Learning Basic Grammatical Concepts through Authentic Literary Texts

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1 Learning Basic Grammatical Concepts through Authentic Literary Texts
Lucía Osa-Melero Spanish and Portuguese

2 SPN 327G Advanced Grammar and Composition Bilingual
1. WHO IS A HERITAGE SPEAKER? A heritage speaker, also called a heritage language learner, is a student who is exposed to a language other than English at home. Heritage speakers can be categorized based on the prominence and development of the heritage language in their daily life. Some students may have full oral fluency and literacy in the heritage language; others may have full oral fluency, but their written literacy was not developed because they were usually schooled in English. Another group of students -- typically third- or fourth-generation -- can speak to a limited degree but have difficulty expressing themselves on a wide range of topics.

3 Objectives of Advanced Grammar and Composition
The Spanish language program focuses on the development of three major types of competencies linguistic competence (linguistic proficiency in Spanish including knowledge of phonetics/phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon, discourse, etc.) communication/ interactional competence (communicative abilities in Spanish, including knowledge of sociocultural uses of the language, pragmatics, cultural background/perspectives) metalinguistic competence (awareness of language as a conceptual, symbolic system)

4 Course description and objectives
SPN 327G bilingual is the third course in The University of Texas bilingual track Spanish program geared towards native and/or heritage speakers. The course focuses on further developing speaking, listening, literary reading, and formal and academic writing skills in Spanish while building vocabulary, learning the nuances and in-depth concepts of basic grammatical rules, linguistic terminology of Spanish, and gaining a better understanding of Hispanic cultures in order to communicate in an accurate, effective, and informed manner within a variety of sociocultural situations.

5 Ways to enter the Advanced Grammar and Composition Bilingual class
University Placement test, designed for non-heritage speakers AP placement taken after high school Bilingual courses sequence in the department

6 Generally, what skills or abilities do students bring to my class?
Oral skills: Advanced oral skills within an informal register Listening skills: Advanced within formal and informal registers Reading skills: Intermediate-high Writing skills: Advanced (orthography issues) Metalinguistic ability: very basic Grammar and linguistic knowledge: extremely basic

7 Abilities that need immediate attention
Oral skills within formal registers Presentational skills Written skills Formal register Orthography (lack most of the conventions) Discourse organization and punctuation Listening skills Sophisticated topics Metalinguistic knowledge Syntax Sentence structures Morphology Linguistic terminology

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9 Disparity In comparison with traditional classes, heritage speakers classes deal with an extreme disparity of skills and abilities

10 Combining skills Reading comprehension is one of their most advanced skills Metalinguistic competence and linguistic terminology knowledge is one of their lowest skills Combining both skills should result in an increase of both performances

11 Literature analysis Linguistic analysis
Novelas y Fichas de lectura List of contemporary novels LISTA DE NOVELAS PARA 327G Bilingüe Siglo XX Rayuela de Julio Cortázar (Argentina) La casa de los espíritus de Isabel Allende (Chile) Paula de Isabel Allende (Chile) Nuestros años verde olivo Roberto Ampuero (Chile) [novela de detectivesca] Pasiones griegas Roberto Ampuero (Chile) El caso Neruda Roberto Ampuero (Chile) El amor en tiempos del cólera de Gabriel Garcia Márquez (Colombia) El coronel no tiene quien le escriba de Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia) …

12 Fichas de lectura During reading students have to complete “Fichas de Lectura”. This set of activities consists of reading comprehension and interpretation questions combined with linguistic analysis and grammatical knowledge questions

13 The book Modelo de Ficha de Lectura I. La Novela Título de la novela
Autor/a Editorial Fotógrafo de la foto de portada Número de páginas Lugar de edición Año de edición

14 The author II. El/la autor/a
Fecha y lugar de nacimiento y fallecimiento (si el/la escritor/a ha fallecido) Edad (edad a la que escribió la novela que has leído) Otros trabajos (otras novelas u otros libros conocidos) Obra más conocida Contexto social que destaca en su obra Premios recibidos (nombre del premio, donde y cuando) Foto (busca una foto en Internet y pégala en tu ficha)

15 Characters IV. Personajes a) Personaje protagonista.
Descripción física (usa adjetivos específicos y expresiones figurativas) Descripción Psicológica Dato interesante o particular sobre este personaje  Algo que te encanta de este personaje Algo que te disgusta de este personaje b) Personaje secundario 1 c) Personaje antagonista (si existe)

16 The plot V. Marco de la obra:
Espacio físico ¿dónde sucede el argumento de la novela?: Periodo de tiempo en el que ocurre el argumento:

17 Linguistic analysis Categorías sintácticas
Escribe un párrafo corto que describa un lugar o parte de un lugar donde sucede una acción importante para la novela. Ahora escoge una oración de dentro de este párrafo que contenga explícitamente las siguientes categorías sintácticas. -Sujeto -predicado

18 Linguistic analysis Encuentra una oración de tu párrafo que contenga
objeto directo objeto indirecto

19 Advanced syntactical analysis
Busca en el último capítulo de tu novela dos oraciones que… (pon mucha atención a este ejercicio, busca ayuda si es necesario): Oración que contenga una cláusula principal y cláusula subordinada nominal (ej- Sol prefiere que su esposo no la llame Solito) Una que contenga una cláusula principal y cláusula subordinada adjetival (ej- Sol necesita un esposo que la cuide más)

