As of now, I plan to research oral proficiency development of Spanish in first year high school classrooms. I would like to see what methods have been created by linguists to help students learn to speak fluidly. Specifically, I am interested in how teachers aid students in learning a Hispanic accent.
To me, accent is very important because even if a person learns how to speak according to the grammar rules of the language, but is missing the accent, it is still very difficult for a native speaker to understand him/her. Upon moving to Miami my junior year of high school, I encountered this problem. At that point, I already had five years of classroom Spanish under my belt, but it was all for naught when it came to actually speaking with the many Hispanics in Miami. My accent was very American, I spoke very slowly, and I was so nervous every time it came time for me to open my mouth that all the existing holes in my vocabulary and grammar were magnified to huge gaping chasms full of errors.
As a result of this experience, I would like to emphasize oral proficiency in my future classroom and this thesis gives me a chance to research some techniques. As I mentioned before, I will examine published resources to discover what methods theorists have come up with to teach oral fluency. Also, I plan on observing and interviewing teachers to see what methods are actually implemented in the classroom. I am interested to see what teachers say about which techniques are feasible and which, for one reason or another fail.
5 comments:
Ana, this is an excellent beginning. You can probably research this topic with this method. Good work!!
It has been my experience as a Spanish major that grammar, reading, and writing skills where more highly emphasized. However, when i went to Mexico for missions trips and spent a semester abroad in Spain the oral proficiency was severely lacking and identifying to the locals. So your topic has similar importance to my direct experience with spoken Spanish as well. It might also be important to specify any specific oral proficiency based on the different spoken forms of Spanish within Latin America or even in Spain.
Ana, I love your idea and agree totally that a correct "native" accent is fundamental in Spanish language classrooms, even if the teacher is not a native speaker. I've observed many non-native teachers who emphasized writing and grammar skills above oral proficiency, and as a result, whose students could produce beautifully constructed essays but couldn't speak for two full minutes about a current event in Spanish because they lacked confidence and practice. For some teachers, it seemed to me that the lack of incorporation of spoken Spanish into the daily classroom resulted from the teacher's personal fear of committing grammatical errors or of not sounding authentic. The discrepancy doesn't make for a polished, confident, and "proficient" language student. Great idea!
Ana,
After teaching Spanish, I STILL want to know more about this! You're right - oral proficiency is a main goal of FL instruction. However, there are SO many methods for this that you could probably stand to narrow this topic. (I'm obviously no expert on research, though, so ask someone more qualified than me!) I would say, look at the repetition method. I have my kids practice on little tongue twisters and songs that everyone can be comfortable/silly doing. You might want to see what effect the LEVEL of Spanish has on oral profiency, too
Ana, this is a very true and interesting topic. Even after having years and years of Spanish, in college, I was still pronouncing Spanish words with a southern accent. I'm interested to hear 1. If you are actually able to change someone's accent from the way they've been speaking for years, to the point of them being understood by Spanish speaking natives, and 2. If you are able to change/correct the accent, how it is accomplished. Interesting topic!
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