Recursos

El V Congreso Internacional de Lingüística Aplicada (CILAP) se realizó en la Universidad Nacional (Heredia, Costa Rica) en el Campus Omar Dengo entre el 5 y el 7 de octubre de 2016. Estuvo auspiciado por la Escuela de Literatura y Ciencias del Lenguaje, de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Se recogen en este tomo diecinueve documentos presentados de las diversas actividades del congreso (conferencia inaugural, mesas redondas, talleres y ponencias). Los siguientes ejes temáticos orientaron su desarrollo: adquisición y aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras, traductología, lenguajes en áreas especializadas, política lingüística, lingüística aplicada a áreas específicas y análisis del discurso.

Current complexities of English teaching in Costa Rica’s public secondary education are discussed. Using an autoethnographic research approach, critical incidents of an EFL teacher are examined in light of Complexity Theory. Findings suggest that classrooms are unpredictable sites of struggle where multiple rationalities coexist (and often conflict), which must be understood before random decisions are made. For applied linguistics, the study is relevant at three levels: it expands the bulk of literature on the subject, it calls for more attention to the complexities of EFL, and it opens an avenue for reflection and future research directions.

This study examines the simultaneous bilingual acquisition of English and Spanish by a boy from age 1;2.0 to 2;3.3. Transcripts and diary recordings were examined in order to establish the way in which phonological, lexical, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic skills developed in the child’s speech. The child’s development was contrasted to that in monolingual English and Spanish-speaking children of comparable ages, and the results evidenced an analogous progress at the phonological and morpho-syntactic levels, which suggests language autonomy. The child’s rate of translation equivalents was also analyzed, as well as his rate of mixing and whether these were grammatically constrained. The boy started making use of translation equivalents as soon as these were available in his speech, and by and large, his mixing resulted from lack of equivalents in the two languages. He always used more of the interlocutor’s language and was able to correct himself and to use the appropriate language after his interlocutor prompted him to do so. Furthermore, the child’s mixing never evidenced any violations to the grammatical constraints that apply to adult language mixing. The latter observable facts also suggest an autonomous development of the two languages.

The graduate program in Teaching English at the University of Costa Rica offers yearly English courses to satisfy the language learning needs at different departments, research centers, or similar institutions. The objective of this article was to analyze the extent to which a group of student teachers fulfilled the roles of the instructors in the Task Based Language Teaching method used in the graduate program. The study used a mixed-methods approach and the subjects were three instructors during their teaching practicum. The roles of the instructors were assessed by the practicum supervisors, fellow students in the practicum, the students in the course, and the instructors themselves through rubrics, observation sheets, surveys, and teaching journals. The results from the different instruments using different scales pointed to the instructors fulfilling the roles of sequencing tasks and motivating the learners a majority of the times. The roles of preparing the learners for tasks and raising consciousness were fulfilled to a lesser extent, which indicated that the instructors needed to work further on these areas. The study concluded with recommendations for improving the roles that revealed weaknesses, notably aimed to provide a manageable numbers of vocabulary items and grammar structures in the pretask, as well as to provide prompt feedback, and to elicit students’ knowledge for the development of lessons

The objective of this article is to present an analysis of the changes in the amount of English lexical knowledge that beginners can learn in a quarter (14 weeks) using flashcards. Participants took a pre and a post test. Each week, they made cards using unknown words from a 512-word list studied in two previous courses. A t-test was utilized to compare the results. Besides, participants kept tract of the time they spent using word cards and completed a questionnaire at the end of the quarter. Participants’ scores in the pre and post-test show that there was positive improvement (71.66- 87.33) respectively. The research study reported here provides evidence for the claim that the use of word cards as a strategy helps improve vocabulary knowledge quickly.

The analysis of the Spanish data produced by speakers from the Costa Rican Central Valley evidenced that the trill has been substituted by an assibilated rhotic, while the tap also undergoes assibilation in three contexts: 1) in complex /tr/ onset clusters, 2) word-medially in complex onsets that come after a voiced coronal /l/ or /n/, and 3) in /rC/ clusters where the rhotic is in coda position, always before one or more bound clitic morphemes. Additionally, the tap assibilates phrase-finally. The proposal is that the assibilation of the trill results from the cross-linguistic tendency to reduce the articulation process: instead of producing the trill which requires controlled, precise, and sustained movement of the tongue tip, the magnitude of the movement of the tongue tip is reduced, resulting in assibilation of the trill in all contexts. Assibilation of the tap is explained in terms of coarticulation.

GENERAL OVERVIEW 'Success in English Teaching' is a handbook specifically aimed at teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), although teachers of English as Second Language (ESL) as well as other language teachers can certainly benefit from it. The book examines various significant aspects of language teaching, from how and when to teach discrete English skills to how to design syllabi, how to handle evaluation, and how to work with an appropriate coursebook, to how to best take into account learners' needs and motivation. The book is divided into two main sections, the first one focusing on the actual classroom (chapters 1 through 6), and the second examining broader aspects in language teaching such as planning and evaluation (chapters 7 through 12). Additionally, a very practical glossary is provided which includes comprehensible definitions of all crucial terms used throughout the text. At the end of the book, the authors also provide a useful list of books for further reading, broken down into the following sections: general background and methodology texts, texts about teaching different language skills, testing and evaluation texts, classroom planning and managing texts, and texts about approaches to teaching English.

This article is based on the findings of using a teddy bear as a tool to provide a way of increasing pupils’ motivation toward learning by means of using a stuffed animal such as a teddy bear named Ken Bear and relating it to learning a L2. It was developed in hopes to improve not only the motivation of students but give a positive backwash on the institution itself by giving the school a positive interpersonal context. Voluntary students participated in this project, which consisted of taking care of a teddy bear as a friend or playmate for a day or a few days. At the end of such time, the students would write a short entry into the bear’ s diary in English if possible, if not, in Spanish or just a picture with a few words. Results indicated that this project was a huge success based on the opinions of students, teachers and parents.

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.