20 Advanced syntactical analysis
Una que contenga una cláusula principal y cláusula subordinada adverbial (ej- en cuanto decida retomar la comunicación con su esposo, se dará cuenta de todo lo que se ha perdido) Una oración que contenga una subordinada adjetival con pronombre relativo (que, el que, lo que, cuyo, quien)

21 Grammatical categories
VII. Categorías gramaticales. Céntrate en el mismo párrafo Del mismo párrafo encuentra un/a 1) Sustantivo masculino 2) Sustantivo femenino 3) Adjetivo 4) Adverbio 5) Preposición

22 Morphology Morfología. De los capítulos que has leído encuentra tres palabras con: un prefijo (antes de la palabra) Anota la página ejm: deshecho un sufijo (al final de la palabra). Anota la página ejm: honestamente

23 Lexicon and semantics Semántica: Vocabulario
Escribe 10 palabras que no conocías y que has aprendido a través de la lectura. Puedes usar el diccionario. Escribe la definición en español o la traducción al inglés. Escribe 10 cognados que hayas encontrado a lo largo del texto . Anota la página.

24 Escribe 3 cognados falsos que hayas encontrado, es decir dos palabras que el autor usa correctamente pero en ocasiones los hablantes la usamos mal. Anota la página. Ejm: carpeta (incorrectamente se usa “carpeta” para referirse a la moqueta o protección del suelo, cuando en realidad es un bolsillo de papel para guardar documentos, algo muy común en las oficinas) Escribe 3 expresiones o dichos populares que encuentres en tu novela. Anota la página.

25 Orthography (spelling)
X. Ortografía Encuentra a lo largo de tu novela una palabra que contenga. Anota la página : 1) la grafía k 2) la grafía c pero que tenga sonido /k/ 3) la grafía c pero que tenga sonido similar a /s/ 4) la grafía z 6) la grafía g pero que tenga sonido similar a /j/ 7) la grafía j 8) “h” intercalada 9) h al principio de la palabra 10) la grafía /ll/ 11) la grafía /y/ 12) la grafía /r/ con sonido fuerte 13) la grafía /r/ con sonido débil

26 Stress rules and patterns
XI. Acentuación. Encuentra tres palabras para cada grupo y anota la página al lado de cada palabra. Agudas que no lleven tilde Agudas que lleven tilde Llanas que lleven tilde Llanas que no lleven tilde Esdrújulas Monosilábicas con tilde Monosilábicas sin tilde

27 Stress rules and patterns
Palabras que contengan un diptongo (subraya la combinación de vocales) Palabras que contengan un hiato (subraya la combinación de vocales)

28 Free response to the book content
XII. Opinión personal sobre el contenido. Respuesta libre.

29 Students feedback about “fichas”
15 minutes short questionnaires in-class after reading the novels and completing the “fichas”. Generally, students thought the activities were useful, positive, and hard. Very few answers were negative. (2 out of 10)

30 Students feedback about “fichas”
In general terms, what did you like the most about the “fichas” assignments? What has been the most interesting thing about this assignment? I loved reading novels from latino authors. Honestly, I did not know I could read the whole novel, but I did it! I picked up reading before bed again. I like that I read in Spanish before bed, it makes me dream in Spanish. I discovered Angeles Mastretta’s novels and I love her writing style. My next novel is going to be “Mal de Amores” and I am sure I am going to love it as much as “Arráncame la vida”.

31 Reading and interpretation activities
What do you think about the activities in which you had to write about the novel, the author, the characters, the plot and the message of your novel? That was easy, I could answer without much problem. I liked writing about it because it made think about how much I knew about the novel. Talking about the characters was easy. I had to decide who was the antagonist, and that was not easy to find in my novel.

32 Linguistic analysis through the novel
What is your opinion about the linguistic analysis activities included in the “fichas” assignments? Trying to complete the syntactic activities was very challenging. However, I think it helped me a lot to review the material we studied in class and to understand it better. The syntactical activities were hard, but it was amazing to see that I could find those grammatical categories on my own and analyze them. Finding the subordinate clauses in the novel was difficult. It made me reread the pages from a different perspective. A couple times I had to visit the tutoring center to get help with these activities. The tutors were great and helped me complete the activity and understand the selection of the sentences. These activities made me read the pages from a total different perspective. Somewhat fun!

33 Grammatical categories
What is your opinion about finding words that fell under the specific grammatical categories in the “fichas” assignments? These were easy, but still I had to stop and think to decide if it was and adjective or a noun. I like how this activity made me think about the gender of the words all the time. I had never thought about words this way. I still have problems differentiating between an adverb and an adjective, but I think the practice in class really prepared me to find these categories in my short stories.

34 Lexicon and semantics What is your opinion about the lexicon/semantics
(activities about the meaning of the words) activities included in the “fichas” assignments? I learned so many new words. I looked words up in the dictionary at least twice every page, but I think it was good because I still remember some of those words. Ex:“la maraña” I really liked trying to find “cognados”, there were soooooo many. Finding cognados falsos was hard, but I finally found a couple Ex: “asisitir” “experimentar”

35 Further research Study about attitudes and beliefs towards literature and linguistic analysis. More detailed questionnaire. pre-reading and post-reading Study about the effects of the “fichas” on the linguistic knowledge. Comparison of two or more sections.

36 Thank you for your attention Questions?