LaRocque, Kleiman, and Darling (2011) characterized parental involvement as the "missing link" in school achievement. For this reason, especially, middle grades teachers and teacher leaders want very much to reach out to newcomer Latino families--and they do. Although Google Translate™ has emerged as a go-to tool for many teachers and…

Despite increasing attention on literacy-based approaches to foreign language instruction (e.g. Allen & Dupuy, 2013; Barrette, Paesani, & Vinall, 2010; Byrnes, 2005; Kern, 2004; Magnan, Murphy, & Sahakyan, 2014) the communicative approach's emphasis on oral proficiency continues to shadow reading practices. Although research findings…

This document presents the proceedings of the 18th Annual Research Forum held June 26, 2013, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following 13 action research papers: (1) Developing Oral Language Ability in the Secondary Spanish Classroom Using the Interpersonal and Presentational Modes of Communication…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an animated pedagogical agent on Spanish vocabulary learning. Furthermore, the study examined learners' reactions and attitudes towards the presence of the pedagogical agent in the web-based environments. A total of 47 university students enrolled in two fourth-semester Spanish classes…

Despite the problems presented by lexical errors in second language (L2) communication, most computer assisted language learning (CALL) programs tend to focus on the acquisition of grammar points rather than on the development of the L2 lexicon. In addition, CALL vocabulary tasks are typically limited in scope and mechanical in nature, covering…

Reviews the content of the courseware contained in "EXITO: Survival Spanish," noting that this course is divided into 10 chapters and contains material typically covered in a beginning Spanish course (e.g., vocabulary units including greetings, family members, time expressions, etc.). The primary strength of the EXITO program is that it is a…

Provides a description of the Nuevos Destinos CD-ROM, a joint production for students learning Spanish at the advanced-beginning, intermediate-low, or native-speaker level. Nuevos Destinos involves students in meaningful ways by asking them to solve real-world problems encountered in law offices. (Author/VWL)

A comparison of the effectiveness of different ways to organize instructional materials and different strategies for error feedback used the computer as a research tool and took as subjects first-year junior high school Spanish students, who were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. To investigate materials organization, computer…

Presents the latest hardware, and pedagogical and theoretical advances in computer-assisted language learning and describes an actual design implementation in a Spanish course. (Author/SED)

Critiques current second language courseware in view of recent trends increasing emphasis on oral proficiency. Suggests changes in the content of instructional computer programs that could be used to improve conversational proficiency. (LMO)

Describes the design and testing process that resulted in the production of "Un Meurtre a Cinet" and "Un Misterio en Toluca," two role-playing applications that ask students of French and Spanish to collaborate to solve a murder mystery using e-mail, listservs, and a culturally-rich Web site. (Author/VWL)

This guide to the use of computer software in Spanish second language instruction contains a series of lesson plans based in part on software content. The topics covered by the lesson plans are common to Spanish level 1 and 2 courses, and are intended not as a sequential course but as a reference for teachers. All lessons involve computer use and…

Discusses two computer programs designed for third-year university-level Spanish composition classes. The programs are based on the process model of composing and consist of pre-writing, writing, and revision. (SED)

Discusses the theoretical basis, implementation, and pedagogical considerations of CALLE (Computer-Aided Language Learning Environment), a dialogue-based beginning Spanish language instruction system. CALLE uses Lexical Functional Grammar Theory to analyze errors in student input. Sample screen is shown. (Author/LMO)

SPANLAP (SPANish LAnguage Processing) is a computer program which attempts to engage students of Spanish in a free-form written dialog by allowing them to ask questions. The morphological and syntactic parsing process used in SPANLAP is explained. Sample dialog illustrates limitations of the current model. (Author/LMO)