Some theoretical and methodological aspects of the research of the lexical and grammatical learning of Spanish as L2

Abstract

Cognitive processes that take part in the acquisition of Spanish as a second language at school: new methodologies and new perspectives This paper is based on two well-differentiated sections intended to provide a full picture of the research filed applied to L2 learning processes. The first section is aimed at giving account of the most important methodological challenges faced by the study of the cognitive processes that take part in the acquisition of Spanish as a second language at school. Issues regarding representativeness of linguistic data, comprehension testing and different ways to perform analyses of data. The second section directly covers a series of possible explanations regarding the features of these processes. In particular, two recent proposals based on the cognitive approach to language learning are reviewed: implicit learning and connectionist models of learning.