In China, despite the number of Spanish programs is boosting, studies on Spanish teaching in higher education are parsimonious. Furthermore, the significant challenge in grammar learning reported by both Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) teachers and learners calls for instruction innovation. However, rather than rush into any teaching reform, a learning experiment was administered to shed light on the impact of some innovative instructions (i.e., context-oriented instruction) on Chinese SFL learners' acquisition of Aspect in Spanish.
Tradition grammar instruction for Spanish Aspect focused on explaining the principles, however, principles alone contributed less to learners' correct judgment of the use of Aspect. In both written assignments and oral responses, SFL learners constantly manifested confusion over which aspect (i.e perfective or imperfective aspect) is more appropriate. There are some inherent factors, like the differences in structure dwelling in the two language systems (Chinese and Spanish), or the cognitive bias that occurred during the semantic exchange between the second language (L2) to the first language (L1), which led to learners' hesitation or even some misjudge of the Aspect. However, more importantly, Spanish Aspects need to be comprehended by integrating context cues and grammar rules.
To further validate the significance of context, in this study we developed a learning experiment involving a series of Spanish instruction innovations, with an emphasis on the use of context information to promote the acquisition of the Aspect in Spanish.
Building on the theoretical framework of the Trinitarian Grammar (Feng & Shi, 2011; Feng, 2014), this learning experiment of Spanish Aspect was composed of three parts: formal structure explanation, grammatical function explanation, and typical context. Twenty-two Spanish/English duo-majored freshmen have participated in this study, and all the participants are native speakers of Chinese. The entire experiment lasts for six weeks. Prior to the implementation, detailed guidelines of the learning experiment were provided to the participants and oral consent was obtained. During the experiment, in addition to explaining the formal structures and grammar functions of the textbook, participants were also invited to describe the specific context embedding in the real-life examples, highlighting the use of Aspect. Besides, other learning tasks, such as Chinese to Spanish translation, were also carried out once a week to assess Spanish/English duo-majored freshmen's comprehension of Aspect in Spanish. After the learning experiment, another interpretation task was initiated. Participants demonstrated their knowledge of Aspect in Spanish by explaining the use of aspect in the context of five different Spanish sentences. Guiding questions, like "Is it possible to substitute the existing perfective aspect with an imperfect aspect?" are used to facilitate the learning reflections. Finally, both qualitative data and quantitative data collected through the experiment were intertwined, compared and analyzed. The results yielded that the context-oriented instruction accelerated Chinese foreign language learners' comprehension of the Aspect in Spanish. Pedagogy implications would also be elaborated in the presentation.
References
冯胜利（2014） 汉语教学中的语法与操练，《汉语国际传播研究》(2)，13-25.
冯胜利、施春宏（2011） 论汉语教学中的三一语法，《语言科学》(5), 464-472.
