Oscar 2024

Our presentation examines the correlation between student performance on formal written exams and active, explicit vocabulary recall activities performed at the beginning of class in the Intensive Intermediate Spanish classroom. Our study derived from a need to address the overall lack of foundational vocabulary for students who take a placement exam and begin their postsecondary language study at the Intermediate level. In the Intermediate Spanish course at our institution, vocabulary, historically, is not taught explicitly. Beginning Fall 2022, we propose the use of physically engaging ("active") recall activities to improve student vocabulary knowledge. We measure their performance on the vocabulary portion of exams between Fall 2021 and 2022 to demonstrate positive correlation.