Tesis y Tesistas 2020 - Postgrado - Fac. de Informática - UNLP

english
Mg. Carlos Andrés Balanta Zamora
teaching Spanish as a foreign language to children.
In this context, the present work was carried out, which
resulted in the production of the web teaching material
“La Aventura del Saber y Explorar el Español como Lengua
Extranjera” .
Objective
This work is framed at the intersection of the fields of
teaching Spanish as a foreign language and educational
technology, in its field of instructional design of educational
materials with new technologies. The main objective of
this work is the design, development and evaluation of
web teaching material for teaching Spanish as a foreign
language to seven-year-old children.
Specific objectives
• Detect and analyze the learning needs of children in the
area of Spanish as a foreign language in a school in North
Carolina, United States.
• Design and develop a web teaching material for vocabulary
activities, presentations and games.
• Implement the vocabulary activities and presentations
developed for the second grade of a public school in the
United States.
• Evaluate the use of the material taking as a reference the
diagnosis made at the beginning of the intervention.
language they are learning. For this reason, students need
to be exposed to native speakers to become more familiar
with pronunciation and listening exercises.
On the other hand, implement an avatar that helps the
navigation of the site; this will be used when students have
trouble understanding the instructions, the idea is that the
avatar provides the user with audio instructions when the
user requires it. Also, a tool that allows students to search
for the meaning of unknown words in the reading,
Moreover, it is necessary to analyze the effect that the
feedback provided by the material has on the students’
learning, how it contributes to the improvement of learning
and in what ways it can be improved to make it more
effective.
Finally, it is necessary to explore the impact that the games
have on learning specific aspects, such as vocabulary and
how these games can be improved to be more meaningful
for the user.
Thesis contributions
In this thesis the web teaching material “La Aventura del
Saber y Explorar el Español como Lengua Extranjera” was
developed and implemented. It serves as supplementary
material to a bilingual teaching program in the United
States. In addition, the creation of such personalized
multimedia material for the school helped to systematize
and standardize the process of teaching Spanish as a foreign
language. Although the audience that will use this material
in the future will change in certain aspects, the learning
objectives will continue to be similar, so it is expected that
the material will continue to adapt to most of the needs of
new users.
Future Research Lines
As a continuation of the present proposal, it is expected to
continue with the design of the remaining didactic units:
these are, “Las Estaciones” y “El Clima”, in addition to
deepening “El Ciclo de la Vida” with the implementation
of new vocabulary exercises that reflect the principles of
the lexical approach. Besides, the incorporation of a forum
to add a collaborative tool that is so necessary in language
learning.
It is also expected that more listening activities are
incorporated since at an early age, it is when learners of
a foreign language need to have more oral exposure to the
43 TESIS Y TESISTAS 2020