Bibliografía - interacción entre estudiantes

Julio Torres (2023)

Task-based research has investigated the learning opportunities (e.g. language related episodes) that emerge during heritage and second language learner interactions during writing tasks. However, to date, it is unknown how these peer interactions involving heritage language learners contribute to written texts. Further, given the rise of social technologies in educational settings, a need exists to examine how interactions in digital platforms affect the production of written texts. To address these issues, 13 heritage-second language learner and 16 heritage–heritage learner pairs enrolled in advanced Spanish content courses completed two distinct versions of writing tasks. Participants were instructed that they were hired as business consultants for clothing and cellphone companies in Spain. While each participant wrote her or his own version, the pairs had to interact to compose formal business letters in Spanish to the CEO of each company justifying the hiring (Task A) or laying off (Task B) of employees. The main results first revealed that heritage–heritage pairs produced more syntactically complex business letters, as evidenced by a greater ratio of syntactic subordination along with a minor trend of greater morphosyntactic accuracy. Second, synchronous computer-mediated communication interactions led to a higher production of syntactic coordination, especially for the heritage-second language pairs. Findings are discussed in light of the interplay between learner factors and task environment.

This chapter introduces the rationale behind a social network analytic (SNA) approach in the context of second language acquisition (SLA). The conceptual overview presents ways of operationalising social graphs and common metrics used in the calculations, supported by illustrative examples. We then argue for merging quantitative SNA with qualitative data. Subsequently, we showcase findings from the PEERLANG project (Paradowski et al., 2021) investigating the influence of peer out-of-class interactions on SLA in two different contexts: among international participants in intensive summer language courses (multilingual “immersion” scenario), and stationary foreign language majors (“no immersion”). We reveal patterns emerging from both contexts, demonstrating the role that mobility plays in network dynamics, and how both factors together moderate language attainment. We show that the impact of peer learner networks on L2 acquisition can be both positive and negative, depending on the context and the network layer involved. Computational and anthropological SNA offers a novel methodology for investigating the link between social relations and language acquisition (especially L2 production).

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