Rosa M Jimenez-Catalan

• University of La Rioja

This report offers an overview of the plurilingual profile of La Rioja. It opens with a brief description of the autonomous community, and it provides details of the languages used in the education system and outlines the bilingual programmes which are currently in place. It then presents an overview of two schools in the region, one primary and on...

This study explores the conceptualization of 'School' in the English lexicon of EFL learners, and compares this lexicon to the meanings attributed to the entry School in English dictionaries. Our first objective aimed at identifying the most frequent content words retrieved by Spanish EFL learners in response to the cue-word SCHOOL in a lexical ava...

This study explores the available English lexicon of Spanish adolescents in the twelfth form. It combines a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the English words produced by males and females in a lexical availability task. The objectives are twofold. Firstly, we identify the number of words retrieved by each group in response to nine prompts...

This study explores the available English lexicon of Spanish adolescents in the twelfth form. It combines a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the English words produced by males and females in a lexical availability task. The objectives are twofold. Firstly, we identify the number of words retrieved by each group in response to nine prompts...

The present paper examines the lexical profiles of children and adult EFL learners in an attempt to untangle the roles of age and hours of exposure and their effect on lexical knowledge. Both age and exposure time have generally been acknowledged as relevant factors influencing foreign language acquisition, and vocabulary learning specifically. Par...

Recently, there has been considerable research concerning the effect of CLIL on English language learners’ competence. However, it remains unclear if the positive effects found are due to CLIL or to time. To clarify this issue, this paper focuses on the vocabulary output of CLIL and non-CLIL EFL learners after an equal number of hours of English ex...

This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary school EFL learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion prompts (School and Anim...

This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary school EFL learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion prompts (School and Anim...

In this study we identify the number and the characteristics of the words used in letters by Primary and Secondary school EFL learners at the end of Spanish compulsory educational stages. The compositions were submitted to WordSmith Tools (Version 6.0) so as to classify the words according to alphabetic order, word frequency, statistical lists and...

In this study we look at the use of salutations and valedictions in letters by primary school learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Second language discourse studies have paid relatively little attention to the structural and pragmatic aspects of letter writing by university EFL learners. However, obligatory greetings in letters have bee...

This volume explores the current position of CLIL on the three main fronts where it is attracting particular attention in specialized literature, namely, implementation, research, and teacher training. To this end, it presents evidence from national and international research projects, governmentally-financed pedagogical initiatives, grassroots exp...

In the present study, we propose a complementary approach to the traditional analysis of lexical availability studies by looking at learners’ word responses from the perspective of word frequency. We apply a word frequency framework to data produced by 6th and 8th English as a Foreign Language Learners in Spanish Primary and Secondary schools in re...

In this chapter, we address some methodological issues that are necessary to consider in undertaking research on lexical availability. To this end, we apply an analysis to the studies included in the book paying attention to the following aspects: Type of study, Population, Sample, Lexical availability Task, Data Collection, Data processing and ana...

Lexical availability research points to striking similarities in learners of different ages. It is claimed that similarities are due to the universal organization of L2 mental lexicon. In this chapter we adopt a corpus methodology to compare the lexical availability output of sixth grade primary school children and first year university students, E...

Foreign language learning in primary and secondary schools shares common characteristics worldwide. It takes place in the formal context of a classroom, it follows a syllabus, learners accomplish tasks in order to achieve learning objectives and receive marks on the basis of their scores on language tests.

Acollection of empirical studies on gender and the acquisition, development, meaning and use of vocabulary by female and male adult, adolescent, and young learners of English and Spanish as a second or foreign language. Up-to-date researchidentifies relationships between gender and vocabulary in a language classroom context.

The correlation between the level of lexical competence of an individual and his/her academic success has long been established, hence the importance of selecting the vocabulary input presented to language learners. The sex/ gender variable may affect the way a learner acquires new words. With an eye on these factors the present paper analyses the...

This book contributes to the growth of interest in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), an approach to second/foreign language learning that requires the use of the target language to learn content. Within the framework of European strategies to promote multilingualism, CLIL has begun to be used extensively in a variety of language lear...

This paper responds to the need for research on vocabulary knowledge in foreign language education. First, we investigate the receptive vocabulary knowledge of students learning English in Spanish primary education by using the 1,000 word test and the 2,000 frequency band of The Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT). Second, we study differences between the...

This paper reports the results obtained after analysing the vocabulary input contained in a corpus of EFL textbooks from the last year of Spanish Primary and Secondary Education. We consider the fifty most frequent words in each textbook under study as a sample of analysis and deal with their word type, word frequency, frequency rank, and the perce...

The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether the type of instruction (English as vehicular language and English as a subject) is related to the use of reiteration ties. In the first place, we identified, classified, and counted the number and kind of reiteration ties used by two groups of EFL learners. Secondly, we examined whether reiteration...

In this paper, framed in a research project carried out at the University of La Rioja, Spain, we have analyzed a corpus of 271 compositions written by the same number of students of about 10 years of age. Our goal has been to determine what words children of the fourth year in elementary school use when writing in a second language, and specificall...

Este artículo, enmarcado en un proyecto de investigación que se lleva a cabo en la Universidad de la Rioja, analizamos un corpus de 271 composiciones escritas por el mismo número de estudiantes de diez años. Nuestro objetivo es averiguar qué palabras utilizan los niños de 4º curso en una tarea escrita en un segundo idioma. En particular, nuestro ob...

In this paper we present a contrastive cognitive analysis of metaphorical usages of the word pairs fox/vixen and bull/cow, together with their Spanish counterparts zorro/zorra and toro/vaca. We have four specific aims. Firstly, we wish to find out whether these examples of Animal Metaphor are equally conceptualized in English and Spanish. Secondly,...

This article reports the results of a descriptive study on sex differences in the use of a second language. A questionnaire was administered to 581 Spanish-speaking students learning Basque and English as L2 (279 males and 302 females) in order to answer these questions: Do male and female second language learners differ in (1) the number and (2) t...

In the last two decades, research on vocabulary learning and teaching in second languages has passed from a marginal position to a privileged one within the studies of second language learning and teaching. The study of lexical competence is a current trend within vocabulary research; after Richards' seminar article The Role of Vocabulary Teaching...

In this article I stress the importance of memory in the learning of English as a foreign language. In order to do so I analyse the different issues related to memory such as: location, rules of functioning, and different types of memory. I use readings from psychology works as my theoretical base, and I attempt to adapt to the learning and teachin...