Are discourse comprehension and cognitive processes influenced by the type of language language (English and Spanish)? A cross-language study based on elaborative inferences generation

Resumen basado en el de la publicación

A course of language study in outline; to accompany Southworth & Goddard's "First lessons in language" and "Elements of composition and grammar", with comments on special forms of language teaching.

Mode of access: Internet.

Select original dialogues: or, Spanish and English conversations: for the use of those who study the Spanish language.

"Lectura. Fragmentos de varias piezas en prosa y verso": p. [137]-250.

PROGRAM MONITORING IN THE PROCESS OF TEACHING/LEARNING SPANISH LANGUAGE FOR STUDENTS OF TOURISM

This article is about the lived experience in the Monitoring Programme of the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), during the discipline of Spanish Language Applied to Tourism, of the Tourism Course, in Parnaíba/PI. The study aims at getting to introduce students, teachers and researchers the importance of this academic practice, as well as to characterize the relevance of the teaching/learning of foreign language (FL), more specifically the Spanish as foreign language (ELE), for tourism activity and career of tourism professional. The methodology adopted was a bibliographical, documentary and field research with qualitative and quantitative approach. Thus, it can be state that the monitoring encourages the students to teach, associated with teaching activities, research and extension activities, and it contributes to the development of their intellectual, academic and professional abilities. Furthermore, subjects perceive the relevance of foreign language teaching in the classroom, including the teaching of SFL for the efficient development of their works in relation to tourism.

Teaching English tense and aspect with the help of cognitive grammar: An empirical study

Form-focused instruction is usually based on traditional practical/pedagogical grammar descriptions of grammatical features. The comparison of such traditional accounts with cognitive grammar (CG) descriptions seems to favor CG as a basis of pedagogical rules. This is due to the insistence of CG on the meaningfulness of grammar and its detailed analyses of the meanings of particular grammatical features. The differences between traditional and CG rules/descriptions are exemplified by juxtaposing the two kinds of principles concerning the use of the present simple and present progressive to refer to situations happening or existing at speech time. The descriptions provided the bases for the instructional treatment in a quasi-experimental study exploring the effectiveness of using CG descriptions of the two tenses, and of their interplay with stative (imperfective) and dynamic (perfective) verbs, and comparing this effectiveness with the value of grammar teaching relying on traditional accounts found in standard pedagogical grammars. The study involved 50 participants divided into three groups, with one of them constituting the control group and the other two being experimental ones. One of the latter received treatment based on CG descriptions and the other on traditional accounts. CG-based instruction was found to be at least moderately effective in terms of fostering mostly explicit grammatical knowledge and its effectiveness turned out be comparable to that of teaching based on traditional descriptions.

Sign language in Spanish television. Study on reception

The present article analyses the preferences of the deaf who use sign language and are users of the TV interpretation service to sign language, as well as the characteristics with which TV channels provide that service in television in Spain. The objective is to establish whether the way in which the aforementioned accessibility service is provided matches the preferences of users or differ from them. The analysis presents the opinion on this service of the deaf that use the Spanish sign language as their first language for communication. A study has also been conducted on the programmes broadcast with sign language during week 10-16/03/2014. The main data collected reveal that the deaf are dissatisfied with broadcasting times. They ask for news programmes with sign language, they would rather have the interpretation carried out by deaf people who use sign language and they prefer that the interpreter is the main image on screen. Concerning the analysis of the programmes broadcast, the study shows that the majority of programmes with sign language are broadcast at night, they are entertainment programmes, the interpretation is carried out by hearing people who use sign language and that their image is displayed in a corner of the screen.

