La enseñanza presencial y virtual del español como lengua extranjeraestudio comparativo de las habilidades lingüísticas de dos grupos universitarios estadounidenses de nivel inicial

Abstract

ABSTRACT The main objective of this investigation is to find out whether the same contents of Spanish as a foreign language could be taught and learned successfully, regardless of the delivery mode of the course - face-to-face or online. To this end, mid-term and final tests were administered and analysed, in order to evaluate oral and written language skills in two groups of U.S. college students of introductory Spanish. Instruction was delivered exclusively face-to-face for one group and entirely online for the other. Both, mid-term and final tests, showed a slight advantage of the experimental group -online- in the average results obtained in most language skills. However, statistical comparisons of mid-term and final results in each skill for each group did not show statistically significative differences between both groups. Furthermore, after the investigation, a series of suggestions for improvements were made, with the intention that these will be useful to other instructors or researchers who may wish to undertake similar studies. Important educational goals were achieved through this experiment, such as: creating a greater access to Spanish language classes -regardless of the personal, professional, or geographical circumstances of the students-, learning language skills by taking advantage of the many online tools available for this purpose, as well as encouraging collaborative work and enhancing students' autonomy. The study tried to delve on certain myths pertaining the adequacy -or lack thereof- of online tools to teach and learn to communicate in the target language. It analyzed the pros and cons of both environments, face-to-face and online. Finally, it indicated the prerequisites that must be met by both, students and instructors, prior to and during the process, so that satisfactory results may be achieved in either learning environment.