UROP Project

Language learning strategies in the Spanish classroom: Student performance and perceptions

language; education; classroom; Spanish; qualitative

Research Mentor: Dr. Carlo Cinaglia, he/him/his
Department, College, Affiliation: School of Teacher Education; Second Language Education Program, Education, Health, and Human Sciences
Contact Email: ccinaglia@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 3
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors
Project Location: remote
Research Assistant Transportation Required: No, the project is remote
Remote or In-person: Fully Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-10 (flexible), Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link:

• Day: Monday, August 31
  Start Time: 6:00
  End Time: 6:30
  Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/ccinaglia
• Day: Tuesday, September 1
  Start Time: 1:00
  End Time: 1:30
  Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/ccinaglia
• Day: Friday, September 4
  Start Time: 1:00
  End Time: 1:30
  Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/my/ccinaglia

Project Description

Are you learning another language? Do you have experience using or learning Spanish? Are you interested in language learning and teaching, or learning and teaching in general? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this project might be for you!

We know that classroom activities are intended to support language learning, but activities like oral performance assessment can be challenging for students. This teacher-research project from a beginner-level Spanish course involved using language learning strategies and reflection activities to support students during in-class oral performance assessments (speaking tasks). Specifically, the goals of the project are to understand students’ performance (what they do and how they interact in language class) and perceptions (what they think about language learning strategies, performance assessment, and reflection).

Research Tasks: All research tasks can be performed remotely.

Research tasks would involve organizing and analyzing data to help answer the research questions. Specific research tasks may include: transcribing short audio recordings of students interacting in class (Spanish and English); using a simple rubric to rate student performance based on the recordings; annotating or coding transcripts of speaking tasks to identify interactional patterns; and annotating or coding students’ written reflections (English) about their in-class experience to identify student perceptions.

How might these research tasks benefit you? If you’re interested in language learning and teaching (or just learning and teaching in general), you would gain familiarity with classroom interaction in (language) educational contexts, alternative forms of performance assessment, language learning strategies and reflection activities for students, and teacher-research as a form of teacher professional development. If you’re interested in research, you would gain familiarity with qualitative data types (transcripts, questionnaire responses) and approaches to qualitative data analysis (discourse analysis of spoken interaction and written reflection).

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Since some of the data involve the use of English and Spanish, some prior knowledge of Spanish or experience studying basic Spanish is recommended.