Transforming Ways of Enhancing Foreign Language Acquisition in the Spanish Classroom: Experiential Learning Approaches

Abstract

The researchers used qualitative and quantitative instruments to measure students’ linguistic gains and their opinions and attitudes toward intercultural awareness while studying Spanish as a foreign language under four different pedagogical models: a traditional face‐to‐face classroom, face‐to‐face classes with a community‐based learning component, face‐to‐face courses with an online telecollaborative language‐learning component, and study abroad. Quantitative findings from two knowledge‐based assessments indicated that students’ language learning was equivalent in all four pedagogical models. Students’ survey responses indicated that they believed that moving beyond traditional instructional models by adding classes with experiential learning boosted their second language acquisition and fueled their curiosity about cultural similarities and differences. Qualitative findings also confirmed that students’ engagement was higher in the experiential models.

Affordances, complexities, and challenges of intercultural citizenship for foreign language teachers

“…However, the peer collaborative focus of intercultural citizenship pedagogy (working together to solve an identified need in the community) and peer interaction were not present because of the age gap (Brazilian adolescents and adult American teachers) and the absence of a collaborative bilingual task (they held loose discussions on the topic of identity). This absence of a meaningful collaborative task with a community aim was also a drawback in Moreno‐López et al () as well as in other investigations. In their case, American college students were placed in four pedagogic conditions, one of which was telecollaboration (“between countries”), in this case with native speakers of Spanish in Mexico and Spain.…”

“…Participants included 120 student teachers of English at a national public university in Argentina, a Spanish‐speaking country, and 30 undergraduates at a British university who were studying Spanish as a foreign language—that is, a total of 150 students, which again contrasts with previous work that offered a much narrower focus (e.g., three students—Abbott & Lear, ; seven students—Polansky et al, ; six adult learners—Bippus & Eslami, ; four refugee students—Stewart & Walker, ). An exception was Moreno‐López et al (), with 148 students. The Argentine and British students, ages 18–21 and with a B2/C1 level in their foreign languages, worked in their classrooms with their foreign language teachers and also worked collaboratively among themselves using a wiki, Skype, e‐mail, Facebook, and other social media.…”

“…For example, some studies in the literature have missed the comparative and interactional elements, such as Faszer‐McMahon (), mentioned earlier, and ter Horst and Pearce (), where students translated content about environmental issues into German on the Web site http://Appropedia.org but never communicated in German with others except their in‐group. The study by Moreno‐López, Ramos‐Sellman, Miranda‐Aldaco, and Gomis Quinto () illustrated this compartmentalization well: U.S. college students enrolled in an intermediate Spanish course were placed into one of four pedagogic conditions: “traditional face‐to‐face classroom, face‐to‐face classes with a community‐based learning component, face‐to‐face courses with an online telecollaborative language‐learning component, and study abroad” (p. 398).…”

“…In their case, American college students were placed in four pedagogic conditions, one of which was telecollaboration (“between countries”), in this case with native speakers of Spanish in Mexico and Spain. Thus, although the element of peer transnational communication in intercultural citizenship was present, the tasks set lacked a community aim, were not “internationalist” (see the final paragraph in this section), and were limited to “creating[ed] an online profile in the target language and asking[ed] and answering[ed] questions in the target language … [and] completing[ed] two written chats and two video conferences lasting 1 hour each” (Moreno‐López et al, , p. 402). By contrast, in J. García et al (, p. 345), “the notion of collaboration and collective artistic creation” stood out as American college students collaborated with Ecuadorian adolescents to produce short films addressing everyday situations in Ecuador such as families splintering due to parental drinking and child labor.…”

From learner to teacher assistant: Community‐based service‐learning in a dual‐language classroom

“…In Canada, Hummel's (2013) research with French‐speaking students in a TESOL program revealed that CBSL opportunities resulted in increased linguistic self‐confidence. More recently, Moreno‐López, Ramos‐Sellman, Miranda‐Aldaco, and Gomis Quinto () measured perceived and actual growth in linguistic knowledge among L2 Spanish learners who participated in several different class models, including a service‐learning model. Learners in all groups evidenced similar linguistic gains, but only students in the experiential class models that included interaction with target language speakers reported gains in confidence and motivation.…”