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Abstract: This article makes the case for using critical pedagogical approaches to the teaching of Spanish as a heritage language (HL). Having different language tracks is not enough: As long as HL learners hold negative linguistic attitudes about their own language variety, they will be unable and unprepared to learn successfully. First, I define who HL learners are and why they need to be in a separate track from traditional language learners. Later, I discuss the basic premises of critical pedagogy in order to recommend that HL instructors take this pedagogical approach to maximize Spanish HL learner potential. Last, I recommend the importance of providing sociolinguistic tools in order to corroborate that standard Spanish is not a replacement for local varieties but simply a register students can use once they appreciate their own language.


We describe the adaptation into Spanish of the St George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), a self-administered questionnaire developed by Jones et al. For the adaptation, the forward and back-translation method by bilinguals was used, together with professional committee and lay panel. Once tested for feasibility and comprehension, 318 male chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with a wide range of disease severity completed the Spanish version of the SGRQ. The clinical status of the patients was evaluated concurrently with the measurement of health status. Lung function was assessed in the 2 months before or after the questionnaire administration. The Spanish version of the SGRQ was acceptable and easy to understand. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was 0.94 for the overall scale and 0.72 for "Symptoms", 0.89 for "Activity", and 0.89 for "Impacts" subscales.


The influence of bilingualism on cognitive test performance in older adults has received limited attention in the neuropsychology literature. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of bilingualism on verbal fluency and repetition tests in older Hispanic bilinguals. 3.6; range 2-23) were selected. Forty-five of the participants were English monolinguals, 18 were Spanish monolinguals, and 19 were Spanish-English bilinguals. Verbal fluency was tested by electing a verbal description of a picture and by asking participants to generate words within phonemic and semantic categories. Repetition was tested using a sentence-repetition test. The bilinguals' test scores were compared to English monolinguals' and Spanish monolinguals' test scores. Results demonstrated equal performance of bilingual and monolingual participants in all tests except that of semantic verbal fluency.


The present pilot study examines both the perception of Spanish vowels /a, e, o/ in word - final position and the perception of final and penultimate stress of words ending in those vowels by beginner American English learners of Spanish. Seventeen English speakers and seven native Spanish speakers participated in this study. The English speakers were exposed to 90 hours of Spanish lessons during a three-week course in Mar del Plata, Argentina, a Spanish speaking country. Participants’ perception was assessed by pretest and posttest, which consisted of identification tasks with nonce words. Three weeks after exposure to the language, the English speaking students performed like Spanish speakers in the perception of penultimate stress but not in the perception of final stress. The article concludes that vowel perception is not a problem for English speakers learning Spanish while the perception of stress contrasts is a difficult challenge. More emphasis should be given to stress perception in Spanish programs for English speakers, as stress contrasts, together with vowels, are key to interpreting the meaning of a verb in the Spanish verbal morphology system.


Since the service began in March, 2008 AskMN: The Librarian Is In, Minnesota's statewide cooperative digital reference service, has accepted over 26,800 questions from Minnesota residents, many from K12 students. In the Fall of 2009, AskMN began to actively promote the service to K12 students to assist with the research process, identify scholarly resources, perform searches that produces useful results, and how to cite a web source. Homework Rescue is the brand given to online homework assistance in MELSA. It began in the Fall of 2009 and provides a variety of free tutoring services through a service called HelpNow, powered by Brainfuse. Services are provided in both English and Spanish, including homework, learning academic skills, and assistance in writing term papers.


The service is available to anyone in a MELSA library or remotely to library card holders in seven county metropolitan area. Designed for users grades 3 - 12, it is utilized more broadly. Students visit each service for a variety of reasons, working together with librarians and tutors in a live, interactive setting. Join us in this session to learn more about online behaviors of students, how students approach each service for help, use online resources, and similarities and differences between AskMN and Homework Rescue. We will also discuss ways in which media specialists and classroom teachers can introduce these online services to students to get the most use out of each and to ensure that everyone has a positive experience. Karen Kolb Peterson is a Youth Services Manager at St. Paul Public Library.


