Abstract:

For the last decade, colleges and Universities around the United States have been redefining the language classroom using technology in ways that are meaningful and relevant to students in order to respond to the new demands of the global world. In an attempt to respond to this challenge, the researchers in this study created a hybrid setting, teaching Spanish courses with an on-line component (three contact hours a week face-to-face and one contact hour on-line). During the contact hour on-line, English native speakers studying Spanish from a small liberal arts college on the East Coast of the United States (US) used text-based synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology to interact with each other and with Spanish native speakers studying English from a university in Mexico City.

This paper describes the activities conducted in the experimental groups, and the methods used to compare language acquisition between the students. The researchers used a pre- and post reading and listening assessment tool, the Minnesota Language Proficiency Assessment (MLPA) which is a proficiency-based second language assessment tool for reading, writing, listening, and speaking designed on the scale outlined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), and accessible through the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota.

The research question of this study will investigate whether the use of text-based synchronous and asynchronous CMC technology in network-based language teaching (NBLT) courses enhances language acquisition in the Spanish language class. Data will be analyzed using a mixed model Analysis of Variance, which is aimed to determine that the NBLT courses and the traditional courses performed similarly on the pretest, but one group performed significantly different on the posttest.

Keywords:

Language, text-based, computer mediated communication, technology, Spanish, synchronous, asynchronous.