Departamento de Filología Inglesa

URI permanente para esta comunidadhttps://hdl.handle.net/10953/32

En esta Comunidad se recogen los documentos generados por el Departamento de Filología Inglesa y que cumplen los requisitos de Copyright para su difusión en acceso abierto.

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A corpus-based preliminary overview of noun-premodifying adverbs, or adverb shift
(Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Jaén, 2000) Viera Huertas, Rosa María; Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente; Mesa Carmona, Ramón
This paper aims to describe the basics of the relationship between nominal heads and their premodifying adverbs (adverb shift). Our study is partly based on Levi 's (1978) study of the rule adjective shift in complex nominals. An overview of adverb shift is then attempted ftom examples taken ftom the LOB corpus. The resulting classification of ten predicates shows a range of syntactico-semantic relationships between the noun and the premodifying adverb.
A preliminary overview of ellipsis in English predicative prepositional phrases
(Sociedad Española de Lingüística, 2024) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente
This paper focuses on the analysis of ellipsis in predicative prepositional phrases (PPPs) in English. Although their syntax can be complex, scholars have not paid enough attention to some of their features yet. Different examples illustrating the main types of ellipsis and their characteristics will be obtained from various corpora, grammars, and dictionaries. First, they can be described as those phrases which are headed by a preposition whose Complement (C) is a Noun Phrase (NP) and which act as Subject Complement (Cs) at clause level. Such is the case of “of value” in [1]: [1] It can be concluded that Adomnan's life of Columba is of value for the structure of society which seems not to have changed greatly between Columba's time and Adomnan (ICE-GB:W1A-002 #115:1). Therefore, an intensive relationship is established between the Subject (S) and this unit since the latter predicates something of the S, thus conveying a condition, feature, quality, or state which is attached to the S. Secondly, a distinction should be drawn between textual and structural ellipsis (Quirk et al., 1985: 900). In the former, the omitted word(s) can be retrieved from the immediate context, whereas that is not the case in the latter. Examples [2] and [3] illustrate these phenomena, respectively. Thus, the words omitted after the copulative verb “is” in [2] are “an aspect”, but “speaking” or “talking” is missing after “was” in [3]: [2] And uh o one particular aspect <,> o of the delays uh i is uh uh of considerable relevance uh on this occasion <,> (ICE-GB:S2A-063 #7:1:A). [3] I was on the phone for over 2 hrs (ICE-GB:W1B-005 #43:3). A concept closely related to that of “structural ellipsis” is the so-called “structural recoverability”, which can be defined as the cases in which “the full form is recoverable not through knowledge of context, but simply through knowledge of grammatical structure” (op. cit.: 861). Finally, a third group of PPPs consists of those which are the result of a more complex process since they are subsequently retrieved from a longer PPP. Therefore, they are obtained after a double ellipsis. Thus, the words “left” and “a state of” have been omitted after “and are” and “in” in [4] and [5]: [4] If it is not, then they are asked to leave for a year and are in a state of limbo, unable to play on the Tour and unable to play in amateur events (BNC:G2C 747). [5] I felt as if I was in limbo (BNC:CDS 833). The study of further examples lets us draw different conclusions. It can be highlighted, among others, that in some cases the omission of “a state of” may involve a change in the preposition heading the PPP (e.g. “in” is replaced by “under”), as can be seen in [6] and [7]: [6] Chicago was in a state of siege in the aftermath of the Haymarket trial (BNC:A0U 2482). [7] Is it to be wondered that the parrots which depend upon such places are under siege? (ICE-GB:W2B-028 #68:1).
