Pragmatic and Emotional Perspective in the Short Story “La mano de la niña” by Mercedes Formica: Linguistic Tools for Teaching Affective Expression in Spanish as a Foreign Language (B2) Cover Image

Perspectiva pragmática y emocional en el cuento “La mano de la niña” de Mercedes Formica: herramientas lingüísticas para la enseñanza de la expresión afectiva en ELE (B2)
Pragmatic and Emotional Perspective in the Short Story “La mano de la niña” by Mercedes Formica: Linguistic Tools for Teaching Affective Expression in Spanish as a Foreign Language (B2)

Author(s): Miguel Soler Gallo
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Foreign languages learning, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Editura Universităţii de Vest din Timişoara
Keywords: ELE teaching; short narrative; socio-emotional component; “La mano de la niña”; Mercedes Formica;

Summary/Abstract: This article addresses the socio-emotional component in the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) at upper-intermediate levels (B2), based on a classroom practice carried out with 12 students. It is grounded in the premise that understanding and expressing emotions are key to developing students’ communicative competence and ethical awareness. To this end, the short story “La mano de la niña” by Mercedes Formica is proposed as a teaching resource to work on the affective and reflective dimension, with particular attention to emotional vocabulary and the linguistic strategies used to convey feelings. Following the classroom work with the text, students’ oral and written productions demonstrated how they express judgments, emotions, and evaluations using structures appropriate to the B2 level. The results suggest that the use of literary texts enhances both comprehension and language production while fostering empathy, critical reflection, and social awareness regarding situations of injustice and inequality. This experience shows that integrating a socio-emotional approach in Spanish language teaching contributes to more meaningful learning and to the development of interpersonal skills and ethical values essential in multilingual and multicultural contexts.

  • Issue Year: 2025
  • Issue No: 16
  • Page Range: 235-255
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Spanish
Toggle Accessibility Mode