would not necessarily improve students' speaking abilities, could their accuracy with the language be improved over time? Armstrong, K. the intermediate subjects' reliance on the overgeneralization stategy was found to be significantly higher than that of the elementary subjects. These findings appear to be consistent with a theory which considers second language acquisition to be an actively creative process dependent upon a student's ability to assimilate and subsume new information into already existing cognitive structures. The overgeneralization and transfer learning strategies appear to be two distinctly different linguistic manifestations of one psychological process: reliance on prior learning to facilitate new learning.
Spanish Health Information Resources for Nurses. Source: Pediatric Nursing . Jul/Aug2006, Vol. 32 Issue 4, p350-353. Abstract: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Spanish-speakers currently constitute 1 in 10 U.S. To provide responsible and responsive care, many nurses will need to develop communication skills for working with Spanish speakers and be able to find quality, reliable health information in Spanish for their patients and patients' families. A number of efforts have been described in the literature. Copyright of Pediatric Nursing is the property of Jannetti Publications, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission.
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To help teachers use the product, the module includes worksheets with questions based on the science and safety content for each day. In addition, all of the educational lessons and games are available in a special section for teachers and can be accessed individually to be used as stand-alone lesson tools. We have also provided a table that correlates relevant categories of the middle school National Science Education Standards to content sections in the module, a printable Certificate of Completion, and links to other information and resources. In order to meet the needs of various students, versions of the module are available for students with hearing, mobility, and vision impairments and for Spanish language students. The latter version is currently available only in text form, rather than full multimedia. CD to distribute to their classes.
Abstract: 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 the two learning contexts and that social behavior and language contact abroad have minimal influence on acquisition rate.
213). Instructors were randomly assigned to either an IC or an in‐class presentational (CP) condition for lessons and accompanying assignments on 2 uses of the Spanish pronoun se. An attitudinal inventory indicated that learners in the IC condition rated their assignments significantly higher in terms of perceived comfort, enjoyment, and subsequent confidence in the material. However, regression analysis showed that ratings were stratified based upon several predictor variables. For measures of L2 knowledge, learners in the IC condition performed significantly better than those in the CP when identifying grammatical uses of the target structure on a grammaticality judgment test. No significant differences were found between the groups’ performance on a rule description task or a chapter test. Implications for implementing IC models are discussed.
The objective of this paper is to introduce Hypertext as an alternative paradigm in developing a full-scale Intelligent Tutoring System to the traditional Expert Systems paradigm that has dominated for years Intelligent Tutoring Systems development. This paradigm has been employed in the development of PEDRO, an Intelligent Tutoring System for foreign language learning. PEDRO - The Spanish Tutor is an Intelligent Tutoring System designed to assist intermediate level students with their learning of Spanish grammar, by testing their knowledge of regular and irregular verbs. This paper describes PEDRO'S architecture, functionality and pedagogical strategy. PEDRO has been developed using HyperCard II.
Situated in the context of learning second language (L2) pronunciation, this article discusses from information‐processing and pedagogical perspectives the role of repetitive practice with L2 input and of explicit focus on its form‐related (phonological) properties. First, we report the results of an auditory word‐priming experiment with 60 L2 learners of Spanish varying in degree of L2 pronunciation accuracy; these results suggest that both repetition and focus on form have measurable benefits for processing L2 speech. Next, we discuss these findings in terms of information processing and its relationship to L2 pronunciation teaching. Finally, we describe a communicative framework for teaching L2 pronunciation that is compatible with the outlined information‐processing principles, that is, a framework that includes meaningful repetition and form‐focused activities within a communicative context.
Spanish‐English bilinguals were taught academic‐type information about History, Biology, Chemistry and Mythology in their two languages. Upon testing, it was found that memory was more accurate and retrieval was faster when the language of retrieval and the language of encoding matched than when they did not match. For accuracy, the pattern of results was influenced by bilinguals' language proficiency, so that only balanced bilinguals whose high proficiency levels were similar in both languages showed language‐dependent recall. For reaction time, bilinguals were faster to retrieve information when the languages of retrieval and encoding matched than when they mismatched, but only for material encoded in Spanish. The influence of encoding and retrieval languages on error patterns was also examined. Together, the study's findings suggest that bilingual learning may be subject to language dependency and that experience with a language may increase the strength of linguistic cues in producing language‐dependent memory. The results are consistent with previous findings of language‐dependent memory in autobiographical narratives, carry applied implications for bilingual education, and are discussed within the theoretical framework of the relationship between language and memory. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley person errors usually involved third person forms used in first person contexts. The pattern of limitations of the children with SLI suggests that, for languages such as Spanish, additional factors might have to be considered in the search for clinical markers for this disorder. Implications for evaluation and treatment of language disorders in Spanish-speaking children are also discussed.
PURPOSE To make decisions about implementing systematic depression screening, primary care physicians who serve Spanish-speaking populations need to know whether Spanish language depression-screening instruments are accurate. We aimed to review systematically the evidence regarding diagnostic accuracy of depression-screening instruments in Spanish-speaking primary care populations. METHODS We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Cochrane Libraries from inception to May 28, 2008, for studies examining the diagnostic accuracy of Spanish language depression case-finding instrument(s) administered to primary-care outpatients. Two authors independently assessed studies for inclusion and quality. RESULTS Twelve studies met inclusion criteria. CONCLUSIONS For depression screening in Spanish-speaking outpatients, fair evidence supports the diagnostic accuracy of the CES-D and PRIME-MD-9 in general primary care, the GDS-15-Spanish for geriatric patients, and the Spanish language versions of the EPDS or PDSS for postpartum patients. The ultrashort 2-item version of PRIME-MD may lack specificity in US Spanish-speakers.
Over 800 Latino high school and college students in Chicago, Illinois, reported via a written questionnaire that they used Spanish 75% or more of the time with their parents and other adults in the family. However, Spanish use with siblings, friends, cousins, and their own children averaged just 45% and was negatively correlated with length of residence in the U.S. This combined with overall low levels of daily Spanish use point to a language shift to English. INTRODUCTION. The Hispanic population in the U.S. 58% between 1990 and 2000, climbing from 22.4 million to 35.3 million (U.S. Since approximately 40% of this population was born in Latin America, the nation's increasing number of Latinos is due in part to new immigration from Spanish-speaking countries.
However, members of the second and third generations constitute the other 60% of U.S. Latinos, and most of these individuals have learned English: Overall 51% of U.S. Hispanics claimed to speak English 'very well.' Given that high proficiency in English has been found to correlate to less extensive use of Spanish (Bills, Hudson & Hernandez-Chavez 2000) and the general tendency for heritage languages in the U.S. Spanish language maintenance is useful. The majority of Spanish maintenance research in the United States has taken place in the Southwest, New York, and Miami. Floyd's (1985) review of eight Southwest language use surveys published between 1970 and 1984 found evidence of language shift from Spanish to English, particularly among younger speakers. New York and Miami have also seen a good deal of Spanish maintenance research.