Our country, which is today the Dominican Republic, is a Spanish speaking country due to the historical and well known fact that the then Hispaniola Island or Santo Domingo was split into two different colonies by effect of the Aranjuez Treaty (1777), held between the two Colonial Metropolis of Spain and France thus establishing the French…

The present work is a historical/linguistic account of an unprecedented fact regarding the existence of two English Speaking Communities [British English and American English], in a country like the Dominican Republic, where Spanish is the official and most used language, to the extent of being considered a monolingual nation or country. It is…

This paper examines the use of technology in the development and assessment of interpersonal communication skills in an online second language (L2) Spanish classroom. The study explores the use of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools and strategies to promote interaction among learners, while also considering the challenges and…

The objective of this investigation is to determine if the "flipped" model can be combined with hybrid learning in order to create the "flipped-hybrid" classroom. The flipped classroom refers to an educational model where the traditional practice of dedicating class time to direct instruction is inverted, so that students…

The native language use in the target language classroom has recently gained the attention of second language acquisition research. This study analyzes such issue in the context of Dominican university students, ranging from 18 to 35 years old, studying in an English immersion program, who have been speaking their native language, namely, Spanish…

The learning process of English as a Foreign Language is a tricky challenge to face when it comes to deal with Spanish native speakers. Most of the time, people compare the structures and uses of both languages (the native and the target one), which causes an interference in the learning process and may result on failure or poorly achieved…

This study examines the common pedagogical approaches of L2 Spanish textbooks that are currently used at the college-level in the United States, and investigates whether they embrace the notion of input as a key concept in aiding L2 learners in learning new vocabulary words through activities that guide them from input/comprehension to…

The objective of this study was to employ a new tool for assessing pragmatic "proficiency" (over "performance") in L2 students and to determine if pragmatic lessons on compliment sequences had a positive impact on L2 Spanish students' intercultural competence. To this end, students at a Midwestern college engaged in live video…

The "NCSSFL-ACTFL Can-Do Statements for Intercultural Communication" (2017) task educators with helping students better recognize "obviously inappropriate behaviors in familiar everyday situations" (p.15), yet today's L2 classroom rarely includes pragmatic speech acts in curriculum, especially with regard to online language…

Learners of a second language often have limited access to the native culture of that language in an authentic way, resulting in them committing linguistic and intercultural mistakes. One of the main advantages of task-based learning is that it can expose students to real-world circumstances, which makes learning a language more meaningful and…

Since the democratic opening of the country (the Dominican Republic), in past decades and the subsequent phenomena of Worldalization, Globalization and the Influences of the Knowledge Society and Computerization, our society and with it the national educational system at all levels has been undergoing a series of changes and influences not ignored…

This quantitative investigation involved 1,054 pre-service teacher respondents with mean age = 20.21 (SD=3.124). This cross-sectional study gathered data through the creation of four research tools validated and pilot tested. Moreover, three of the research tools (AChavQ, AFilQ, AEngQ) were determined to be of 'excellent' reliability, while one is…

This article describes process and outcome evaluations of a blended Cyber ESL program for native Spanish speakers in Chicago who could not use regular ESL classes. The outcomes measured against before and after scores and several comparison groups showed large gains in English language proficiency. 58% percent of students from the cohorts which…

This study examines the formative aspects of teaching in the World Language community college classroom: formative feedback, reflection, and assessment, and then recommends a new educational technique that applies the aforementioned formative elements into the classroom. To this end, in the fall semester of 2015, three sections of Spanish I at the…

This document presents the proceedings of the 25th Annual Research Forum held June 30, 2021, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included are the following eighteen action research papers: (1) Using Modern Events to Teach United States History (Charles Ahern); (2) "We Are All ESL Teachers": Culturally and…