Recursos

This study looks at concrete techniques used by teachers of English as a Second Language (ESL) in addressing their students’ grammatical, pronunciation, and word choice errors. Four ESL teachers were observed in four different occasions in intermediate level classes. As a way to explore the extent to which these teachers were aware of the ways in which they handled their students’ errors, they were all individually interviewed upon completion of the observations. The data showed that students’ errors were addressed differently depending on whether they occurred in accuracy practice or in communicative practice; more errors were corrected during accuracy practice. The four correction techniques identified were: correct form, elicitation, negative evidence, and repetition. The technique that was used the most was the correct form, followed by some form of elicitation, negative evidence, and repetition. The interviews revealed that the ESL teachers in the study did not have a concrete idea about the ways in which they addressed their students’ errors.

This text incorporates various studies by researchers who belong to the group Anglo-German Children’s Literature and its Translation at the University of Vigo, first set up in 1992. The main focus is to describe new tendencies within literature for children and young adults, including translation, adaptation, comics, and palindrome.

The evolution of the writing skill is closely linked to ICT, increasing the need to make its teaching a meaningful experience in the digital age. The aim of this study was to analyze students’ experiences in a writing task developed on Edublogs to identify elements of task design contributing to a meaningful experience online. The participants were 27 English Teaching students in a first-year composition course at the University of Costa Rica during the first semester of 2021. The study followed a Classroom Action Research design. The students wrote five blog entries. However, only the last entry, a reflection, was analyzed for the study. An open coding method was implemented, through which four categories that impact instructional design of writing tasks were identified: personal connection, engagement, ICT, and applicability. The study concludes with a series of recommendations that can positively impact students’ performance in writing courses supported by ICT.

The main purpose of this article is to describe the interaction process that took place in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom at a public high school in the province of Alajuela, Costa Rica. This article examines some theoretical background knowledge in regards to the interaction in the language classroom. The ethnographic method, which belongs to the qualitative paradigm, was used to conduct this study. Some of the techniques and the instruments used were the non-participant observations, the use of a questionnaire, interviews, and personal diaries. Triangulation was applied in order to make valid the interpretation, results, and recommendations. The study determined that the teacher- student interaction and student-student interaction is based on a question and answer pattern. The teacher regulates and limits students` participation through the use of different activities which do not stimulate meaningful learning. Students interact among themselves by using Spanish. The study also suggests to varying the classroom activities to enhance students` learning.

This study reports evidence of cross-linguistic influence in the speech of an English-Spanish simultaneous bilingual child between ages 2;3 and 5;6. in extraction constructions involving the object of a preposition (i.e., pied-piping and preposition stranding). Relevant data by 11 English monolingual children revealed no instances of pied-piping constructions despite the fact that these are grammatical in adult English speech; in contrast, 46% of the relevant constructions in the bilingual child’s speech contained pied-piping. Similarly, whereas the data by 14 Spanish monolingual children never evidenced preposition stranding, which is never a grammatical option in Spanish, the bilingual child data did so in 26% of his relevant constructions. These qualitative differences between the monolingual and the bilingual child data strongly suggest cross-linguistic influence

This study examines future teachers’ theoretical reflections on Critical Incidents and how these link to Costa Rica’s English teaching system. Participants included 30 senior college students from an English teaching program. Using narrative research techniques, the authors have concluded that: (1) spaces for reflection must be created in EFL so that students’ voices are heard; (2) both instruction and assessment need to be tackled not from the native speaker angle but from the learner language perspective; and (3) because mistakes are both inherent to foreign language learning and an indicator of language development, more tolerance to learner errors needs to be exercised. The study proves relevant for language pedagogy and Applied Linguistics (AL) since it paves the way for further research, opens room for reflection and dialogue, and enhances our understanding of the issue at stake from a future-teacher standpoint.

The goal of the study is to determine good practices and challenges in the implementation of ICTs in three critical aspects of language learning supported by technology: communication, engagement, and collaboration. This was done within three populations: professors (18), students (115), and graduates (37) from the English Teaching Program. The project used a quantitative survey design with an exploratory- descriptive focus. The participants rated the frequency of occurrence of a series of ICT practices related to each aspect using a four-point scale. Subsequently, an average frequency score was obtained for each of the aspects: communication, engagement, and collaboration. The results were compared across the three groups of participants to identify trends. The main findings included 1) a high usage of communication tools, 2) classes that were planned with a variety of apps, 3) tools that favored interaction and group learning, 4) oral communication was fundamental for synchronized classroom management, 5) both teachers and students perceived there is a lack of engaging activities, and finally 6) collaboration was also perceived as being used infrequently by all three populations. The study concludes with a series of recommendations to improve the use of ICTs for each of the critical aspects.

This article analyzes Anancy’s cognitive and sociohistorical identity beyond the moralistic approach of the western philosophy of being. Instead, Anancy stories are studied as a decolonized expression of an afrodescendant Caribbeanness that struggles to survive in an imperial context. There is placed special emphasis on Anancy and his relationship with other animals of the forest present in the stories collected by a group of Costa Rican researchers. Walter Mignolo’s concept of colonial and imperial differences, the notion of the trickster, Mikael Bakhtin’s carnival, the psychological theories of the id and humor are used to support the analysis. Finally, it is concluded that Anancy stories are the result of resistance but more importantly, they reveal a nontraditional subversion that guarantees hope in a hopeless system. In this sense, Anancy does not accept fatalism as a cognitive structure of his identity; even though, he lives in a fatalistic society.

This study reports evidence of cross-linguistic influence in possessive constructions in the speech of an EnglishSpanish simultaneous bilingual child between ages 2;3 and 5;6. Although in English possessives might be prenominal (‘-s), they might also be post-nominal (of possessives); the latter realization of the possessive is restricted to certain semantic contexts. In contrast, possession is always post-nominal in Spanish. Unlike the monolingual child English data and the English parental speech which revealed mostly instances of the pre-nominal possessive (only 3% in the child data), the bilingual child produced post-nominal possessives in 33% of his English possessives. Similarly, though the monolingual child Spanish data revealed no non-target-like forms, the bilingual child produced a significant number of pre-nominal possessives (e.g.’de las cabritas mamá’), which is never grammatical in Spanish. The non-target-like forms found in the bilingual child data strongly suggest evidence of influence of Spanish onto English as well as influence of English onto Spanish.

This research paper discusses the benefits and implications of bringing authentic assessment into listening comprehension classes. The study was run in 2016 based on a mixed-methods model to research and included 38 college students enrolled in a listening comprehension class at an English Teaching Major (ETM) from the University of Costa Rica (UCR). Data collection instruments included plans of improvement, portfolios, self-assessment forms, teacher-student conferences, verbal calls, and impromptu reflections. Data were validated through several procedures (e.g., triangulation and reflexivity) and analyzed in the form of emerging themes from the information collected. Findings are that authentic assessment can and should be used more in listening comprehension classes to bring assessment and instruction together, as well as to provide opportunities for skills integration. The study yields implications for theory and practice, and it constitutes a proposal to move from traditional to process evaluation, and from norm-referenced testing towards more criterion-referenced assessment. Nonetheless, the aim should not necessarily be a radical ‘no’ to paperand-pencil tests, but a more balanced use in combination with other strategies so that assessment becomes more reliable, valid, fair, and authentic for all EFL actors involved.