The Writing Process in L2 Spanish Students and Heritage speakers: A Keystroke Logging Study

Abstract

This study belongs to the field of applied linguistics and, in particular, the area of first and second language acquisition. The two populations of interest in this project are Spanish-English bilinguals in the US, who are referred to as heritage language learners (HLLs), and Spanish second language (L2) learners. This study uses the keystroke logging software Inputlog to explore the different characteristics found within the writing process of HL and L2 learners. Through Inputlog we gathered data on writing samples from university students in L2 Spanish classes belonging to three different levels of Spanish proficiency--low, intermediate, and advanced. To further investigate the syntactic complexity of these two groups of bilinguals we also conducted a T-unit analysis. The results show the existence of clear differences between HL and L2 learners, particularly in the complexity of their writing and the kinds of errors they made. Also, the findings point to differences among the L2 learners, despite the fact that they were all placed in the same L2 Spanish classes. The data in this study suggests that different methodologies might be needed when teaching Spanish to HL and L2 learners.