Recursos

Current complexities of English teaching in Costa Rica’s public secondary education are discussed. Using an autoethnographic research approach, critical incidents of an EFL teacher are examined in light of Complexity Theory. Findings suggest that classrooms are unpredictable sites of struggle where multiple rationalities coexist (and often conflict), which must be understood before random decisions are made. For applied linguistics, the study is relevant at three levels: it expands the bulk of literature on the subject, it calls for more attention to the complexities of EFL, and it opens an avenue for reflection and future research directions.

This study examines the simultaneous bilingual acquisition of English and Spanish by a boy from age 1;2.0 to 2;3.3. Transcripts and diary recordings were examined in order to establish the way in which phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic skills developed in the child’s speech. The child’s development was contrasted to that in monolingual English and Spanish-speaking children of comparable ages, and the results evidenced an analogous progress at the phonological and morpho-syntactic levels, which suggests language autonomy. The child’s rate of translation equivalents was also analyzed, as well as his rate of mixing and whether these were grammatically constrained. The boy started making use of translation equivalents as soon as these were available in his speech, and by and large, his mixing resulted from lack of equivalents in the two languages. He always used more of the interlocutor’s language and was able to correct himself and to use the appropriate language after his interlocutor prompted him to do so. Furthermore, the child’s mixing never evidenced any violations to the grammatical constraints that apply to adult language mixing. The latter observable facts also suggest an autonomous development of the two languages.

The graduate program in Teaching English at the University of Costa Rica offers yearly English courses to satisfy the language learning needs at different departments, research centers, or similar institutions. The objective of this article was to analyze the extent to which a group of student teachers fulfilled the roles of the instructors in the Task Based Language Teaching method used in the graduate program. The study used a mixed-methods approach and the subjects were three instructors during their teaching practicum. The roles of the instructors were assessed by the practicum supervisors, fellow students in the practicum, the students in the course, and the instructors themselves through rubrics, observation sheets, surveys, and teaching journals. The results from the different instruments using different scales pointed to the instructors fulfilling the roles of sequencing tasks and motivating the learners a majority of the times. The roles of preparing the learners for tasks and raising consciousness were fulfilled to a lesser extent, which indicated that the instructors needed to work further on these areas. The study concluded with recommendations for improving the roles that revealed weaknesses, notably aimed to provide a manageable numbers of vocabulary items and grammar structures in the pretask, as well as to provide prompt feedback, and to elicit students’ knowledge for the development of lessons

El estudio delinea las asequibilidades metodológicas de las herramientas de registro de teclas al investigar el comportamiento de pausa durante la escritura digital en L2. Con la llegada de la escritura mediada por ordenador, se ha destacado la importancia de la producción escrita como una función comunicativa (Chukharev-Hudilainen et al., 2019). Métodos: Se llevó a cabo una revisión exhaustiva de 21 artículos de investigación, publicados entre 2006 y 2023. Los artículos seleccionados utilizaron el registro de teclas como método de investigación principal con un enfoque en la escritura en L2. Se esbozaron varios enfoques metodológicos para estudiar los procesos de escritura en L2, incluyendo aquellos que se concentran en la escritura en línea, el comportamiento de pausa, el comportamiento de revisión, y las operaciones cognitivas que sustentan estos procesos (Mohsen, 2021). Resultados: Los hallazgos revelan una predominancia de estudios cuantitativos que emplean software de registro de teclas en sus diseños de investigación. Se identificó una relación entre la naturaleza cuantitativa de los datos y el análisis de los procesos de escritura, revisión, y comportamiento de pausa. La integración del registro de teclas en la investigación abarca varios métodos, siendo prevalentes la recuperación estimulada, las entrevistas, y el seguimiento ocular (Révész et al., 2019; Alves et al., 2008). Discusión/Conclusión: El registro de teclas demuestra ser invaluable tanto para la investigación de escritura en L1 como en L2, particularmente en el análisis de los procesos de escritura, revisión, y comportamiento de pausa. Aunque los métodos cuantitativos son predominantes, los enfoques de métodos cualitativos y mixtos también son significativos. Las direcciones de investigación futura incluyen explorar el potencial del registro de teclas para investigar otros aspectos de los procesos de escritura, adoptar enfoques de métodos cualitativos y mixtos para el análisis de datos, examinar el impacto de diferentes tipos de retroalimentación, y comparar varios grupos de escritores en L1 y L2.