Lessons from olive orchards. A fundamental lesson from studies of frugivory in Spanish olive orchards is that the cultivation of fruit crops derived from native instead of exotic plant species will better preserve the original animal biodiversity of the region. Such agricultural landscapes maintain some of the structural and functional (the plant-animal interactions) properties of the natural habitats to which animals are adapted. On the other hand, it is important to acknowledge that different bird species have different pre‐adaptive features that will enable them to thrive in agro‐ecosystems. Most fruit croplands of the world are affected by intensification, landscape and habitat structural simplification and human selection of fruit size. As a result there are often food shortages for frugivores (e.g. Little Nelson et al.


It would therefore be expected that the pre‐adaptive features influencing bird diversity in olive orchards will also be relevant in other fruit production systems. Finally, we can make tentative generalizations from the comparison of olive orchards with other fruit croplands claimed as important reservoirs for biodiversity. Rustic (shade) coffee plantations in Central America have repeatedly been proposed as functional surrogates of the tropical forest for biodiversity (reviewed in Philpott et al. Coffee plantations are exotic in these areas, but their function for biodiversity is achieved from the structural and taxonomical similarities with tropical forests due to the species that provide shade for coffee production in rustic plantations.


Coffee plantations have become fundamental as winter refuges and stopover sites for Neotropical migrant birds because their structural complexity and taxonomical diversity provide suitable food sources and niche requirements. However, modern sun plantations are structurally and taxonomically simplified, mirroring to some extent some phenomena occurring in olive orchards. Most native plant species are removed leading to habitat homogenization, reductions of insects and fruits (food supplies for birds), and a concomitant reduction of bird biodiversity. Unlike olive cultivation zones, however, there is increasing awareness of the importance of bird conservation in agricultural landscapes of the Neotropics. The repercussions for biodiversity of different management regimes in coffee plantations are being thoroughly investigated in these systems (Philpott et al. Similar certification programmes for olive production should be encouraged to conserve frugivorous/insectivorous European migrant birds in their winter Mediterranean quarters.


Abstract: This article investigates the effects of language anxiety on course achievement in three foreign language proficiency levels of Spanish, namely, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Participants completed the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986) and a background questionnaire. Results showed that language anxiety actually differed across proficiency levels. In the present study, advanced learners showed higher levels of anxiety than beginning and intermediate learners. In addition, there was an interrelation between language anxiety and course achievement. However, students with high levels of anxiety did not necessarily exhibit lower course achievement in comparison to students with low levels of language anxiety, as concluded in previous studies. Furthermore, there was a medium level of language anxiety among most participants, with no significant effect on course achievement.


This study investigates the relation between Spanish and English early literacy skills in kindergarten and first grade, and English oral reading fluency at the end of first and second grade in a sample of 150 Spanish‐speaking English language learners. Students were assessed in kindergarten, first, and second grades on a broad bilingual academic battery that included phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, word reading, and oral reading fluency. These measures were analyzed using hierarchal multiple regression to determine which early reading skills predicted English oral reading fluency scores at the end of first and second grade. Predictive relationships were different between English and Spanish measures of early literacy and end of year first grade and second grade English oral reading fluency. This study has important implications for early identification of risk for Spanish‐speaking English language learners as it addresses the input of both Spanish and English early reading skills and the relation between those skills and English oral reading fluency.


Purpose. This study assesses the factors that contribute to Spanish and English language development in bilingual children. Method. Seven hundred and fifty-seven Hispanic prekindergarten and kindergarten-age children completed screening tests of semantic and morphosyntactic development in Spanish and English. Parents provided information about their occupation and education as well as their children's English and Spanish exposure. Data were analyzed using zero-inflated regression models (comprising a logistic regression component and a negative binomial or Poisson component) to explore factors that contributed to children initiating L1 and L2 performance and factors that contributed to building children's knowledge. Results. Factors that were positively associated with initiating L1 and L2 performance were language input/output, free and reduced lunch, and age. Factors associated with building knowledge included age, parent education, input/output, free and reduced lunch, and school district. Conclusion. Amount of language input is important as children begin to use a language, and amount of language output is important for adding knowledge to their language. Semantic development seemed to be driven more by input while morphosyntax development relied on both input and output. Clinicians who assess bilingual children should examine children's language output in their second language to better understand their levels of performance.


