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摘要：Construction grammar (CG) has been proposed as an adequate grammatical formalism for building intelligent language tutoring systems because it is highly compatible with the learning strategies observed in second language learning. Unfortunately, the lack of computational CG implementations has made it impossible in the past to corroborate these proposals with actual language tutoring prototypes. However, recent advances in Fluid Construction Grammar (FCG) now offer exciting new ways of operationalizing robust and open-ended language processing within a CG approach. This paper demonstrates its adequacy for ICALL applications through a case study on error diagnosis in the domain of Spanish tense, aspect and modal morphology. The performance of the FCG tutor is tested on the Spanish Learner Language Oral Corpus (SPLOCC 2). This first FCG Spanish error diagnostic prototype achieves an accuracy of 70% on a total of 500 conjugation errors in four oral tasks carried out by 20 low intermediate and 20 advanced English learners of Spanish. Follow-up experiments will test this prototype on larger learner corpora of differing proficiency levels. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study explores the differential effects of medium of delivery of aural input during listening tasks on learners noticing and type of comprehension (top-down and bottom-up) of Spanish object pronouns during focus on form listening tasks. Twenty-two college students enrolled in second year Spanish in a technology-enhanced classroom participated in the study. Two types of medium of delivery of input were compared: mobile assisted language learning (MALL), which is learner manipulated, and instructor manipulated language learning (IMLL). A quasi-experimental design was used -- treatment and immediate tests -- in order to measure participants' reported noticing and type of comprehension. Noticing was operationalized using think-aloud protocols, and measured on the post-test exposure comprehension assessment tasks. The findings of the study, interpreted within the attentional SLA framework, indicate that learners in the MALL group demonstrated significantly higher levels of reported noticing, bottom-up comprehension, and top-down overall comprehension than learners in the IMLL group. Directions for future research as well as pedagogical implications of the use of mobile technology and task-based listening activities are offered. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This study investigates whether practice with computer-administered feedback in the absence of meaning-focused interaction can help second language learners notice the corrective intent of recasts and develop linguistic accuracy. A group of 218 beginning Anglophone learners of Spanish received 1 of 4 types of automated feedback (no feedback, utterance rejection, recasts, or enhanced recasts) in the written mode or the oral mode, in response to noun-adjective gender or number agreement errors. For both modalities, written and oral posttests conducted up to 2 months after treatment revealed that recasts yielded more target-like production and learner repair than either no feedback or utterance rejection and that utterance rejection was in turn more effective than no feedback. Two factors were found to increase the effectiveness of computer-delivered recasts: oral, but not typographical, input enhancement (orally enhanced recasts were more beneficial than orally unenhanced and typographically enhanced recasts) and working memory (higher span learners were superior to lower span learners in all recast groups). We discuss the implications of our results for the area of error treatment as an instructional focus technique and suggest avenues for future research.

摘要：Although stress is frequently claimed to impede foreign language (FL) reading comprehension, it is usually not explained how. We investigated the effects of stress, working memory (WM) capacity, and inferential complexity on Spanish FL readers' inferential processing during comprehension. Inferences, although necessary for reading comprehension, vary in inferential complexity and WM demands. We measured 55 intermediate-level Spanish FL learners' reading comprehension, using questions with three levels of inferential complexity: non-inference (factual), bridging inference (pronoun referent), and pragmatic inference. We measured participants' WM capacity and varied their stress level between blocks using a video camera. Results showed that higher WM learners were more accurate overall. Inference construction during comprehension was negatively related to inferential complexity. Stress increased processing time overall, with a trend toward greater effect on response times (RTs) for questions requiring greater inferential complexity. Higher WM learners showed a greater effect of inferential complexity on RTs than lower WM learners. More generally, and consistent with the Eysenck, Santos, Derekschan, and Calvo's (2007) Attentional Control Theory, analyses showed that higher WM learners strategically traded reading speed (processing efficiency) for greater comprehension accuracy (processing effectiveness), whereas lower WM learners only did so under stress and did so less successfully. Thus, stress impedes FL reading comprehension through interactions between WM capacity and inferential complexity, and such effects are moderated by strategy use.

