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Seeing innovation from different prisms: university students’ and instructors’ perspectives on flipping the Spanish language classroom

  • Ana García-Allén EMAIL logo and Shelley K. Taylor
Published/Copyright: June 5, 2023
Language Learning in Higher Education
From the journal Language Learning in Higher Education Volume 13 Issue 1

Abstract

This article focuses on the implementation of a flipped classroom approach in two different levels of Spanish foreign[1] language university courses for beginner and intermediate learners. The flipped classroom approach delivers course content that prioritizes both digital technology and active learning. Despite its potential advantages in the language classroom, empirical research in this area remains limited. The present study addresses the gap by investigating the effects of the flipped classroom approach on Spanish as a foreign language by comparing student attitudes in flipped and traditional classrooms in beginner and intermediate Spanish courses at a university level. Specifically, this research explores the use of the flipped classroom approach in a second language classroom as a way to present grammar content prior to the in-class lesson and compares the results to those of a traditional, lecture-like delivery of the same grammar content. Drawing on data elicited from students and instructors in these course levels, this study investigates student and instructor perceptions, as well as student autonomy, engagement, and achievement through a qualitative lens.

Keywords: flipped classroom approach; foreign language teaching; higher education; instructors and students’ perceptions; Spanish
Corresponding author: Ana García-Allén, Department of Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, E-mail:

Appendices

Appendix A

Sample exercises related to Video 1 on “Forming questions in Spanish” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRsrsqzJOA0) are provided below:

Exercise 1: ¡Inténtalo!

Fill in the blanks with intonation and tag questions based on the statements. Follow the model.

Modelo Statement: Hablas inglés

Intonation: ¿Hablás inglés?

Tag questions: Hablas inglés ¿no?

  1. Statement: Trabajamos mañana

    • Intonation: ____________________

    • Tag questions: __________________

  2. Statement: Raúl estudia mucho

  3. Statement: Ustedes desean bailar

  4. Statement: Enseño a las nueve

  5. Statement: Luz mira la televisión

Exercise 2: Escoger

Choose the option that best answers each question.

  1. ¿Quién es el chico?

a) Es Miguel b) Es chico c) Es de Cuba d) Es la mochila

  1. ¿Cuándo llegan los estudiantes de México?

a) Cuatro estudiantes llegan c) Los estudiantes de México llegan
b) Las estudiantes llegan a la universidad d) Las estudiantes llegan a las diez

  1. ¿Cómo cantan los chicos?

a) Los chicos cantan a las nueve c) Los chicos cantan bien
b) Los chicos cantan en la clase d) Los chicos cantan

  1. ¿De dónde es Margarita?

a) Es Margarita Vega b) Es de Panamá c) Es profesora d) Estudia historia

  1. ¿Qué autobús tomas?

a) Son las cuatro b) Yo tomo el autobús 27 c) Yo tomo el autobús d) Yo camino a la universidad

Appendix B

A Kahoot activity related to Video 1 on “Forming questions in Spanish”

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRsrsqzJOA0) is provided below:

Kahoot Activity:

Elige la palabra correcta en cada caso

  1. ¿ __________ es tu profesora de español?

a. Cuándo b. Dónde c. Quién d. Quiénes

  1. ¿___________ chicos hay en la clase de español?

a. Quiénes b. Cuánto c. Cuántos d. Dónde

  1. ¿ ___________ trabaja tu amigo?

a. Dónde b. Quién c. Cuál d. Cuántos

  1. ¿_____________ es tu asignatura preferida?

a. Quién b. Cuánta c. Cuál d. Cuáles

  1. ¿ ____________ estudias español?

a) Porque b) Cuándo c) Por qué d) Qué

Appendix C

Focus group guide – Student

Introductory question

  1. I am just going to give you a couple of minutes to think about your experience taking the Spanish course at Western. Is anyone happy to share his or her experience?

