Teacher talk and Spanish subject personal pronouns

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Author
Author
Melisa Dracos
Journal
Journal of Spanish Language Teaching
Details
Resource Type
Journal
Acquisition Number
BE026813
Published Date
06-04-2018 3:53 PM
Published Year
2018
Language(s)
Subscription Only
No
Abstract
This study examines whether second-language instructors of Spanish overuse subject personal pronouns (SPPs) to facilitate communication with their English-speaking students, which would be a form of teacher talk. Ten native Spanish-speaking language instructors were recorded in two speech contexts: teaching a third-semester Spanish class to native English-speaking learners and talking with another native Spanish speaker. Logistic regression analyses using GoldVarb revealed that SPP expression was strongly conditioned both by the classroom as a speech context and by the linguistic factors including morphological ambiguity of the verb and switch reference. Crucially, instructors' language in the classroom exhibited elevated and modified use of overt SPPs. This finding contributes to research on the variable use of Spanish SPPs, and it has important pedagogical implications for the acquisition of verbal morphology in the classroom context.
Topics
English Learners
English Learners
Case Studies