摘要：This study examines whether adult second language (L2) learners of an ungendered first language (L1) are sensitive to gender congruency (grammatical feature absent in the L1) and noun animacy (semantic feature present in the L1) when processing L2 gender concord and whether L2 proficiency level determines such sensitivity. To address these questions, 63 Spanish monolinguals and 69 beginning and 64 intermediate Anglophone late learners of L2 Spanish completed a moving-window and a grammaticality judgment task with sentences with gender concord and discord with animate and inanimate nouns. The moving-window data reveal longer reading times in sentences with gender discord than concord and in those with animate than inanimate nouns in intermediates and Spanish monolinguals but not in beginners. Similarly, grammaticality judgments show that intermediates are more accurate in sentences with inanimate than animate nouns and are better than beginners in sentences with gender agreement violations. These results suggest that intermediate learners display targetlike patterns that are more qualitatively similar to those of natives than beginners, both in terms of semantic and grammatical features. In addition, these findings indicate that agreement with animate nouns is cognitively more demanding than with inanimate nouns both for intermediates and Spanish monolinguals, in line with lexical and syntactic accounts of gender.

摘要：This paper investigates how learners interpret definite plural noun phrases (e.g., the tigers) and bare (article-less) plural noun phrases (e.g., tigers) in their second language. Whereas Spanish allows definite plurals to have both generic and specific readings, English requires definite plurals to have specific, nongeneric readings. Generic readings in English are expressed with bare plurals, which are ungrammatical in Spanish in preverbal subject position. Two studies were conducted in order to investigate the role of first language transfer in this domain in both English --> Spanish and Spanish --> English directions. Study 1 used a meaning-focused task to probe learners' interpretation of definite plural noun phrases, whereas Study 2 used a form-focused task to examine learners' judgments of the acceptability of definite and bare plurals in generic versus specific contexts. First language transfer was attested in both directions, at lower proficiency levels, whereas more targetlike performance was attested at higher proficiency levels. Furthermore, learners were found to be more successful in learning about the (un)grammaticality of bare plurals in the target language than in assigning the target interpretation to definite versus bare plurals. This finding is shown to be consistent with other studies' findings of plural noun phrase interpretation in monolingual and bilingual children.

摘要：The aims of the present study were twofold. The study addressed the issues of simultaneous attention to form and meaning in second language (L2) written input and reactivity of think-alouds. Specifically, the study examined the comprehension of L2 learners of Spanish who either attended to lexical or grammatical forms while reading for meaning or read for meaning alone. Learners completed these tasks while either thinking aloud or not. Results indicated only a minimal effect for thinking aloud that did not appear to compromise the internal validity of the study. Additionally, results showed that attending to grammatical or lexical form while reading for meaning did not affect comprehension. Indeed, learners who processed these forms more deeply evidenced greater comprehension. These findings are considered in light of methodological issues and the larger issue of simultaneous attention to form and meaning in a L2. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Although claims about explicit and implicit language knowledge are central to many debates in SLA, little research has been dedicated to measuring the two knowledge types (R. Ellis, 2004, 2005). The purpose of this study was to validate the use of the battery of tests reported in Ellis (2005) to measure implicit and explicit language knowledge. Whereas Ellis (2005) tested only second-language (L2) learners (of English), this study tested both L2 and heritage language (HL) learners (of Spanish). Results showed that test scores loaded on a two-factor model, as in Ellis (2005), thereby providing construct validity for the tests, on a population of HL learners who have little explicit knowledge by virtue of the environment in which they acquired Spanish. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Morphological variability and the source of these errors have been intensely debated in SLA. A recurrent finding is that postpuberty second language (L2) learners often omit or use the wrong affix for nominal and verbal inflections in oral production but less so in written tasks. According to the missing surface inflection hypothesis, L2 learners have intact functional projections, but errors stem from problems during production only (a mapping or processing deficit). This article shows that morphological variability is also characteristic of heritage speakers (early bilinguals of ethnic minority languages) who were exposed to the family language naturalistically in early childhood but failed to acquire age-appropriate linguistic competence in the language. However, because errors in heritage speakers are more frequent in written than in oral tasks, the missing surface inflection hypothesis does not apply to them. The discussion considers how morphological errors in the two populations seem to be related to the type of experience. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This investigation intends to assess the effectiveness of a lexical recognition test (Meara & Buxton, 1987) as a placement tool that distinguishes among levels of two groups of students: Spanish heritage language learners (HLL) and second language learners (SLL). Three hundred and thirty university students from four different levels completed a 10-minute/200-word task based on Davies' (2006) Spanish frequency corpora. The results were compared to those from a control group of bilingual graduate students. As comparison measures, about half of the students completed a Cloze Test while the rest were asked to carry out a Multiple-task Test. The results of the study suggest that for SLL, and HLL at the lower levels of language ability, a lexical test based on the 5000 most frequent words in Spanish is a valid and practical testing tool that correlates with other measures of language proficiency. For more advanced levels of HLL, a wider range of words is necessary to avoid the ceiling effect. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Ltd., copyright holder.]