The objective of this article is to present an analysis of the changes in the amount of English lexical knowledge that beginners can learn in a quarter (14 weeks) using flashcards. Participants took a pre and a post test. Each week, they made cards using unknown words from a 512-word list studied in two previous courses. A t-test was utilized to compare the results. Besides, participants kept tract of the time they spent using word cards and completed a questionnaire at the end of the quarter. Participants’ scores in the pre and post-test show that there was positive improvement (71.66- 87.33) respectively. The research study reported here provides evidence for the claim that the use of word cards as a strategy helps improve vocabulary knowledge quickly.

The analysis of the Spanish data produced by speakers from the Costa Rican Central Valley evidenced that the trill has been substituted by an assibilated rhotic, while the tap also undergoes assibilation in three contexts: 1) in complex /tr/ onset clusters, 2) word-medially in complex onsets that come after a voiced coronal /l/ or /n/, and 3) in /rC/ clusters where the rhotic is in coda position, always before one or more bound clitic morphemes. Additionally, the tap assibilates phrase-finally. The proposal is that the assibilation of the trill results from the cross-linguistic tendency to reduce the articulation process: instead of producing the trill which requires controlled, precise, and sustained movement of the tongue tip, the magnitude of the movement of the tongue tip is reduced, resulting in assibilation of the trill in all contexts. Assibilation of the tap is explained in terms of coarticulation.

GENERAL OVERVIEW 'Success in English Teaching' is a handbook specifically aimed at teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), although teachers of English as Second Language (ESL) as well as other language teachers can certainly benefit from it. The book examines various significant aspects of language teaching, from how and when to teach discrete English skills to how to design syllabi, how to handle evaluation, and how to work with an appropriate coursebook, to how to best take into account learners' needs and motivation. The book is divided into two main sections, the first one focusing on the actual classroom (chapters 1 through 6), and the second examining broader aspects in language teaching such as planning and evaluation (chapters 7 through 12). Additionally, a very practical glossary is provided which includes comprehensible definitions of all crucial terms used throughout the text. At the end of the book, the authors also provide a useful list of books for further reading, broken down into the following sections: general background and methodology texts, texts about teaching different language skills, testing and evaluation texts, classroom planning and managing texts, and texts about approaches to teaching English.

Cada vez más, el personal docente requiere de competencias digitales para trabajar con una población estudiantil que tiene acceso temprano a la tecnología y un mayor conocimiento de herramientas tecnológicas. Por lo anterior, se consideró importante realizar una revisión bibliométrica de la literatura sobre competencias digitales en el campo de la educación. Para ello se analizaron artículos obtenidos de tres bases de datos (Springer, EBSCO, Web of Science) y se recabó un total de 257 artículos para el período de 2020 a 2023. El objetivo de la investigación es identificar las tendencias y líneas de investigación más recientes en la literatura. La metodología consistió en un análisis bibliométrico guiado por palabras clave mediante la herramienta VOSviewer. Los principales resultados incluyen: 1.) presentación del diagrama de flujo utilizando el modelo PRISMA; 2.) uso del software VOSviewer para la agrupación de clústeres; 3.) identificación de cuatro clústeres que permiten conocer las principales líneas de investigación sobre competencias digitales en el corpus de estudio; y 4.) presentación del concepto del modelo TPACK, que es útil para el análisis de las competencias digitales docentes.

This article is based on the findings of using a teddy bear as a tool to provide a way of increasing pupils’ motivation toward learning by means of using a stuffed animal such as a teddy bear named Ken Bear and relating it to learning a L2. It was developed in hopes to improve not only the motivation of students but give a positive backwash on the institution itself by giving the school a positive interpersonal context. Voluntary students participated in this project, which consisted of taking care of a teddy bear as a friend or playmate for a day or a few days. At the end of such time, the students would write a short entry into the bear’ s diary in English if possible, if not, in Spanish or just a picture with a few words. Results indicated that this project was a huge success based on the opinions of students, teachers and parents.