A preliminary overview of English vocabulary learning and teaching. The case of collocations and idioms in CSE in Andalusia
(Octaedro, 2023) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente; Lendínez Carrillo de Albornoz, Marta
The present proposal aims to reflect on the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language in Andalusian secondary schools. More specifically, attention is paid to vocabulary learning and teaching from a communicative approach as opposed to other possibilities, such as the Grammar Translation method. For the development of this topic, the context in which English is studied has been considered (namely, a public bilingual high school in the province of Málaga). Students’ profiles and their socio-cultural context are contemplated too. In fact, this project is aimed at 4th year of Compulsory Secondary Education (CSE) students, with an average of a B1 level according to the CEFRL, who are 15-16 years old. Thus, this paper is aimed at various objectives. Firstly, its main intent is to cover effective methods to enhance students’ communicative competence in English and help them expand their vocabulary in the target language by fostering their involvement in different communicative situations in class. Another crucial purpose is to research on activities, routines, and techniques to be promoted in class to improve learners’ motivation, a key element in CSE. One more goal is to suggest general measures and a suitable method to cater for mixed abilities and respond to the learners’ real needs and interests. Each of them will be discussed in the literature review, together with semantic relationships such as “antonymy”, “homonymy”, and "synonymy”, which play a relevant role in vocabulary learning and teaching. In addition, for the sake of clarity, an analysis of the context in which English is studied in this project will be provided. Moreover, other ideas, such as the fact that words do not have to be treated and taught in an isolated way when learning/teaching any foreign language, will be considered. Furthermore, it is also taken into account that the meaning of words depends on their relationships with other words and that they also group together to belong to more complex structures, such as collocations and idioms. Thus, in vocabulary learning and teaching it seems essential not only to work with words and the relationships established between each other, but also to focus on how they collocate and group to form meaning, instead of studying the meaning of lexical items separately. Taking this idea as a starting point, a wide range of approaches and techniques to teach vocabulary in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context will be detailed. Therefore, some of the main activities, resources, routines, and tools that can improve these intermediate level students’ motivation and willingness to participate in all the tasks will be included, as well. To conclude, vocabulary is not just a matter of writing down in a notebook a long list of words with their translation into the students’ mother tongue. Vocabulary learning will be achieved through experiencing situations in which they will see how native speakers use the language. What is more, students need to learn both collocations and idioms because they will help them speak and write English more accurately and naturally. Learning them will help them increase their range of English vocabulary, too. Dialogues seem to be the optimal method for mastering vocabulary, as learners will find themselves in such a communicative situation in the future. Since EFL teachers often face large multilevel classes which are as varied as the students in them, it appears to be necessary to integrate all the aforementioned resources and tools to facilitate learners’ comprehension of oral and written texts. Those should also encourage their active involvement as well as their inclusion and participation, thus allowing students to work and cooperate with each other and learn from one another.
La aplicación del crédito europeo a la titulación de Filología Inglesa en la Universidad de Jaén: Análisis de debilidades y fortalezas
(Horsori, 2010) Pérez Cañado, María Luisa; Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente
Este artículo presenta los resultados obtenidos en un estudio cualitativo con más de 200 sujetos para diagnosticar el funcionamiento del sistema ECTS en la Licenciatura en Filología Inglesa de la Universidad de Jaén. Tras una breve introducción, se detallan los objetivos del estudio, sus variables, la muestra con la que se ha trabajado, el método y los materiales utilizados y el procedimiento seguido. Se ofrecen, a continuación, los resultados del diagnóstico, clasificándolos en términos de debilidades y fortalezas y contrastándolos con la metodología tradicional. Tras extraer las principales conclusiones, se realizan propuestas de mejora y se señalan futuras líneas de actuación.
La aplicación del crédito europeo a la titulación de Filología Inglesa en la Universidad de Jaén: Análisis de debilidades y fortalezas
(Universidad de Granada, 2009) Pérez Cañado, María Luisa; Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente; Ráez Padilla, Juan; Rascón Moreno, Diego
La presente comunicación presenta los resultados obtenidos en un estudio cualitativo etnográfico con más de 200 sujetos para diagnosticar el funcionamiento del sistema ECTS en la Licenciatura en Filología Inglesa de la Universidad de Jaén. La investigación ha estado motivada por tres grandes factores: la necesidad de realizar un diagnóstico profundo del funcionamiento del sistema ECTS en dicha titulación, dado que no se había realizado un estudio general del mismo desde 2004-2005; la idoneidad en la aplicación del nuevo sistema de créditos, tras la graduación de la primera promoción de egresados ECTS e inmediatamente antes de la implantación de los nuevos títulos de grado; y la situación privilegiada de la Universidad de Jaén, que permite la comparación del funcionamiento del sistema ECTS en Filología Inglesa con el tradicional en Filología Inglesa + Turismo (al estarse impartiendo la misma licenciatura con dos metodologías diferentes). Tras una breve introducción, se detallan los objetivos del estudio, sus variables, la muestra con la que se ha trabajado, el método y los materiales utilizados y el procedimiento seguido. Se ofrecen, a continuación, los resultados del diagnóstico, clasificándolos en términos de debilidades y fortalezas y contrastándolos con la metodología tradicional. Tras extraer las principales conclusiones, se realizan importantes propuestas de mejora y se señalan futuras líneas de actuación. La finalidad de todo ello es garantizar que las decisiones tomadas en relación con las nuevas enseñanzas universitarias oficiales se basen en datos empíricos y contribuir a mejorar el funcionamiento del sistema ECTS para que, en el año que resta para su implantación en Europa, se puedan detectar y subsanar potenciales dificultades en su desarrollo.