Due to the evolution of technology, this study focuses on the use of technology in order to promote language learning. Duolingo is one of the modern applications that facilitate acquiring a second language. Hence, the study aims to confirm the hypothesis that Duolingo helps promote acquiring two languages simultaneously for beginners. It is a mixed-method study including observation, assessment, and interview. It is also a case study that involves one participant who used Duolingo to learn Spanish and English simultaneously for two months. The participant is a male school student whose age is 12 years old, and he lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. After collecting the data, they were analysed and described to have the final results. At the end, the results displayed that Duolingo can promote acquiring two languages for beginners, but it has limitations. Thus, it is recommended to develop Duolingo for advanced levels as well as for English language learners.


Abstract: This qualitative case study examined the Spanish linguistic needs of working health care professionals. Data from observation field notes, interviews, document analysis, and member checks were coded, triangulated, and analyzed following the premises of grounded theory. Results indicated that participants were able to produce routinely used words and common expression in Spanish, but were only able to understand isolated lexical items as spoken by native Spanish speakers. Their needs included written resources formatted for optimal use in the health care workplace, strategy instruction for lifelong learning, listening skills and strategies, and productive skills that go beyond semantic analysis. It was concluded that there is a need for second language acquisition (SLA) models that apply to nontraditional foreign language learning environments.


Abstract: Though much of the research looking at the issue of language in the Spanish heritage language field is intended to guide the Spanish heritage language teacher in the classroom, students' voices are often stifled. This article fills this gap by giving voice to students' opinions on language use in the Spanish heritage language classroom. Survey results from 152 Spanish heritage language students enrolled in an extensive Spanish heritage language program show that these students prefer to learn specific varieties of Spanish in their Spanish heritage language classes. Interestingly, 91 % of those surveyed want their Spanish to be corrected.


While considerable research has focused on second language development and academic success, the debate continues on how the development of the first language benefits the acquisition of the second. The intent of the present study was to examine the strength of the relation among proficiency in English and Spanish and academic success. Relations among oral language, literacy, and academic achievement were examined. A significant connection was found between proficiency in English and standardized achievement scores, as well as grade point averages. Similarly, the results reveal significant correlations between reading and writing in Spanish and achievement scores, as well as grade point average. The strongest relations were found between Written Language and academic success.


Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate if heritage students of Spanish experience foreign language anxiety and, if so, what levels of anxiety they experience. The data were collected using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS). A total of 413 students (209 heritage students and 204 nonheritage students) participated in this study. In general, the mean anxiety scores for the heritage students were lower than the mean anxiety scores for the nonheritage students, although there were a few instances when the heritage students actually had higher anxiety scores. In addition, the heritage students in this study reported lower anxiety scores than other college‐level students from previous studies reported in the literature that also used the FLCAS.


After expulsion from Spain in 1492, a large number of Spanish Jews (Sephardim) found refuge in lands of the Ottoman Empire. These Jews continued speaking a Spanish that, due to their isolation from Spain, developed independently in the empire from the various peninsular dialects. This language, called Judeo-Spanish (among other names), is the focus of Death of a Language, a sociolinguistic study describing the development of Judeo-Spanish from 1492 to the present, its characteristics, survival, and decline. To determine the current status of the language, Tracy K. Harris interviewed native Judeo-Spanish speakers from the sephardic communities of New York, Israel, and Los Angeles. This study analyzes the informants' use of the language, the characteristics of their speech, and the role of the language in Sephardic ethnicity. Part I defines Judeo-Spanish, discusses the various names used to refer to the language, and presents a brief history of the Eastern Sephardim.


The third section of Death of a Language analyzes the present status and characteristics of Judeo-Spanish. This includes a description of the informants and the three Sephardic communities studied, as well as the present domains or uses of Judeo-Spanish in these communities. Current Judeo-Spanish shows extensive influences from English and Standard Spanish in the Judeo-Spanish spoken in the United States, and from Hebrew and French in Israel. No one under the age of fifty can speak it well enough (if at all) to pass it on to the next generation, and none of the informants' grandchildren can speak the language at all. Nothing is being done to ensure its perpetuation: the language is clearly dying.