Guiding questions

  1. What do you think about learning Spanish by viewing videos and taking notes outside the class, and putting in practice what you learned in class?

  2. Did you complete the online assignments before your Spanish class? Watch the video online and complete the online activities? Did you find it helpful?

  3. What do you like about watching the videos to prepare for class?

  4. Did you find the exercises/discussions at the beginning of the class helpful?

  5. How confident do you fell about the material after watching the video but before coming to class to practice it?

  6. Do you feel more confident after the class when you had time to practice it?

  7. Think about both a flipped classroom lesson and a traditional lecture lesson. What are the pros and cons about each of them? Are the lessons any different? Does the structure of each lesson benefit you in any way? How? What do you like and dislike of each approach?

  8. How many of you feel you are less stressed completing practice activities for homework when you learn from the flipped lesson? What (if anything) makes you stressed when working on traditional textbook homework? What (if anything) makes you stressed when completing a flipped lesson?

  9. Which component(s) of the flipped classroom (video viewing, taking notes, online activities, in-class practice and/or quizzes) do you find the most or least beneficial in terms of learning?

  10. What do you think about communication in the target language in your class? There is enough time to communicate in the target language? Explain how it could be improved.

  11. What do you think are advantages of a flipped classroom? Disadvantages? Why?

  12. Do you believe that you are learning better in the flipped classroom than if the class were being taught using traditional lecture?

  13. Does the flipped classroom require more or less work than a lecture-based class?

  14. Does learning in a flipped classroom result in a more efficient use of time, so that you can learn as much (or more) with less effort? Or is the opposite true?

  15. Are there any improvements that you believe can be made towards a flipped classroom? If so, what do you think they are?

  16. If you were to take the class again, would you prefer a flipped format or the traditional lecture format?

  17. How can the flipped Spanish university classroom be improved?

  18. Is there anything else that you would like to add regarding your experience in the flipped classroom?

Concluding question

  1. Of all the things we’ve discussed today, what would you say are the most important or interesting issues you would like to express about your Spanish course at Western?

Appendix D

Focus group guide – Instructor

Introductory question

  1. I am just going to give you a couple of minutes to think about your experience teaching the Spanish course at Western. Is anyone happy to share his or her experience?

Guiding questions

  1. What do you think about teaching Spanish by asking students to view videos and take notes outside the class, and putting in practice what they learned in class?

  2. Can you talk about the time that you spend preparing for your class?

  3. Did you watch the online videos to prepare your class?

  4. Did you find the exercises/discussions at the beginning of the class helpful?

  5. Think about both a flipped classroom lesson and a traditional lecture lesson. What are the pros and cons about each of them? Are the lessons any different? Does the structure of each lesson benefit you in any way? How? What do you like and dislike of each approach?

  6. Which component(s) of the flipped classroom (video viewing, taking notes, online activities, in-class practice and/or quizzes) do you find the most or least beneficial in terms of student learning?

  7. What do you think about communication in the target language in your class? Is there enough time to communicate in the target language? Explain how it could be improved.

  8. Can you talk about students’ participation in your classes?

  9. What do you think are advantages of a flipped classroom? Disadvantages? Why?

  10. Do you believe that you students are learning better in the flipped classroom than if the class were being taught using traditional lecture?

  11. Does the flipped classroom require more or less work on your side than a lecture-based class?

  12. Does learning in a flipped classroom result in a more efficient use of time? Or is the opposite true?

  13. Are there any improvements that you believe can be made towards a flipped classroom? If so, what do you think they are?

  14. If you were to teach the class again, would you prefer a flipped format or the traditional lecture format?

  15. How can the flipped Spanish university classroom be improved?

  16. Is there anything else that you would like to add regarding your experience teaching Spanish using the flipped classroom approach?

Concluding question

  1. Of all the things we’ve discussed today, what would you say are the most important or interesting issues you would like to express about your Spanish course at Western?

