Accuracy–communication orientations in Chinese university Spanish learning: a social distance perspective

In Chinese universities, the large social distance from Spanish-speaking communities, together with longstanding exam-oriented traditions, appears to foster an accuracy-oriented cultural model of learning Spanish. This study aims to map the classroom tasks that Chinese university learners of Spanish as a foreign language report across listening, speaking, reading and writing, and to examine how these task configurations reflect learners’ orientations toward accuracy and communication in language learning under conditions of large social distance. Drawing on questionnaire data from 100 Spanish majors, we find that across the four skills, controlled tasks such as cloze exercises, translation, dictation and structurally guided comprehension are reported more frequently than open-ended communicative activities, especially in listening and reading. By integrating learner-reported task exposure patterns with expert ratings using a four-dimensional task analysis framework, this study maps skill-specific accuracy–communication profiles: listening and reading show stronger accuracy-oriented exposure, speaking leans toward communication, and writing remains close to balance. These patterns suggest that repeated engagement in grammar-centred and test-aligned tasks may shape learners’ beliefs about what counts as legitimate and effective Spanish learning, with linguistic correctness becoming a primary indicator of proficiency. The findings offer a context-sensitive tool for diagnosing classroom task ecologies and for designing instructional sequences that maintain necessary attention to accuracy while more systematically expanding opportunities for meaningful communicative use of Spanish in high social distance settings.