`Are you in the club?’ or should I say `Have you got a bun in the oven’? Different metaphors conveying pregnancy
(Universidad de la Rioja, 2013) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente
This paper is aimed at analyzing sorne of the different expressions available in English to refer to · pregnancy· and the metaphoric nature present in many of them. As Lakoff and Johnson (20032: 244) suggest, "Because we reason in terms of metaphor, the metaphors we use determine a great deal about how we live our lives·. From the point of view of form, most of them are preposilional phrases whose structure is "preposition" + "the" + "monosyllabic noun". Such is the case of "up the duff' in "She has no cravings like girls usually have when they're up the duff' (Simpson, 2010). However, it is also possible to find other instances whose structure is simpler (the phrase "in trouble" lacks a determiner in "She said she consented to come to London to be married to the prisoner as she believed she was in trouble" [Simpson, 2010) or more complex ("in the pudding club"). Syntactically speaking most of them function as subject complement, that is to say, they express a quality, condition, state, or feature which is attached to the subject in an intensive relationship by means of a copular verb. That is the reason why the above mentioned examples can be replaced by the adjective "pregnant" in the sentences in which they occur. Nevertheless, from the semantic viewpoint both predicative prepositional and adjective phrases are not completely interchangeable since there are different nuances which are conveyed by the prepositional structures which cannot be found in the word "pregnant". More often than not these semantic nuances are of a pragmatic nature. These features are closely connected with the notions of economy of language, genre, and register. Thus, there seems to be a conflict between the first one and the fact that the structures under study are morphologically and syntactically heavier than the adjective "pregnant". The reason for this is that in sorne cases the examples could be classified as euphemisms. Moreover, it goes without saying that certain instances are classified, among others, as "impolite" ("up the duff" [Rundell, 2007: 4581), "informal" ("in the family way" [Crowther, 1995: 419]), "old-fashioned" ("up the spout" [Rundell, 2007: 1443]), or "slang" ("in the (pudding) club" [Simpson, 2010]) in advanced learners' dictionaries, although these labels do not always coincide in the different lexicographic works.
Attention to diversity in bilingual education: Student and teacher perspectives in Spain
(Taylor & Francis, 2023) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente; Rascón Moreno, Diego
This paper reports on the outcomes of a study on stakeholder perspectives on catering for diversity in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in Spain. It is part of the large-scale SWOT analysis conducted in Europe within the project ‘CLIL for All: Attention to Diversity in Bilingual Education (ADiBE)’. The research has involved the administration of two sets of questionnaires to 926 informants (742 students and 184 teachers) within 15 secondary schools of four provinces. After framing the topic against the backdrop of the project, the paper will expound on the objectives, methodology, variables, and procedure employed in this particular study in Spain. The bulk of the article will outline its main findings in relation to the five main fields of interest which have been canvassed: linguistic aspects, methodology and types of groupings, materials and resources, assessment, and teacher coordination and development. Across-group comparisons will be carried out to determine whether there are statistically significant differences between both cohorts. A diagnosis of where we currently stand in Spain in the process of catering for diversity in CLIL will be provided in light of these results and a future CLIL agenda will be carved out on the basis of these findings.
Bringing humour into the English class: Is it possible?
(Adhara, 2004) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente
This paper focuses on the implementation of humour in TEFL. More specifically, it is aimed at designing a number of activities including humour as a key element within a given lesson plan. This proposal can be adapted to a number of educational contexts including the English classroom not only in Compulsory Secondary Education, but also in Vocational Training as well as in Official Language Schools. According to research, humour will increase the students' motivation as well as make lessons more enjoyable.
