Abstract:

I have often heard people say that they have enrolled in two or three years of language study and they cannot speak at all. For years, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has promoted a “ninety-percent target language” approach to language learning in order to address that predicament. ACTFL recommends that all language courses should be taught in the target language ninety percent of the time rather than about the language one hundred percent of the time to help students use the language rather than simply know about it. Yet, despite the focus on the ninety-percent goal, textbooks and classroom instruction generally still center on the mechanics of the language instead of on usage; many instructors feel limited to merely covering information from the textbook. That is why Rincones, an Open Educational Resource for Basic Spanish (OERBS), manifests innovation: it concentrates on Spanish use instead of on grammar rules during the first semester of study. Rincones is also original because almost all basic Spanish courses require the purchase of a textbook (even in on-line courses). In fact, few Open Educational Resources exist to contribute to language training at the most basic level. The purpose of my presentation is to demonstrate how Rincones, an innovative, web-based OERBS can replace textbooks for first-semester Spanish courses. Rincones.pittstate.edu produces state-of-the-art material that can be updated each semester based on student and instructor feedback. Most importantly, Rincones impacts student proficiency from the first Spanish course that students take because the emphasis is not on grammar and vocabulary but on what learners can do with the language. In other words, the open-access tool helps learners to develop second language acquisition through a methodology that mirrors first language acquisition.

Keywords:

Proficiency, Language Acquisition, Open Education Resource for Basic Spanish.