Alyssa SavitskiESL 502

Wilkes University

Interviewed “Sue” who came to the United States from Mexico in 1999.

She took ESL at a local high school. However, she did not learn English because the students and the teacher were on a more advanced level than she was.

Sue dropped out of high school in 11th grade to take care of her sister’s children.

She returned to Mexico for 2 years, then came back.

Sue’s brother and her co-workers helped her to learn English.

She can read English better than she can write it. In Spanish, she is proficient at a 12th grade level.

Her English is not as advanced.

Omission of letters /r/, /ir/ sound Pronunciation

Hones- honestOmission of /t/ sound

Beerd-bird/ir/ sound not present in Spanish

Jes- yes/j/ sound is pronounced as a /y/ sound

Fro-fromOmission of /m/ sound

Wite- write/r/ sound not present in Spanish

Wights- lights/l/ sound is pronounced as a /w/ sound

Jus- justOmission of /t/ sound

Theerty- thirty/ir/ sound not present in Spanish

Seemilar- similarThe letters “si” are pronounced with a long /e/ sound

SINGULAR/PLURAL WORDS TENSE AND ARTICLES

It make no sense to me.

Incorrect form of “make”- plural

I doesn’t have a car.

Incorrect form of “doesn’t”- singular

He get away with a lot.

Incorrect form of “get”- plural

We complete the program.

Incorrect tense (past)- “completed”

Class was the reason I didn’t like school.

Omission of the article “the” at the beginning of the sentence.

SPANISH ENGLISH

Syllabic-language Alphabet has 27

letters Nouns are either

feminine or masculine (el, la)

Five diphthongs Five pure vowels

Stressed-time language Alphabet has 26 letters Nouns do not need to

have article in the front to make it masculine or feminine

Eight diphthongs Twelve pure vowels

/s/ and /z/ have the same sound in Spanish. /h/ sound is silent in Spanish, although

words that begin with “j” use the /h/ sound. In Spanish, there are no words that end

in /t/ or /h/, therefore it is hard for them to pronounce it at the end of English words.

The /ir/ and /r/ sound are not present in Spanish, making it difficult to pronounce them in English.

Students whose L1 is Spanish may have a difficult time with producing certain sounds.

This can lead to difficulty in writing English as well as speaking it.

Written text may not be as difficult for L1 Spanish students, but understanding punctuation and where it belongs in text can be challenging.

Vocabulary and reading are the most beneficial to students.

Six strategies to help ELL’s Cognitive Metacognitive Memory-related Compensatory Affective Social (Hancock, 2002)

There are several various forms and dialects of the Spanish language.

It is important for teachers to understand their students’ backgrounds and how it will affect their L2 learning.

Hancock, Zennia. (2002). Heritage Spanish Speakers’ Language Learning Strategies.CAL-Center for Applied Linguistics, EDO-FL-02-06. Retrieved from

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0206hancock.html