Recursos

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.

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 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.