A linguistic landscape analysis, grounded in the ideas of contestation and resistance (Blackwood, Lanza, & Woldemariam, 2016; Rubdy & Ben Said, 2015) and carried out using Scollon and Scollon’s (2003) concept of place semiotics, was conducted in four cities located in the Asturias region of Northern Spain. The primary goals of the study were to investigate and interpret the (in)visibility of Asturian, an endangered language spoken primarily in and around the capital city of Oviedo. Distinct patterns on public signage involving font alterations, layering, and material selections indicate that the linguistic landscape was being used as an asynchronous public forum between Asturian advocates and unseen actors. Drawing on similar studies of deliberately modified linguistic landscapes (Gorter, Aiestaran, & Cenoz, 2012; Tupas, 2015), this paper introduces the concept of the asynchronously layered linguistic landscape in which evidence of contestation and resistance can be found in strategic juxtapositions of sign materiality.

This paper contributes to the ongoing discussion about the use of virtual exchange for the teaching and learning of languages. The project was designed as a Spanish language conversation exchange that connected students via synchronous Zoom sessions. Following a pilot semester that took place in spring 2019, the exchange was then repeated with a new group of students during the spring 2020 term, the same semester during which the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the world. The exchange took place over a two-week period and pairs were formed between students enrolled in a graduate level pre-service Spanish language program in Spain and undergraduate intermediate Spanish students in the US. Groups were asked to complete five topic-based conversation sessions. Individual exchange sessions were recorded and transcribed. Exchange participants also completed a survey about their experiences. Findings from the recorded sessions, transcript analysis, and surveys show that the virtual conversation exchange was successful and that difficulties such as technology and scheduling, both recurring issues that have been noted in previous studies of telecollaboration (Helm, 2015), were not significant barriers. Because the virtual exchange took place during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the primary focus of this study was to examine how students utilized the exchange as a way to stay connected during a time of mass disconnection.

This study examined the potential of the Facebook group utility inassisting 54 university Spanish students and pre-service Spanishteachers as they explored their roles as teachers and learners.Participants represented two Spanish language classes and twoSpanish teaching methods classes at the university level. These classeswere combined into a Facebook group and student interactions wererecorded. A qualitative case study was used to frame the 12 weekresearch project. Data were collected from the Facebook group wall,weekly student reports, and a final optional survey (n = 42). Resultswere organized with respect to how participants used the Facebookgroup, how the virtual and physical learning spaces were connected,benefits of participation as perceived by the students, and genuinenessof student contributions. Recommendations are offered for thoseconsidering the implementation of similar virtual learning spaces asextensions of face-to-face foreign language or teacher trainingclassrooms.

This study was conducted in order to better understand how, if at all, language centers (LCs) are relevant in current technological and methodological contexts of second language education. Five language centers housed by four different institutions of higher education in the western United States were examined. Two representatives from each of the five centers were interviewed either in-person or over the phone (N = 10). Data was collected in the form of semi-structured interviews and on-site visits. The data was analyzed using a flexible combination of multi-level qualitative coding, descriptive statistics, and narrative analysis. This study confirms recent findings that have shown LCs to be a highly diverse group of institutions, particularly with respect to form and function. With respect to relevance, a common framework for discussing different language centers is outlined in the form of three paradigms: center/department, center/institution, and center/community.

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