Research

Enhancing Spanish Literacy Skills in Harvard Latino Students

Harvard-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) Collaborative Research Project

Researchers

  • María Luisa Parra, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
  • Araceli Otero, School of Psychology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • Rosa del Carmen Flores, School of Psychology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • Marguerite Lavallée, University Laval

Research Assistants

  • Glenda Quiñonez, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
  • Sacbé Ibarra, School of Psychology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Funded by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, the Harvard- UNAM research project is an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration based on a deep commitment to the expansion of academic horizons of Latino college students. This interdisciplinary team draws upon youth and social psychology, intercultural studies, reading, sociolinguistics and pedagogy for Spanish as heritage language to design educational resources to strengthen and expand Latino students’ Spanish literacy skills.

The team collaborated on the integration of the course Spanish 35: Spanish for Latino Students with the innovative software Lectura Inteligente Herencia Latina designed to increase levels of reading fluency and comprehension in Spanish.

The results of the first year round collaboration (Fall 2013 - Spring 2014) show the benefits of guided and explicit instruction offered in Spanish 35 in combination with pair activities and reading strategies from Lectura Inteligente Herencia Latina. Statistically significant differences were found between students' reading skills and self evaluation of language skills at the beginning and at the end of the semester. All students also reported high motivation for future use of Spanish in their personal and professional lives. These results were presented at the Second International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages at UCLA on March, 2014. [PDF]

Heritage Spanish Narratives

(In collaboration with the Polinsky Lab)

Researchers

  • María Luisa Parra, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University
  • María Polinsky, Department of Linguistics, Harvard University
  • Marta Llorente Bravo, Universidad Complutense

Grounded in the theory of heritage language acquisition, this study aims to describe the discursive characteristics of Spanish narratives made by Harvard undergraduate Latino students before and after taking the course Spanish 35: Spanish for Latino Students (Fall 2013). Guided and explicit instruction given in this course emerges as a major factor in the development of students’ formal skills in Spanish. The main goal of our study is to identify the students’ areas of strength as they acquire formal registers in the production of their narratives. The narratives are analyzed according to the following criteria: degree of lexical variation, use of conjunctions, range of subordination and coordination, richness of verbal tense and voices, use of repairs, and knowledge of narrative opening and closure. The use of these criteria serves as a powerful tool for the evaluation of the progress made by language learners.