This essay examines the state of Digital Humanities work in the subfield of literature from the Spanish speaking world. It provides a case study of a multiyear digital mapping project conducted with undergraduate students at a highly selective liberal arts college. This project serves as a means of examining the digital state of the field and…

Research on social media in the foreign language classroom has grown significantly in the last 10 years. However, there continues to be a gap in how social media, Twitter in particular, can be used as a tool to build community within a Spanish as a second-language literature classroom. The current action research project seeks to address this gap.…

The present study investigated the production of the speech act of disagreement among Tunisian non-native students of English and American native speakers of English. Discourse completion test (DCT) was used to elicit disagreement strategies by the informants. Non-native informants produced a total of 376 acts and native informants produced 395…

The faculty and administration at Drake University made the decision in 2001 to alter radically how language instruction was delivered and received, beginning by disbanding the long-standing Modern Language Department. The dissolution of the department and the new pedagogy caused ripples of concern and shock among language instructors and…

This study examines the impact of technology-mediated pedagogical tasks on students' willingness to communicate and communicative performance in the intermediate level of Spanish at Iowa State University. Drawing from the framework on technology-mediated tasks by Gonzalez-Lloret & Ortega, 2014, and the World-Readiness Standards for…

An increasing number of studies on the use of tools for automated writing evaluation (AWE) in writing classrooms suggest growing interest in their potential for formative assessment. As with all assessments, these applications should be validated in terms of their intended interpretations and uses. A recent argument-based validation framework…

This paper explores the feasibility of an automated, online form of L2 strategy instruction (SI) as an alternative to conventional, classroom-based forms that rely primarily on teachers. Feasibility was evaluated by studying the effectiveness, both actual and perceived, of a five-week, online SI course designed to teach web-based dictionary skills…

Today, English language learners (ELLs)--students whose primary language is other than English--are the fastest-growing major school population in the United States. Between 2000-01 and 2010-11, the number of these students, whose level of English proficiency is not sufficient to support learning in a regular English language classroom, rose 18…

In this article, I return to the interactions of Augusto and his teacher in an "English Learner Science" classroom in a demographically-transitioning US Midwest community (Richardson Bruna and Vann in Cult Stud Sci Educ 2:19-59, "2007") and further engage a class-first perspective to achieve two main conceptual objectives.…

Google Earth is a computer program that allows users to view the Earth through satellite imagery and maps, to see cities from above and through street views, and to search for addresses and browse locations. Many famous buildings and structures from around the world have detailed 3D views accessible on Google Earth. It is possible to explore the…

The main purpose of this study was to compare the strategies used by Chinese-speaking students when confronted with familiar versus unfamiliar topics in a multiple-choice format reading comprehension test. The focus was on describing what students do when they are taking reading comprehension tests by asking students to verbalize their thoughts.…

Information gap activities are partner tasks that improve interpersonal communication skills. One student has information the other student needs, hence a "gap" exists that students seek to close through communication. As students gain experience and language skills, they create language that is more meaningful. These are activities that…

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). To this end, the Center provides professional support for foreign language…

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). In the summer of 1996, the Center offered the Culture and Children's…

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). In the summer of 1996, the Center offered the Culture and Children's…