Certainty adverbs in spoken learner language The role of tasks and proficiency
(John Benjamins, 2019-09-24) Pérez-Paredes, Pascual; Díez-Bedmar, María Belén
Our research examines the use of three stance adverbs of certainty (actually, really and obviously) across B1, B2 and C1 levels in the Trinity Lancaster Corpus (TLC). Particularly, we examined the occurrence of these adverbs in the subset of Spanish L1 speakers from Mexico and Spain. Really, actually and obviously were found to display a distinctive frequency of use across different proficiency levels and the different speaking tasks analysed. Dialogic tasks favoured a more frequent use of really and actually, while obviously was hardly used. Qualitative analyses of the pragmatic functions of really and actually revealed that there is an increase in the use of meanings to express hedging in really and factualness in actually across the proficiency levels. Our research confirms the finding in Gablasova et al. (2017) that the type of speaking task conditions speakers’ repertoire of linguistic devices, although we argue that this conditioning operates on different levels.
Characterising representative CLIL practices: An Andalusian case study
(Springer, 2021) Rascón Moreno, Diego Jesús; Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente
The characterisation of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has recently come to the forefront and acquired a new significance. Both their conceptualisation and pedagogical implementation have of late started to be questioned and are considered as excessively vague and ambiguous, since CLIL is held to encompass too broad an array of possible programme alternatives, thus making its exact limits very difficult to pin down. Thus, we need to characterise representative CLIL practices and to know exactly what it looks like in practice. This chapter reports on the outcomes of two governmentally funded R&D projects (FFI2012-32221 and P12-HUM-2348), within which an observation protocol has been designed, validated, and applied in 53 public, private, and charter schools in 12 provinces belonging to Andalusia, the Canary Islands, and Extremadura. English as a Foreign Language and Non-Linguistic Area subjects taught in English with a CLIL methodology have been observed and the linguistic, methodological, and organisational traits of CLIL are here described with a representative sample in the provinces of Jaén and Granada vis-à-vis the seven main fields of interest which have been canvassed: foreign language use in class, discursive functions, competence development, methodology and types of groupings, materials and resources, coordination and organisation, and evaluation. The results allow us to paint a clearer picture of what CLIL looks like at the grassroots level and to thereby make headway in characterising representative pedagogical CLIL practices which will hopefully contribute to honing and fine-tuning its characterisation.
Claves para la adaptación de la enseñanza de lenguas al EEES: Un estudio europeo
(Síntesis, 2010) Pérez Cañado, María Luisa; Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente; Ráez Padilla, Juan; Rascón Moreno, Diego
Este libro ofrece los resultados de un estudio llevado a cabo en Europa acerca del proceso de adaptación de la enseñanza de lenguas al Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior. El estudio es especialmente relevante por tres motivos principales. En primer lugar, ha supuesto la creación de unos instrumentos válidos y fiables que previamente no existían y que permiten diagnosticar el funcionamiento del sistema ECTS no sólo en estudios lingüísticos, sino en el resto de las disciplinas científicas. Además, ha aportado un valioso y amplio banco de información con todas las universidades que están en proceso de aplicación del crédito europeo en materia lingüística en nuestro continente. Por último, ha realizado un diagnóstico pormenorizado del estado actual de la aplicación del sistema ECTS a la enseñanza de lenguas e identificado sus principales debilidades y fortalezas. Estos resultados son especialmente útiles para tomar futuras decisiones en este campo, fundamentadas en datos empíricos. La finalidad de todo ello es mejorar el funcionamiento del sistema ECTS, garantizar que las decisiones tomadas en relación con las nuevas enseñanzas universitarias oficiales se basen en estudios como el que aquí se presenta y en referentes tanto nacionales como internacionales, y contribuir a resolver el déficit actual de nuestro país en materia de aprendizaje de lenguas.