摘要：This study contributes to the research on learner autonomy by examining the relationship between Little's (1991) notions of 'independent action' and 'decision-making', input, and L2 production in computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Operationalizing 'independent action' and 'decision-making' with Dam's (1995) definition that focuses on 'choice', the present study examines whether, while learners are engaged in a CALL task, their choices -- termed autonomous moves -- within a 3D environment and the subsequent input they receive predict the linguistic complexity and accuracy of their production in synchronous computer mediated communication (SCMC). A total of 58 third-year university-level learners of Spanish participated in two murder-mystery tasks coupling a 3D segment -- containing embedded user-tracking features -- with an SCMC segment. Four regression analyses examined the potential impact of learners' choices within the 3D environment and the input resulting from those decisions on their production. The results suggest that learners' linguistic complexity and accuracy while completing CALL-based tasks is influenced by both their autonomous moves and the linguistic characteristics of the input they receive (as a result of their autonomous moves). Adapted from the source document

摘要：This investigation connects issues in second language (L2) acquisition to topics in quantitative sociolinguistics by exploring the relationship between native-speaker (NS) and L2 variation. It is the first large-scale analysis of L2 mood use (the subjunctive-indicative contrast) in Spanish. It applies variationist findings on the range of linguistic and extralinguistic factors (form regularity, semantic category, time reference, hypotheticality, and task) shown to influence NSs' mood use to an interlanguage analysis of L2 development and shows that analyses of frequency and predictors provide revealing details about how learners acquire the ability to vary their use of verbal moods in Spanish. Variationism, it is concluded, can foster rich descriptions and explanations of interlanguage and its evolution. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Technology enhanced learning (TEL) has shaped the way we teach and learn nowadays. Web 2.0 interactivity capacities have played a major role in providing a virtual space where learning can take place outside the classroom. Digital environments challenge the traditional educational establishment by blurring the boundaries between the recipient of knowledge and the knowledge provider. Noticeable changes in educational dynamics emergent through the use of technology affect teachers and learners alike. Despite strong government and institutional drivers to adopt TEL strategies in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the United Kingdom (UK), practitioners' adoption of TEL needs to be encouraged and their competence needs to be developed. This report aims to address this concern by discussing design and management of an online learning space for a face-to-face undergraduate Spanish course using proprietary technology. Focusing on specific features and designs for online learning interactions, the report will discuss practicalities of designing for effectiveness, both from a pedagogical perspective and from the user's interface standpoint. It will propose strategies to enable learners' autonomy, to foster collaboration and to develop metacognition via a blog. Adapted from the source document

摘要：Virtual worlds are an emerging technology in computer-assisted learning. Due to the novelty of these new learning spaces, little research has been done on the use or the effects on students learning foreign languages. This research looks at how the use of the virtual world Second Life affects the motivation of students in an undergraduate Spanish course. Comparisons were made on responses to an attitude/motivation test battery completed by students enrolled in two sections of a beginning level undergraduate Spanish course. One section utilized Second Life as part of its instruction while the other section participated in traditional curriculum. Results demonstrate that virtual worlds could be a valuable resource to lower student anxiety and increase their motivation to learn a foreign language. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article draws on data from an ethnographic multiple-case study on the identity, positioning, and interactions of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) students in regular Canadian high school Spanish classes. Interview and classroom observational data are discursively analyzed to reveal the presence of a form of language ideology that equates displayed Spanish speaking ability with language proficiency and heritage. This type of language ideology particularly impacted how one SHL student, who was reluctant to speak Spanish, was positioned and treated in class in ways that not only did not acknowledge her Hispanic heritage or encourage the development of her oral skills, but also did not recognize the usefulness of her literacy skills. This article problematizes the assumptions that HL students are typically able (and willing) to speak their HL and that this ability is viewed as their most important asset in class. The article concludes with pedagogical implications and directions for future research. Adapted from the source document

