What is it about?
This study investigates the spelling proficiency of Spanish Heritage Language Learners when writing words in Spanish that contain the phoneme /s/, which can be spelled as s, c, z. The study looks at a corpus of college students essays to see whether the letter s is the default letter students use to represent this sound. It also examines whether students make fewer spelling errors with English-Spanish cognate words, which are spelled with the same letter. Finally, the study looks at whether the number of years students took Spanish courses in high school affect students’ level of spelling proficiency.
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Why is it important?
This is important because spelling is an aspect of literacy Spanish heritage language learners have great difficulties with, and not much research exists in this area. As a consequence, instructors need to teach spelling without much information about what aspects are more difficult, the strategies students use, or the effect that instruction has in their development.
Perspectives
This research is dear to me because as a professor I see students' struggles to improve their spelling, and with my research I have the opportunity to contribute to the scarce literature that exists in spelling development of this particular student population. This study offers a counterpoint to a study I conducted with my colleague Eve Zyzik where we also examined the facilitative effect of English spelling when spelling English-Spanish cognates with the phoneme /s/. But while we looked at students spelling of /s/ in a quasi-experimental setting, the current study examines spelling produced in a naturalistic setting.
Amalia Llombart
California State Polytechnic University Pomona
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Default Grapheme and Language Transfer in the Spelling of /s/ in Spanish Heritage Language Learners, Heritage Language Journal, August 2022, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15507076-12340024.
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