Differences and similarities between oral and written competence in Spanish pre-university students a correlational study
(Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2018) García Laborda, Jesús; Díez-Bedmar, María Belén; Martín Monje, Elena; Fernández Álvarez, Miguel
The Foreign Language (FL) section of Spanish University Entrance Examination (EFL-PAU) has had few revisions over the last twenty years. The Spanish government has substituted the old EFL-PAU University Entrance Examination by a high stakes Baccalaureate Final Evaluation. However, further changes are expected in the coming years. Among the most important ones for the Foreign Language Section is a deep and necessary revision with the inclusion of new types of tasks. To try and inform the decisions made for the new Baccalaureate Final Evalua-tion, this article reports on the quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted thanks to a pilot oral test carried out with 772 recorded candidate performances. Three main goals were established for this research: 1) to find out the most important variables which characterize foreign language learning in secondary school in Spain; 2) to find out if there is any correla-tion between the oral competence of students at the end of their non-compulsory secondary education (as obtained from the pilot study) and the marks students obtain in the University Entrance Examination (which does not include the oral skill); and 3) to find out any aspects related to EFL teaching and learning which may potentially enhance oral performance. The results of this paper provide rich information on the students’ foreign language learning con-text, the strong correlation between the written and oral competences and the need to pay attention to three variables which foster the development of oral foreign language in sec-ondary school classrooms
Differences between spoken and written English: The case of the predicative prepositional phrases in the ICE-GB
(Universidad de Valladolid, 2015) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente
This paper is aimed at describing the main differences between spoken and written English. More specifically, attention is paid to the different examples which are classified as predicative Prepositional Phrases (PPs) in the International Corpus of English-Great Britain (ICE-GB) and their frequency in spoken and written texts. These units can be defined as those phrases which are introduced by a preposition and followed by a Noun Phrase (NP) acting as its complement. Furthermore, they perform the function of Subject Complement (Cs) at clause level. Such is the case of “She first fell in love with Will when she was eighteen, and she adores him still” (ICE‐GB:W2F‐019#47:1). Although in terms of frequency this is not the syntactic function PPs more often perform, they are taken into account because of their complexity and due to the lack of detailed analyses. In most cases they are described as isolated examples and this phenomenon is not considered to be a very productive one. After introducing some basic notions, these structures are analyzed focusing on their presence in both spoken and oral texts within the ICE-GB. This is a one-million-word corpus which is both morphologically tagged and syntactically parsed. Moreover, it was compiled in the nineties and consists of both spoken (60%) and written material (40%). The ICECUP (ICE Corpus Utility Program) software retrieved 3307 examples from 3223 sentences. These instances were then filtered since some of them were later classified as “noise” (in some cases the PPs were performing other functions either at phrase or at clause level and in others the element acting as the complement of the preposition was not a NP). For these reasons the final subcorpus consists of 1332 examples. 67.49% of these instances (899) are found in oral texts whereas 32.51% of them (433) belong to written texts. All these examples have been classified into different groups and subgroups corresponding to the different text categories available in this corpus (Nelson, Wallis and Aarts, 2002: 307-8). The results are presented in charts by means of both figures and percentages and different conclusions are later drawn based on the analysis of these charts. Thus, for example, it can be noticed that, although it was expected that the amount of structures under study would be higher in spoken than in written texts because of the structure of the corpus itself, the relative frequency (which takes into account the relationship between the number of examples and the number of words) proves so, too: 0.1410% in spoken texts as opposed to 0.1022% in written texts, with an average of 0.1255% in the whole corpus. Moreover, there are more examples in dialogues (581) than in monologues (318) and in printed texts (332) than in non-printed ones (101). This information proves especially relevant for non-native speakers of English since it allows them to become aware of the differences between speaking and writing. According to the evidence, some units are used more often in spoken language than in written English. Therefore, when producing any kind of text, students will feel more confident for they will be able to choose the appropriate structures bearing in mind these issues.
EFL vocabulary learning and teaching. A preliminary overview of collocations and idioms in CSE in Andalusia
(Peter Lang, 2024) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente; Lendínez Carrillo de Albornoz, Marta
This paper reflects on TEFL in Andalusian secondary schools. More specifically, it focuses on vocabulary learning and teaching from a communicative approach. For the development of this topic, the context in which English is studied has been considered (namely, a public bilingual high school in the province of Málaga, Spain). More specifically, this project is aimed at 4th year of CSE students, with an average of a B1 level, who are 15– 16 years old. Thus, this research is aimed at covering effective methods to enhance students’ communicative competence in English and helping them expand their vocabulary in this language, analysing activities, routines, and techniques to be promoted in class to improve learners’ motivation, as well as suggesting general measures and a suitable method to cater for mixed abilities and respond to the learners’ real needs and interests. Each of them will be discussed in the literature review. Moreover, other ideas will be considered, including the fact that words group together to belong to more complex structures, such as collocations and idioms. In addition, a wide range of approaches and techniques to teach vocabulary in the EFL context will be detailed. To conclude, vocabulary learning will be achieved through situations in which students will see how native speakers use English. Learning them will help them increase their range of English vocabulary.
