A principios de los años noventa empezaron a culminar proyectos de tele-colaboración en los que muchos educadores de lengua contactaban a otros que se encontraban ubicados en otro lugar con el fin de que sus estudiantes colaborasen juntos. El punto geográfico no fue un obstáculo para el aprendizaje de una segunda lengua (L2). Por ejemplo, estudiantes de español como lengua extranjera o L2 en una universidad estadounidense colaboraban con otros que aprendían inglés, pero estaban ubicados en Chile o cualquier otro país de habla hispana. Estos intercambios virtuales se lograban mediante las simples herramientas del chat o correo electrónico y gracias a la tele-colaboración muchos estudiantes mejoraron sus habilidades de escritura y lectura. Muy pronto distintos estudios empíricos, como el de O’Dowd del año 2003, revelaron que no solo era posible mejorar la habilidad de leer y de escribir en la L2, sino que dichos proyectos representaban grandes fuentes de intercambio cultural.

This longitudinal study examines students’ learning strategies of 222 Spanish intermediate learners when taking several listening tests. It also examines the effect of different instructional formats (online-hybrid vs. face2face-blended) on the learners’ strategy use. There were four versions of the same text: an audio format, a video format, a redundancy-enhanced version in audio format, and a redundancy-enhanced version in video format. A pseudo-cross over design was utilized for this study with four listening tests used with each group. Participants completed a questionnaire immediately after each listening test to learn about learners’ strategies before, during and after listening in order to elicit information about the particular strategies that learners used to complete each listening test.

Results indicated that there was a listening comprehension strategy development over time without explicit instruction, but participants from different instructional formats developed different strategies. There was a statistically significant difference for intermediate-low learners when perceiving the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, but the effect of redundancy does not seem to have an impact. Intermediate-mid learners did not perceive a difference with the use of strategies when completing listening tests with or without redundancy.

Con el avance de la tecnología, estudios empíricos han demostrado que los estudiantes de lenguas extranjeras matriculados en un curso a distancia o híbrido consiguen los mismos o mejores resultados que los que estudian en un curso presencial (Blake et al., 2008; Chenoweth y Murday, 2003; Enkin y Mejías-Bikandi, 2017; Pardo-Ballester, 2018). Sabemos que el éxito de los estudiantes matriculados en dichos cursos depende de su motivación, pero también del esfuerzo que haga el docente y del entrenamiento que haya recibido en la pedagogía de la lengua a distancia (Blake, 2012). En este estudio, 101 docentes de ELE respondieron a una encuesta anónima que investigó el bienestar emocional en tres periodos: antes, al comienzo y durante la pandemia. Con dicha investigación se pretende (1) averiguar cómo había afectado el cambio de enseñar con una pedagogía presencial a una virtual y también (2) ofrecer recomendaciones a los administradores de instituciones de enseñanza superior. Este estudio responde dos preguntas de investigación: ¿Cumplieron los docentes de ELE su papel de educar a sus estudiantes durante el curso escolar 2020-2021 a pesar de enseñar en plena pandemia? ¿Cumplió la administración universitaria su papel de apoyo ofreciendo al profesorado recursos eficaces?

This study focuses on reflective practice journal entries and compares intermediate Spanish learners’ journals of their own oral performance through two different opportunities - an Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) and a Virtual Oral Interview Classroom/based Exam (VOICES) - within the framework of a Spanish for the Professions course. Students’ journals reveal that both types of assessment have their advantages in the learning process, which results in more autonomous and more efficient learners (Ziegler, 2014). Moreover, data from the two focus groups reveals information about sufficiency, relevance, beneficence, and usefulness about the Spanish speaking activities used in the Spanish for the Professions course. This study presents an assessment use argument following Bachman and Damböck (2017) that may be used to design and teach language courses using micro-formative and macro-summative oral assessments. Using an assessment use argument, claims were made about the use of VOICES and OPI. Participants in this study were 13 undergraduate students at a large public university in the Midwest of the United States and one instructor. They were enrolled in an intermediate Spanish conversation course designed for professionals. Language performance data for oral assessments from face-to-face and online formats were evaluated comparing instances of language use. The data showed that the two types of oral assessments engaged learners in different types of learning opportunities.

Corazón, corazón. ¿Qué más pides, corazón? Corazón ¿Estás ahí? ¿Qué sientes? El día está iluminado y no porque haga calor o haya salido el sol en febrero, sino porque mi corazón siente el bienestar de mi hogar. Las paredes del Internet han pasado a ser el aula virtual donde mi mente está relajada, donde puedo pensar. No tengo la necesidad de desinfectarme las manos al tocar las teclas del ordenador que tengo en el despacho de mi casa.

This mixed-method research study examines the speaking proficiency of Spanish learners with the Virtual Oral Interview Classroom-based Exam (VOICES), a free oral assessment tool for students and teachers, and the American Council Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) for assessing their oral ability. Students’ oral proficiency was assessed at the beginning and end of the semester via the OPI, and oral performance was assessed during the middle and at the end of the semester with VOICES. During the semester, learners practiced with structured and communicative output activities with the purpose of developing communicative competence. Using active learning as a pedagogical approach and reflective practice based on Schön’s principles (1987), Spanish instruction was focused on conscious awareness, scaffolding, autonomous and meaningful communication as a way to improve the performance of oral tasks. The study employs the convergent design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011) that entails the collection of qualitative and quantitative data sets to provide a better understanding of the best practices for teaching and assessing speaking. Participants in this study were 13 undergraduate students at a large public university in the Midwest of the United States and one instructor. They were enrolled in an intermediate Spanish conversation course designed for professionals. The use of active learning and reflective practice contributed positively to building a comfortable and engaging learning environment.