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The present study was designed to examine students' comprehension and problem representation when reading and solving algebra word problems in their first language (L1: Spanish) and their second language (L2: English). The main interest was to investigate the role of the L2 in performing the task. It was hypothesized that difficulty in understanding and solving word problems is a function of carrying out the task in the L2 and discourse factors inherent to the specific type of text. / The sample consisted of 31 grade 9 students who attended a private bilingual school in a Colombian city. Students were asked to think aloud as they solved four problems that dealt with the topics of ratio and percentage. Problem presentation was counterbalanced with respect to topic, but the language of presentation was kept fixed; i.e., the first set of ratio and percentage problems were in English and the other set in Spanish. Students were allowed to use either language when solving the problems. There was a short post-task semi-structured interview. Students' think aloud protocols and answers to problems were analyzed. / The results support the role that language plays in performing this type of task, although not in the way that it was initially predicted. The results suggest that the language of instruction plays a more important role than whether the task is performed in L1 or L2. Thus, the hypothesis that completing the task would be more difficult in the L2 was not supported. The results suggest that the difficulty with word problems resides in the mismatch between text comprehension, the situation presented in the text and the mathematical representation. The evidence is discussed within the framework of current explanations for performance in word problems in the L1 as they apply to the bilingual case, and theories of text comprehension. It is argued that current explanations for performance in word problems in the L1 apply to the bilingual case, but with the caution that the interaction between the content of the subject domain, and the knowledge students have of the language of instruction and their first language must be taken into account.

The metaphoric competence does not have the importance it deserves in the field of Spanish as a foreign language; the metaphoric language must cease to be considered as an exclusive language of the literary text. This paper addresses and discusses theories related to metaphor and particularly, the implications of metaphoric competence (MC) in the teaching and learning of languages. Furthermore, we will describe a small experiment that was conducted at the University of Stockholm in which we sought to prove that the explicit instruction of theory and practice of metaphor makes the acquisition of metaphoric competence easier for students of Spanish as a foreign language. The results of this experiment were not as expected; however, it could be concluded that much remains to be done in research on the acquisition of MC in the field of Spanish as a Foreign Language. Finally, and on the basis of the revised theories, a teaching proposal that seeks to develop the metaphoric competence in students of Spanish as a foreign language will be presented.

This thesis has presented a comparative study of English and Spanish determiners. The comparison has been made at a surface level of the determiner systems of the two languages and also at a deep structure level. The reason of this comparison has been to find out how the two languages differ or have points of similarities. The points of difference have been taken into consideration to see how these differences between the two languages affect errors in writing compositions by Spanish-speaking students learning English.Some ideas have been drawn up of how constrastive analysis could help in teaching or learning a language.

This dissertation tested the usefulness of Stroop-like tests in the study of the memory of second language learners. Two Stroop-like tests (picture-word and word-word) with incongruent stimuli were administered to subjects with high and low proficiency in Spanish. Predictions on the outcome of the tests were made from the point of view of six models of bilingual memory (common store, separate stores, common store to separate stores, bilingual dual-coding, word association, and concept mediation).A 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design with repeated measures on the last two variables was used. The variables were proficiency level: high and low, task: picture-word and word-word, and language condition: within language and between language. The analysis revealed a significant main effect of task and a significant interaction of task x language condition. Two additional interactions were marginally significant at the .10 level: proficiency level x task, proficiency level x language condition.The results did not provide any support for the separate stores, common store to separate stores, and bilingual dual coding models, but did provide partial support for the other and three models. It was concluded that the Stroop-like tests are a promising tool to study the organization of memory in second language (L2) acquisition. / Department of English

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-70).

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2009. / Title from screen (viewed on August 28, 2009). Department of World Languages and Cultures, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Elena Natal, Nancy A. Newton, Marta M. Antón. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-63).

Fossilization, the stagnation of second language (L2) learning despite propitious conditions, is an inescapable reality for virtually all L2 learners. The study presented in this dissertation has endeavored to contribute to our current understanding of fossilization by examining, both longitudinally and cross-sectionally, persistent errors in the writing of adult learners of academic English for whom Spanish is a first language (L1). The theoretical framework is the Selective Fossilization Hypothesis (SFH), introduced by Han in 2009, which offers an extrapolative and explanatory framework for analyzing persistent errors in the developing grammars of L2 learners. This research was conducted in two parts. Part I consisted of a cross-sectional investigation of 60 English language learners (ELLs) grouped into three proficiency levels: low intermediate, high intermediate, and advanced. Part II was a longitudinal case study that followed two ELLs over a period of 28 and 56 months, respectively. For both parts of the study, naturalistic data consisting of college placement, diagnostic, and exit essays were collected at the research site, a large community college in the Northeastern United States, and analyzed quantitatively. Descriptive statistics were computed to identify persistent errors in the participants’ writing. Following that, the longitudinal data were subjected to further analysis, revealing robust evidence of selective fossilization both among and within the target subsystems of English articles, prepositions, and number, and offering empirical support for the SFH. These findings have some implications for second language research and practice. By providing evidence of selective fossilization, they may help challenge earlier conceptualizations of fossilization as a global phenomenon, and, by extension, the myth of the ‘fossilized’ (‘unteachable’) learner. Additionally, they contribute to extant research on the developing academic writing of post-secondary learners, a population and genre largely underrepresented in the L2 research. Finally, by offering empirical support for selective fossilization and the SFH, they provide L2 practitioners with the means to predict and explain learner errors, enabling them to set more realistic learning goals and achieve more successful outcomes.

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This study attemps to discover whether there is a difference in the academic performance of Spanish surname students in high school Spanish 1 language classrooms over their non-Spanish surname counterparts.