Expressing emotion A pragmatic analysis of L1 German and L1 Brazilian Portuguese English as a lingua franca users
(John Benjamins, 2022-08-12) Mestre-Mestre, Eva
The acquisition of pragmatic competence, namely, the capability to ‘produce and comprehend […] discourse that is adequate to the L2 socio-cultural context’ (Istvan Kecskes, 2013, p.64) is a major challenge for learners with a medium-to-advanced level of language proficiency, and a main concern for teachers. To study it, two approaches exist: the ethnopragmatic perspective (Anna Wierzbicka, 2004) and the intercultural pragmatics perspective (Laura Maguire & Jesús Romero-Trillo, 2013). Because of its complexity, the study of emotions is core in pragmatic competence acquisition. This paper explores the way English as a lingua franca (ELF) users with different L1s express their emotions, as compiled in the Corpus of Language and Nature (Romero-Trillo et al., 2013). To do so, 115 texts from L1 German speakers and 115 texts from L1 Brazilian Portuguese speakers are explored following corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches. The former was conducted by analysing the presence in the subcorpora of the items in two emotion word lexicons. To complement the information obtained, further corpus-based analyses of the use of modals and intensifiers employed by the participants to express emotion were conducted. The corpus-driven approach allowed the manual identification of any linguistic unit employed by ELF users to express emotion which had not been previously considered. The results cast light on the linguistic units that ELF users from the two backgrounds employ to express emotion in the same situations. The findings highlight the differences and similarities in their use of the language as well as the suitability of the lexicons to study emotion in ELF.
Expressing emotion. A pragmatic analysis of L1 German and L1 Brazilian ELF users.
(John Benjamins, 2022-08-12) Mestre-Mestre, Eva; Díez-Bedmar, María Belén
The acquisition of pragmatic competence, namely, the capability to ‘produce and comprehend […] discourse that is adequate to the L2 socio-cultural context’ (Istvan Kecskes, 2013, p.64) is a major challenge for learners with a medium-to-advanced level of language proficiency, and a main concern for teachers. To study it, two approaches exist: the ethnopragmatic perspective (Anna Wierzbicka, 2004) and the intercultural pragmatics perspective (Laura Maguire & Jesús Romero-Trillo, 2013). Because of its complexity, the study of emotions is core in pragmatic competence acquisition. This paper explores the way English as a lingua franca (ELF) users with different L1s express their emotions, as compiled in the Corpus of Language and Nature (Romero-Trillo et al., 2013). To do so, 115 texts from L1 German speakers and 115 texts from L1 Brazilian Portuguese speakers are explored following corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches. The former was conducted by analysing the presence in the subcorpora of the items in two emotion word lexicons. To complement the information obtained, further corpus-based analyses of the use of modals and intensifiers employed by the participants to express emotion were conducted. The corpus-driven approach allowed the manual identification of any linguistic unit employed by ELF users to express emotion which had not been previously considered. The results cast light on the linguistic units that ELF users from the two backgrounds employ to express emotion in the same situations. The findings highlight the differences and similarities in their use of the language as well as the suitability of the lexicons to study emotion in ELF
Fine-tuning descriptors for CEFR B1 level: insights from learner corpora
(Oxford University Press, 2018-04) Díez-Bedmar, María Belén
Despite the current importance of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) in the learning, teaching, and assessment of languages, limitations arise in the use of the CEFR descriptors, which are also present in the European Language Portfolio (ELP). This article highlights the main challenges posed to CEFR and ELP users by the linguistic competence descriptors—with a particular focus on the grammatical accuracy descriptors, and strategy descriptors for monitoring and repair at B1 level—when they try to self-assess their written production activities. In order to address these limitations, a Computer-aided Error Analysis (CEA) was performed on a learner corpus comprising B1-level texts produced by Spanish learners of English. The results obtained enabled the reformulation of the descriptors for written production activities at CEFR B1 level aimed at L1 Spanish learners of English, by complementing the existing descriptors with further linguistic information on the most frequent errors at that level.