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Received: 2022-03-30
Accepted: 2023-02-08
Published Online: 2023-06-05
Published in Print: 2023-05-25

© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction
  3. The fascinating world of language teaching and learning varieties
  4. Research Articles
  5. Aspiring multilinguals or contented bilinguals? University students negotiating their multilingual and professional identities
  6. The (im)possibility of breaking the cycle of rippling circularities affecting Australian language education programs: a Queensland example
  7. Lernen mit LMOOCs im universitären Deutschunterricht: Entscheidungshilfen für Deutschlehrende
  8. Enhance sustainability and environmental protection awareness: agency in Chinese informal video learning
  9. Gamification and learning Spanish as a modern language: student perceptions in the university context
  10. Seeing innovation from different prisms: university students’ and instructors’ perspectives on flipping the Spanish language classroom
  11. Investigating syntactic complexity and language-related error patterns in EFL students’ writing: corpus-based and epistemic network analyses
  12. Using Google Docs for guided Academic Writing assessments: students’ perspectives
  13. Digital storytelling as practice-based participatory pedagogy for English for specific purposes
  14. Is individual competition in translator training compatible with collaborative learning? The case of the MTIE Translation Award
  15. Tackling the elephant in the language classroom: introducing machine translation literacy in a Swiss language centre
  16. Institutionalised autonomisation of language learning in a French language centre
  17. The story of becoming an autonomous learner: a case study of a student’s learning management
  18. The effect of collaborative activities on tertiary-level EFL students’ learner autonomy in the Turkish context
  19. Learner autonomy and English achievement in Chinese EFL undergraduates: the mediating role of ambiguity tolerance and foreign language classroom anxiety
  20. Activity Reports
  21. Lehre am Sprachenzentrum der UZH und der ETH Zürich: Positionspapier
  22. Communication course for future engineers – effective data presentation and its interpretation during LSP courses
  23. Dialogic co-creation in English language teaching and learning: a personal experience
https://doi.org/10.1515/cercles-2023-2004
Keywords for this article
flipped classroom approach; foreign language teaching; higher education; instructors and students’ perceptions; Spanish

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction
  3. The fascinating world of language teaching and learning varieties
  4. Research Articles
  5. Aspiring multilinguals or contented bilinguals? University students negotiating their multilingual and professional identities
  6. The (im)possibility of breaking the cycle of rippling circularities affecting Australian language education programs: a Queensland example
  7. Lernen mit LMOOCs im universitären Deutschunterricht: Entscheidungshilfen für Deutschlehrende
  8. Enhance sustainability and environmental protection awareness: agency in Chinese informal video learning
  9. Gamification and learning Spanish as a modern language: student perceptions in the university context
  10. Seeing innovation from different prisms: university students’ and instructors’ perspectives on flipping the Spanish language classroom
  11. Investigating syntactic complexity and language-related error patterns in EFL students’ writing: corpus-based and epistemic network analyses
  12. Using Google Docs for guided Academic Writing assessments: students’ perspectives
  13. Digital storytelling as practice-based participatory pedagogy for English for specific purposes
  14. Is individual competition in translator training compatible with collaborative learning? The case of the MTIE Translation Award
  15. Tackling the elephant in the language classroom: introducing machine translation literacy in a Swiss language centre
  16. Institutionalised autonomisation of language learning in a French language centre
  17. The story of becoming an autonomous learner: a case study of a student’s learning management
  18. The effect of collaborative activities on tertiary-level EFL students’ learner autonomy in the Turkish context
  19. Learner autonomy and English achievement in Chinese EFL undergraduates: the mediating role of ambiguity tolerance and foreign language classroom anxiety
  20. Activity Reports
  21. Lehre am Sprachenzentrum der UZH und der ETH Zürich: Positionspapier
  22. Communication course for future engineers – effective data presentation and its interpretation during LSP courses
  23. Dialogic co-creation in English language teaching and learning: a personal experience
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