Previous studies in second language teaching have called attention to the importance and benefits of including reading, especially graded readers (i.e., books adapted to the proficiency level of the students), in the L2 curriculum (Martinez, 2017; Rodrigo, 2018). On one hand, previous scholars have found the following benefits from graded readers: (1) an increase in reading comprehension (Beglar et al. 2012; Suk, 2016), (2) a reduction of anxiety towards reading (Martinez, 2017; Rodrigo, 2011), (3) a fostering of cultural knowledge (Hill 2013), and (4) an increase in vocabulary learning (Horst, 2009; Suk, 2016), to name a few. On the other hand, most of the research on graded readers has been conducted in English as a second language classes and little is known about the experience of L2 Spanish elementary proficiency learners at university settings (Nation & Waring, 2020). To fill this gap, this dissertation provides information on the implementation of a Reading Program using graded readers in an ongoing first-year Spanish program at the university level. Two different studies have been conducted. The first one explores the implementation of the Reading Program, the creation of in-house graded readers and present students' reactions and opinions on the reading program in general and the graded readers in particular. Through focus groups before the implementation of the reading program and a student questionnaire at the end, this study highlights the importance of matching the proficiency level of the graded readers with the students’ level and the importance of creating stories with familiar settings and relatable protagonists to increase students’ enjoyment. The second study focuses on vocabulary acquisition and the effects of post-reading fill-in-the-blanks activities and evaluates the reliability of the Technique Feature Analysis (TFA) framework on measuring the effectiveness of these activities. 260 students participated in this

study and were divided into 4 groups (i.e., a control group and three experimental group), they have to complete a vocabulary test before and at the end of the Reading Program. Results in this study emphasized the importance of complementing reading with word focused activities in order to increase vocabulary acquisition, highlighted the fill-in-the-blanks with the translation of the target words in English as the most powerful one, and advocate for the use of the TFA framework in order to choose the most appropriate activities.

There is a pressing need for language instructors and programs to develop a critical consciousness of how teaching and institutional practices may perpetuate harmful language ideologies and an urgency to promote structural changes (e.g., at the curricular level, via teaching training and equitable pedagogies) to meet the needs of both L2 and Heritage Language Learners (HLL) within higher education (Holgun Mendoza, 2018; Valdés and Parra, 2018; Beaudrie, 2020). Similarly, scholars have recently emphasized a call for more research investigating the "emotional dimensions" of ideologies and how they interact with language (Cavanaugh, 2020). Therefore, this dissertation evaluates instructors’ and students’ emotions and perceptions surrounding bi-/multilingual speech and pedagogical practices, which serve as sources of insight that allow us to rethink the ways in which language ideologies and affective states continue to shape the language classroom experiences. By asking language learners and instructors to report on how they view and feel when engaging in fluid bi-/multilingual linguistic practices (e.g., spontaneous translanguaging), the first investigation (Study 1) revealed that language learners experienced vast and nuanced states of being, such as feeling “normal,” “connected,” and “enthusiastic about language growth” when utilizing their language(s). Further, their responses also alluded to a wide range of monoglossic standard language discourses, suggesting a potential link between emotions and broader belief systems about language, which has previously been overlooked. Further, this research proposes a workshop to have graduate teaching assistants engage with critical pedagogies like translanguaging pedagogy and Critical Language Awareness (CLA) in the context of L2 acquisition and within a university language department. An in-depth case study identified many structural and ideological factors that contribute to implementing these pedagogies (Study 2). Lastly, the proposed workshop (Study 3) highlighted the benefits and limitations of providing graduate teaching assistants with focused training on critical pedagogies to combat harmful language ideologies that continue to linger in classes for emergent bilinguals within higher education.

Learner corpus research has expanded from focusing primarily on English as a second language (L2) to include languages such as L2 Spanish, reflecting the growing importance of corpus linguistics in second language acquisition (SLA) research. In this context, and because prompts are the means by which learner corpora gather their texts, it has become necessary to consider the impact of prompt characteristics on text features. This dissertation examines how prompts, genre, and narrative voice affect the lexical and syntactic features of L2 Spanish learner writing, using the COWS-L2H corpus (Davidson et al., 2020; Yamada et al., 2020).The research explores the influence of different prompts and narrative voices on the Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) and the rate of subject pronoun presence (SPP) errors across various proficiency levels. Mixed-effects regression models reveal that first-person texts, particularly self-descriptions, tend to have higher MTLD scores and fewer SPP errors compared to third-person descriptions of special or famous individuals. A similar pattern emerges in narrative texts, where first-person narratives exhibit greater MTLD scores than third-person narratives, demonstrating the impact of personal connection and emotional resonance in learner writing. Contrary to expectations, no significant differences in MTLD are found between descriptions of a close person and a famous person, suggesting that emotional closeness alone does not drive lexical diversity in learner texts. Additionally, while descriptive texts show significant effects of narrative voice and course level on SPP errors, narrative texts do not, emphasizing the key role of genre in determining linguistic accuracy. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of how corpus design choices impact the study of L2 language and offers insights into the broader implications for SLA research, including areas such as language testing and pedagogy. By examining the relationships between prompts, genre, and narrative voice, it offers practical guidance for corpus developers and researchers, aiming to enhance the validity and reliability of learner corpora and inform future research directions in SLA.

This dissertation project aims to investigate (1) how three different L2 Spanish instructorstreat vocabulary in their beginner Spanish course (SPA 1) depending on their teaching experience, and (2) how an instructor treats vocabulary in a beginner Spanish course during the three academic quarters of his first year of teaching at the university level. Concretely, their classroom talk was analyzed with a focus on the (1) input provided by the instructor, output generated by the students, and the number of student interactions in the classroom, and (2) lexical frequency and word repetition in the input. The aim of the study is to get a better understanding of how different instructors’ input and overall classroom management may affect incidental vocabulary learning and how such input may change over time as an instructor gains more teaching experience throughout one academic year. Results from this research will hopefully provide relevant insights into how to better train new instructors and how to better connect instructors to vocabulary research in ways to avoid the current disconnect between the scientific literature on the subject and what instructors do in their classrooms.