Previous studies in second language teaching have called attention to the importance and benefits of including reading, especially graded readers (i.e., books adapted to the proficiency level of the students), in the L2 curriculum (Martinez, 2017; Rodrigo, 2018). On one hand, previous scholars have found the following benefits from graded readers:…

Seven cohorts of students (N = 258) who completed a K-5 Spanish Immersion (SI) program in a suburban California school district were followed longitudinally through middle and high school to understand their academic, language, and social emotional outcomes. Academic and language outcomes included Spanish classes and grades, standardized Math and…

In this article, we present our vision of a transformed second language acquisition and teaching (SLA/T) disciplinary community that approaches second language (L2) education through four pillars. The first pillar is praxeology (i.e., the study of human action) to highlight the sociocontextually emergent nature of L2 competence. It locates the…

Language teachers' resilience, or their socially-mediated capacity to adapt to adverse conditions and thrive, has garnered attention amidst evolving challenges to language education and bilingual teachers in diverse spaces. Taking an ecological-collective perspective towards language teacher resilience, this qualitative case study examined the…

Purpose: This longitudinal study investigated the impact of different academic programs of primary language instruction (Spanish or English) on the dual language development of Spanish--English bilingual children. Types of academic settings offered to bilingual students as well as differing views and outcomes based on language of instruction are…

Referential expressions (REs) have been investigated in L2 English but to date there is no single study that systematically and simultaneously analyzes the development and acquisition of the multiple factors that constrain the choice of REs in natural discourse production. We investigate L1 Spanish-L2 English learners across three proficiency…

Evidence suggests that short-term study abroad experiences can help advance various dimensions of second language (L2) learners' linguistic competence. However, the extent to which gains following a brief sojourn are durable and maintained after immersion remains an open question. The present study examined both the immediate and sustained…

This study details the development of a local test designed to place university Spanish students (n = 719) into one of the four different course levels and to distinguish between traditional L2 learners and early bilinguals on the basis of their linguistic knowledge, regardless of the variety of Spanish they were exposed to. Early bilinguals…

After Jeanette Wing in 2006 described computational thinking (CT) as a fundamental skill for everyone just like reading or arithmetic, it has become a widely discussed topic all over the world. Computational thinking is a problem-solving skill set that is used to tackle problems in computer science. However, these skills, such as pattern…

Children with Down syndrome are largely excluded from the foreign language classroom, and no research exists documenting their abilities to learn a foreign language. Research is needed to demonstrate the abilities of children with Down syndrome to learn a foreign language so that they might be included in the foreign language classroom along with…

This study examines the interpreter role among students who serve as interpreters in a community health clinic system in the Midwestern USA as part of a community health-themed service-learning course for advanced Spanish students. Drawing on Positioning Theory (Davies and Harré 1990), I consider the ways in which three second language learners…

This short-form article describes a multimedia unit of study on social turmoil for students at the ACTFL Intermediate Mid and Intermediate High levels. It explains the rationale for the cultural products used based on current scholarship as well as ACTFL and MLA standards and provides explicit instructional guidance so that students with little…

Gamification is a methodological strategy that uses "game design elements in non-game contexts" (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, and Nacke 2011). The purpose of gamification is to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems. This chapter describes examples of Spanish content gamifications that integrate different game…

This study examined the production of L3 French words by Spanish--English bilinguals who had no prior knowledge of the L3. Using a shadowing task, 39 Spanish L1/English L2 and 18 Spanish monolingual speakers produced 26 tokens of word-initial voiceless plosive consonants in French, Spanish and English (15 Spanish and French tokens for the…

Because dual-language books (DLBs) print the entire text in two languages nearby on the page, they have great potential for supporting children's biliteracy development by providing contexts to compare/contrast languages. However, little is known about how children read DLBs independently and how they may/may not use such characteristics to…