摘要：This article examines the acquisition of Spanish idioms in a classroom setting that was supplemented with explicit instruction over a 10-week period. The research design manipulated two variables: prior lexical knowledge and idiom organization. Sixty-five second language (L2) learners completed pre- and posttests that measured their ability to recognize and produce the target idioms, as well as a vocabulary test to control for lexical knowledge. Participants in the experimental groups received contextualized idiom presentation that encouraged noticing, retrieving, and generating (Nation, 2001). The results indicate significant treatment effects, although no significant advantage was found for the thematic grouping of idioms. The results also show a significant effect for prior lexical knowledge on one of the dependent variables. These findings are discussed in relation to prior studies of idiom learning from a cognitive linguistics perspective (Boers et al., 2007) as well as psycholinguistic studies that emphasize the salience of literal meanings (Cielicka, 2006). [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

摘要：The construct of anxiety is often believed to be the affective factor with the greatest potential to pervasively affect the learning process (Horwitz, 2001), and recent research has demonstrated that anxiety can mediate whether learners are able to notice feedback and subsequently produce output (Sheen, 2008). In order to reduce the negative effects of anxiety, researchers have suggested that computer-based interaction may be an ideal medium for communication and practice (Kern, 1995), although this hypothesis has yet to be tested empirically. The current study addresses this gap by comparing the effect of computer-mediated communication (CMC) vs. face-to-face communication (FTF) on learners' state anxiety. Twenty-five learners of intermediate Spanish completed two information-gap tasks with their teacher in a within-subject, counterbalanced design. Learners' state anxiety was measured halfway through and following each task via a state anxiety questionnaire, and a task preference questionnaire was administered after the treatment. Results demonstrate that - contrary to expectations - reported state anxiety was not significantly lower in the CMC mode than the FTF mode. In fact, learners' reported state anxiety was comparable across modality. The use and implications of both interactional modes for foreign language learning contexts are discussed, as are students' perceptions of interaction in the CMC and FTF modes. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

摘要：This study compares descriptive quantitative and qualitative data from 2 beginning, university-level second-language (L2) Spanish classes to demonstrate the benefits of teacher-led discourse organized as collaborative, whole-class tasks. In one class, the teacher solicited target L2 forms through conversational questions to individuals with recasted feedback. In the other, the teacher sought multiple responses to communicative prompts and had learners problem-solve target-structure accuracy collectively. Ten-minute transcribed segments from each class were analyzed for the following characteristics: (a) extended silent latencies (i.e., > 5 seconds); (b) the number and distribution of learner turns; (c) the number of unsolicited learner turns; and (d) assistance with L2 form-meaning relationships. The results showed not only fewer extended latencies in the second class but also a greater quantity and distribution of both solicited and unsolicited learner turns and more L2 assistance. Qualitative excerpts are discussed using Sperber and Wilson's (1995, 2002; Wilson & Sperber, 2004) relevance theory to identify the social and cognitive benefits of collaborative whole-class tasks. Adapted from the source document

摘要：The present study adds to our understanding of how learners employ lexical and grammatical phenomena to communicate in writing in different types of inter-language discourse. A multidimensional (factor) analysis of a corpus of L2 Spanish writing (202,241 words) generated by second- and third-year, university-level learners was performed. The analysis uncovered four significant clusters that can be considered distinct discourse types with two main stylistic variations: narrative (characterized by verbal features) and expository (characterized by nominal features). Results also provide examples of the multiple ways that stylistic sophistication and linguistic complexity occur in the L2. Although the Spanish learners' discourse did not show signs of syntactic complexity (e.g. frequent use of relative clauses, subordinate clauses, use of clitics), the frequent use of nominal features affects informational density due to the presence of numerous derivational morphemes. Inflectional complexity in the form of marked forms was not predominant in the data set. Still, the learners' verbal inflections did vary, which is a sign of L2 development (Howard 2002, 2006; Collentine 2004; Marsden and David 2008). Adapted from the source document