Uso de la retroalimentación correctiva focalizada indirecta con claves metalingüísticas en la adquisición del sufijo -s en la tercera persona del singular en inglés, en estudiantes de un programa de formación pedagógica en efl de una universidad chilena ResumenEl presente artículo aborda uno de los problemas recurrentes en estudiantes de un programa de formación de profesores de inglés en Chile: la omisión de la -s en la tercera persona del singular durante la construcción de un texto académico. Se ha observado que las competencias gramaticales de estos estudiantes son insuficientes para responder a las exigencias de la producción de un texto académico. Esta problemática deja en evidencia una situación común entre los estudiantes: avanzar en su competencia comunicativa, pero no en su competencia gramatical. El futuro profesor de inglés como lengua extranjera (efl) debe poseer un dominio en ambas competencias y, por lo tanto, se debe brindar atención a ambos aspectos. El artículo describe también la utilidad de las estrategias de retroalimentación correctiva, específicamente de la retroalimentación correctiva focalizada indirecta con claves metalingüísticas para abordar problemas gramaticales concretos y recurrentes, como el de la omisión del sufijo -s, en estudiantes con un nivel de competencia comunicativa avanzada en inglés.Palabras clave: Sufijo -s, retroalimentación correctiva, escritura académica AbstractThis article addresses one of the frequent problems in pre-service teachers of English in Chile: the omission of suffix -s in the third person singular during the writing of an academic text. It has been observed that the grammatical competence of these prospective teachers is insufficient to meet the demands of academic writing. This issue reveals a situation that is shared by students who show proficiency in their communicative competence but not in their grammatical competence. The prospective teacher of English as a Foreign Language should master both competences. Therefore, attention should be equally given to both. The paper also describes the usefulness of corrective feedback strategies, specifically indirect focused corrective feedback with metalinguistic clues to address specific, frequent grammatical problems, such as the omission of suffix -s in students who show advanced proficiency in their communicative competence.

Understanding the factors underpinning COVID-19 infection and mortality rates is essential in order to implement actions that help mitigate the current pandemic. Here we evaluate how a suit of 15 climatic and socio-economic variables influence COVID-19 exponential growth-phase infection and mortality rates across 36 countries. We found that imports of goods and services, international tourism and the number of published scientific papers are good predictors of COVID-19 infection rates, indicating that more globalized countries may have experienced multiple and recurrent introductions of the virus. However, high-income countries showed lower mortality rates, suggesting that the consequences of the current pandemic will be worse for globalized low-income countries. International aid agencies could use this information to help mitigate the consequences of the current pandemic in the most vulnerable countries.

This paper reports on a study about the rhetoric, metacognitive, and cognitive strategies pre-service teachers use before and after a process-based writing intervention when completing an argumentative essay. The data were collected through two think-aloud protocols while 21 Chilean English as a foreign language pre-service teachers completed an essay task. The findings show that strategies such as summarizing, reaffirming, and selecting ideas were only evidenced during the post intervention essay, without the use of communication and socio-affective strategies in either of the two essays. All in all, a process-based writing intervention does not only influence the number of times a strategy is used, but also the number of students who employs strategies when writing an essay—two key considerations for the devising of any writing program.