The Art of Teaching Spanish: Second Language Acquisition from Research to Praxis (review)

This volume is a collection of contributions from respected researchers in SLA and applied linguistics. It is designed as a resource tool for foreign language practitioners and pedagogues interested in linguistic issues and applications such as foreign language across the curriculum (FLAC) programs, pedagogical approaches, the effect of study-abroad versus classroom contexts on the learning process, testing, online learning, the incorporation of linguistic variation into the classroom, courses for heritage language learners, and the teaching of translation. The editors also suggest that the volume might be used as a basic textbook for undergraduate and graduate courses on Spanish SLA. Yet, despite this suggestion, I found that in order to fully appreciate its content, the reader needs some general knowledge of linguistics and SLA as well as some teaching experience. Thus, The Art of Teaching Spanish is less an undergraduate textbook than a valuable resource at higher levels of study.

All the contributions are US-centred and relate to the US context, in which, as the editors point out, there is a great demand for Spanish classes. Despite the fact that this volume focuses on teaching and learning Spanish in the United States, most of its chapters are relevant to all language educators in Canada and not only to teachers of Spanish.

The volume opens with an introductory chapter, written by the editors, that critically summarizes the content of all subsequent chapters and thus provides an overview of the subject at hand. Chapter 2 reviews the history, rationale, and pedagogical benefits of curricula that include FLAC courses. Chapter 3 reviews and critiques three general lines of research that have had a major impact on the design of L2 curricula through pedagogical tasks: constructivism, psycholinguistics and cognition, and social and sociocultural cognition. Chapter 4 investigates both the role of input in the SLA process and the theoretical research considerations underlying classroom practice; the authors argue that learners must process input in meaningful ways in order for it to be useful in the construction of their L2 system. Chapter 5 brings the methodological framework of sociocultural theory to bear in analyzing the development of tense-aspect marking in L2 Spanish. Chapter 6 reviews research on Spanish acquisition carried out in both study-abroad and classroom contexts. Chapter 7 explores some of the major recent technological innovations that have the potential to make online language learning as effective as an L2/FL classroom. Chapter 8 presents a broad overview of the research framework that informs L2 testing at the tertiary level, with a special emphasis on Spanish; the authors' analysis focuses mostly on the challenges teachers face as test designers. Chapter 9 addresses fundamental questions faced by most teachers of Spanish in the United States: Should I teach the dialect/variety I speak or the one presented in the textbook? Is it pedagogically feasible to teach students a comprehensive range of linguistic variations of Spanish? Chapter 10 directs the reader's attention to definitional issues that should make us think carefully about, on the one hand, the wholesale adaptation of instructional techniques to teach heritage language speakers and, on the other hand, the basic theoretical aspect of the process of L2 acquisition. Chapter 11 endeavours to show how the findings of SLA research may inform both the teaching and the practice of professional translation and interpretation of Spanish in the United States.

Overall, The Art of Teaching Spanish serves its intended purpose as a resource tool. As a graduate textbook, however, this volume may be less suitable, because it does not address other key components of SLA courses, such as research design and data analysis. Nonetheless, the authors and editors are to be commended for their efforts to create a more informed debate on Spanish SLA.