Browsing by Author "Cooper, Mariette"

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    An error analysis of written Spanish language in secondary school students in Trinidad
    (School of Education, UWI, St. Augustine, 2008) Cooper, Mariette
    With the new thrust towards learning the Spanish language in Trinidad and Tobago, the need for well-equipped Spanish teachers who are aware and capable of dealing with the problems faced by the student becomes evident. This paper attempts to make some headway in this under-investigated area. It analyses the grammatical errors in agreement of 35 students from two secondary schools in Trinidad. It uses, principally, the work of Fernández for its grammatical classification and explanations, and interprets the data both quantitatively and qualitatively. The investigation shows that errors in agreement form almost 50 percent of all errors produced by the language learner. The paper reveals that despite the different levels of academic performance associated with the schools, difficulties in the aforementioned area are common to both. Finally, it attempts to sensitize educators to these areas so that Spanish language education in the secondary school can be more effective
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    Primary school Spanish theatre production as a strategy for building confidence in student teachers [PowerPoint presentation]
    (2013-06-24) Cooper, Mariette; Govia, Rouven D.; Persad, Aarti
    Theatre pedagogy in foreign language learning and teaching has been in use for over 30 years, but in Trinidad and Tobago no research has been done to assess its usefulness in teacher education. The Ministry of Education recognizes that one factor preventing teachers from effectively delivering Spanish in primary schools is low confidence. To address these issues, a study was done to examine the usefulness of theatre as a sound strategy to advancing pre-service teachers' learning and confidence in Spanish. It focuses on a group of 14 teacher trainees at The University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), who, in 2012, created short plays in Spanish with cross-curricular content and performed them at primary schools throughout Trinidad and Tobago over a six-week period. A questionnaire was administered to them after all the performances of the plays to gain some insight into how they perceived their confidence before and after the theatre productions. Results showed: 1) a dramatic increase in confidence in oral and listening skills, which was attributed to the oral/aural nature of theatre with a high level of speaking practice done (pronunciation, intonation, stress); listening for cues in the plays; and listening to other plays which were new material; 2) a minimal increase in reading skills, which appeared to be due to lack of a clear understanding of what reading is: Reading comprehension vs. Reading aloud; and 3) an increased confidence in writing. This study reinforces the effectiveness of this strategy in the current B.Ed. programme and for potential inclusion in the national Primary Spanish syllabus