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Article published In:
Spanish in Context
Vol. 19:2 (2022) ► pp.337–360

The benefits of social interaction and proficiency for foreign language acquisition of Spanish conventional expressions

Evidence from foreign language Spanish learners

| Minnesota State University-Mankato

Several studies have examined the second language acquisition of English conventional expressions (CEs) in the study abroad context. However, there is a lack of studies that investigate Spanish CEs and CEs in general in the at-home context. This study examines the foreign language acquisition of Spanish CEs in the at-home context and the effect of proficiency and Spanish social interaction outside of the classroom. Three levels of learners (3rd semester, 5th semester, and graduate level) (N = 32) and a Spanish speaker comparison group (N = 10) completed an oral discourse completion task, a recognition task, and a social interaction questionnaire. Results showed that social interaction in Spanish leads to better recognition of conventional expressions and that proficiency is a significant predictor of production of these expressions. Results have pedagogical implications, including the importance for instructors to provide input of expressions related to a variety of contexts.

Keywords: conventional expressions, social interaction, Spanish second language acquisition
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Review of literature
    • 2.1L2 Acquisition of CEs
    • 2.2Empirical studies of CEs
      • 2.2.1Recognition
      • 2.2.2Cultural transfer and sociocultural adaptation
      • 2.2.3Intensity of interaction and proficiency
    • 2.3Social interaction
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Materials and procedure
      • Production task
      • Recognition task
      • Social interaction questionnaire
      • Background questionnaire
    • 3.3Analysis
      • 3.3.1Production task
      • 3.3.2Recognition task
      • 3.3.3Social interaction
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Recognition results
    • 4.2Production results
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Discussion of results
    • 5.2Pedagogical implications
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 27 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.18029.den
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