A Pedagogical Application of NooJ in Language Teaching: The Adjective in Spanish and Italian

In this paper, a pedagogical application of NooJ to the teaching and learning of Spanish as a foreign language is presented, which is directed to a specific addressee: learners whose mother tongue is Italian. The category {`}adjective{'} has been chosen on account of its lower frequency of occurrence in texts written in Spanish, and particularly in the Argentine Rioplatense variety, and with the aim of developing strategies to increase its use. In addition, the features that the adjective shares with other grammatical categories render it extremely productive and provide elements that enrich the learners{'} proficiency. The reference corpus contains the front pages of the Argentinian newspaper Clar{\'\i}n related to an emblematic historical moment, whose starting point is 24 March 1976, when a military coup began, and covers a thirty year period until 24 March 2006. It can be seen how the term desaparecido emerges with all its cultural and social charge, providing a context which allows an approach to Rioplatense Spanish from a more comprehensive perspective. Finally, a pedagogical proposal accounting for the application of the NooJ platform in language teaching is included.