Saturday Morning Television Advertisements Aired on English and Spanish Language Networks along the Texas-Mexico Border

Objectives: The aim of this content analysis study is to characterize the TV advertisements aired to an at-risk child population along the Texas-Mexico border. Methods: We characterized the early Saturday morning TV advertisements aired by three broadcast network categories (U.S. English language, U.S. Spanish language, and Mexican Spanish language) in Spring 2010. The number, type (food related vs. non-food related), target audience, and persuasion tactics used were recorded. Advertised foods, based on nutrition content, were categorized as meeting or not meeting current dietary guidelines. Results: Most commercials were non-food related (82.7%, 397 of 480). The majority of the prepared foods (e.g., cereals, snacks, and drinks) advertised did not meet the current U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Additionally, nutrition content information was not available for many of the foods advertised on the Mexican Spanish language broadcast network category. Conclusions: For U.S. children at risk for obesity along the Texas-Mexico border exposure to TV food advertisements may result in the continuation of sedentary behavior as well as an increased consumption of foods of poor nutritional quality. An international regulatory effort to monitor and enforce the reduction of child-oriented food advertising is needed. Editors' Note: This article was submitted in response to the first issue of the Journal of Applied Research on Children: Latino Children.

A structural model of cognitive-motivational variables as explanatory factors of academic achievement in Spanish Language and Mathematics

In recent years, several explanatory models have been developed which attempt to analyse the predictive worth of various factors in relation to academic achievement, as well as the direct and indirect effects that they produce. The aim of this study was to examine a structural model incorporating various cognitive and motivational variables which influence student achievement in the two basic core skills in the Spanish curriculum: Spanish Language and Mathematics. These variables included differential aptitudes, specific self-concept, goal orientations, effort and learning strategies. The sample comprised 341 Spanish students in their first year of Compulsory Secondary Education. Various tests and questionnaires were used to assess each student, and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to study the relationships in the initial model. The proposed model obtained a satisfactory fit for the two subjects studied, and all the relationships hypothesised were significant. The variable with the most explanatory power regarding academic achievement was mathematical and verbal aptitude. Also notable was the direct influence of specific self-concept on achievement, goal-orientation and effort, as was the mediatory effect that effort and learning strategies had between academic goals and final achievement.

Teaching Spanish in school and college to native speakers of Spanish = La enseñanza del español a estudiantes hispanoparlantes en la escuela y en la universidad.

Mode of access: Internet.

The Cortina method intended for self-study and for use in schools; Spanish in twenty lessons with a system of articulation, based on English equivalents, for acquiring a correct pronunciation,

Mode of access: Internet.

The Cortina method intended for self-study and for use in schools; Spanish in twenty lessons, with a system of articulation, based on English equivalents, for acquiring a correct pronunciation,

Mode of access: Internet.

A first book in Spanish; or, A practical introduction to the study of the Spanish language:

Mode of access: Internet.

Natural Language Generation and Fuzzy Sets : An Exploratory Study on Geographical Referring Expression Generation

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness (grant TIN2014-56633-C3-1-R) and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF/FEDER) and the Galician Ministry of Education (grants GRC2014/030 and CN2012/151). Alejandro Ramos-Soto is supported by the Spanish Ministry for Economy and Competitiveness (FPI Fellowship Program) under grant BES-2012-051878.

BELIEFS ABOUT ENGLISH LEARNING AND TEACHING IN A TECHNICAL SCHOOL IN THE CITY OF PONTA PORÃ/MS

Abstract: This study is part of my master research, which aimed to investigate the beliefs about  English learning and teaching of students entering to a High School Course integrated to Computer Technician at a Federal High School in the city Ponta Pora / MS , located at the  border  with Paraguay . In the context , great part of the students coming from public schools in the region  had not studied English as a foreign language in elementary school , once it is located  in a region of the border with Paraguay , it offers only Spanish as a foreign language. The interest for this research came up as of conflicting situations between the teacher way of teaching and students ways of learning, especially of those who had not studied English in elementary school. Thus we tried to study the beliefs of these students, analyzing how they process in that context in order to promote reflection of the teacher  to perform actions of intervention in order to reduce the mismatches between the ways of teaching and the ways that the students believe to be the right to learn. Keywords: Beliefs; English Teaching and Learning; Context

LINGUISTICS AND TEACHING: PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ TRAINING

This paper aims at investigating how and which theoretical aspects of linguistics are effective for implementing a Letters course directed across the educations of Portuguese language teachers. This study is anchored to a theoretical-methodological perspective of the French discourse analysis which dialogues with the History of Linguistic Ideas. Our analysis is carried out through a documental investigation of a corpus of analysis containing accounts on the Letters course, specifically at UNOCHAPECÓ-SC.