Applying the big 6® to student foreign language research assignments

David Alley, Ed.D., Department of Foreign Languages Lisa P. Smith, M.L.S., M.Ed, Henderson Library Georgia Southern University Statesboro, GA Since its publication in 1996 the Standards for Foreign Language Learning have guided foreign language teachersÆ in their planning and development of classroom activities. The Standards are organized into the five interconnected goal areas: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities. Whereas the goals for communication, cultures, comparisons and communities have been widely discussed and researched, the connections goal is less well-understood. Standard 3.2, for example, states that ôStudents acquire information and recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are only available through the foreign language and its cultures.ö (p. 9 Standards for Foreign Language Learning). The acquisition of specialized information from sources in a foreign language assumes that the researcher is well-acquainted with sources of information unique to the target language culture. However, experience has shown that research assignments in foreign language classes! frequently yield results that reflect neither distinctive viewpoints nor sound research procedures. Like their monolingual classmates foreign language students lack basic information literacy skills. Thus the research question that this study addresses is how training in information literacy can improve the process and product of foreign language research. An information specialist made a series of visits to an intermediate level Spanish class and shared the Big 6 Skills with students who had been assigned a research project. For basis of comparison another section of the same level class completed the same research assignment without the benefit of the Big 6 instruction. Results of the two sets of research assignments were evaluated using rubrics to determine if the students who had received the additional instruction demonstrated a superior ability to acquire information recognize the distinctive viewpoints that are only available through the foreign language and its cultures.