Sánchez-Belén, Stephanie

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1

The creation and field testing of a teaching unit focused on positive transfer of Spanish/English cognates with a group of 7th graders in a public school in Puerto Rico
(2012) Sánchez-Belén, Stephanie; Dayton, Elizabeth; College of Arts and Sciences - Arts; Rivera, Rosita; Morales Caro, Betsy; Carroll, Kevin S.; Department of English; Canabal, Yolanda
In Puerto Rico (PR), language transfer can be defined as the influence of L1 Spanish on the production and acquisition of L2 English. In the Puerto Rican public schools, few instructional materials make use of cognates and positive transfer for vocabulary and reading development. To fill this gap, this thesis had and achieved five objectives: 1) to create a five-lesson teaching unit, The Cognates Unit, focused on true and false Spanish/English cognates, 2) to create activities for the lessons to promote positive transfer of true cognates, 3) to create activities for the lessons to reduce negative transfer of false cognates, 4) to field test the activities with a group of 7th graders in a public school in southwestern PR and then to analyze the data created as a result of the field test, and 5) to explore the attitudes of the 7th graders towards the teaching unit, lessons, and activities.