#GameIsNotOver: Gamification applied to Technology, Programming, and Robotics. A CLIL proposal
(AFOE, 2022) Ballesteros-Aceituno, Beatriz; Casas, Antonio Vicente
Nowadays teachers face difficulties to motivate and stimulate students in the classroom. New tendencies such as student-centered methodologies have arisen in order to confront these difficulties. In addition, European countries and especially Spain, have bet for an improvement in foreign language teaching. CLIL has invaded Spanish schools, but it may be complicated to teach through this approach, at least at the beginning. Probably, hundreds of teachers are wondering how to develop a lesson plan that not only motivates, but also stimulates their students, in which students are the protagonists of their own learning process and in which both content and a foreign language are integrated. This paper is aimed at trying to answer those questions by developing a gamification project for a CLIL class of the subject “Technology, Programming and Robotics” designed for 2nd CSE students in Madrid (Spain) called “#GameIsNotOver”.
#GameIsNotOver: Gamification applied to `Technology, Programming, and Robotics´. An overview of a CLIL proposal
(Dykinson, 2022) Ballesteros-Aceituno, Beatriz; Casas, Antonio Vicente
Nowadays teachers face difficulties to motivate and stimulate students in the classroom. New tendencies such as student-centered methodologies have arisen in order to confront these difficulties. In addition, European countries and especially Spain, have bet for an improvement in foreign language teaching. CLIL has invaded Spanish schools, but it may be complicated to teach through this approach, at least at the beginning. Probably, hundreds of teachers are wondering how to develop a lesson plan that not only motivates, but also stimulates their students, in which students are the protagonists of their own learning process and in which both content and a foreign language are integrated. This paper is aimed at trying to answer those questions by developing a gamification project for a CLIL class of the subject “Technology, Programming and Robotics” designed for 2nd CSE students in Madrid (Spain) called “#GameIsNotOver”.
Implementing learning stations in the 4th year of CSE English classroom: A comparative study on its effectiveness
(Octaedro, 2024) Casas Pedrosa, Antonio Vicente; Rodríguez Marcilla, María
This proposal is aimed at considering the topic of active methodologies within the field of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in Spanish secondary schools. Close attention is paid to the learning stations methodology, which is applied to promote active learning experiences among learners. Although its implementation in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom is still scarce, this paper compares results from two groups of students (i.e. control vs experimental group) who received instruction on conditionals following two different methodologies, namely the presentation-practice-production (PPP) approach, on the one hand, and learning stations, on the other. In fact, the participants in this project are two groups of 15-16 years old students in the 4th year of Compulsory Secondary Education (CSE), with an average of an A2-B1 level according to the CEFRL. Indeed, the main purpose of this research is to assess the effects of learning stations on the EFL classroom. More precisely, the first objective is to observe if there is any statistically significant difference between instruction by means of learning stations as opposed to traditional strategies in terms of the academic performance of the students in each of the aforementioned groups. In turn, the second goal is to study whether learning stations help students get better academic results, and, finally, the third aim is to focus on the hypothesis according to which CSE students may be more motivated to learn through learning stations. In the current context and bearing in mind the wide range of teaching resources available, new methods fostering more active learning are incorporated into the educational paradigm. Particularly, in language subjects, which enhance the acquisition of communicative skills, new paths to interact and relate with others have been brought to the classroom. Active methodologies are usually understood as requiring a focus on the learner rather than the teacher. That is to say, the aim is no longer for students to become mere content-specialists in a particular area of study, but for them to develop a set of abilities, skills, and attitudes which will allow them to succeed in their future chosen professions. Therefore, changes in education include more critical, meaning-based approaches, student-centred models, collaborative and cooperative techniques, and active learning models, among others. More specifically, in this paper learning stations have been implemented to practise a particular grammar point from the EFL curriculum of the 4th year of CSE. Therefore, some previous research on grammar learning and teaching has been necessary to contextualise this experiment. Parallel to that, these resources imply some management issues which should be considered when utilizing them in the classroom. Indeed, the success of this methodology is firmly linked to the frequency of their implementation, the quality of the activities and materials designed, the heterogeneity of the groups of students, the appropriate classroom layout, and the subsequent evaluation of the process. To conclude, the results from two different groups of students were analysed and compared to draw the following conclusions. After two different teaching methodologies were used (namely, PPP and learning stations) to work on conditional sentences in the EFL classroom, results showed that the students who received grammar instruction based on the latter performed better in their post-tests. In addition, according to empirical evidence, it can be stated that there is a favourable effect on students’ academic results when they receive grammar instruction based on active methodologies, such as learning stations. Finally, these resources also foster students’ motivation when working on conditional sentences, as well as make them have a more positive perception after receiving the grammar instruction.

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