The Importance Of Spanish Language In English

Ms. Tate is very fluent in Spanish and feels that knowing that language has helped her in becoming a more effective teacher the Latin Americans ELLs. She can tell if a student has some hang ups in the English language and therefore can recognize where the problem lies. She can see if they are not getting a certain language pattern and why, then she can compare the two languages and focus on how to get through the barrier by explaining the differences between the two patterns. Tate also says using the Krashen method where there is more comprehensible input and not everything is based on output produces better results than when she taught before and students had to listen for a long time before producing anything. She loves the curriculum we have: Sopris, Direct Instruction for true Spoken English. It is based on Krashen and gives comprehensible input in repetitive patterns in small doses. It runs

I was only nine years old, the year 1991. I had to navigate from an English speaking classroom to a Spanish speaking home. From eight in the morning I was given instruction in English by my professors at school. After three in the afternoon at home I engaged in Spanish conversation with my mother, father, and siblings. When the summer vacation came around, it was back to speaking español only, and then I regained the Mexican accent that had faded away during the school year.

For a period of time I was an ESOL (English as a second language) classroom teacher. This meant part my class was native English speakers and the rest was native Spanish speakers. All of my little first graders had an entire year of culture appreciation and learning to be patient with one another. They learned about holidays which they both celebrated and holidays they did not have in common. When certain Spanish speaking students would get tired of finding the correct English words they would speak in Spanish.

The language development of the students in my class come from Spanish speaking homes, I only have seven proficient English speakers, some of my students are reading below grade level. Most of the students are able to communicate, while

According to Gleason and Ratner (2013), “In the United States, the proportion of children who are raised learning more than one language is estimated to be about 20 percent, with Spanish becoming the most common second language (Gleason & Ratner, 2013, p. 75). My interview this week was with a teacher, Mrs. T, who teaches young English learners. Mrs. T teaches children who are in the first grade. Because the school has a growing Hispanic population, the native language of the children she teaches is Spanish. The interview took place in her classroom during the last hour of the school day. I observed as she worked with one of her students in particular who seems to

I interviewed an Instructional Aide that I work with at Cottonwood Elementary. Her name is Marcela and she works with the Kindergartners. She moved from Argentina to New York when she was 3 years old and her first language was Spanish. Her mother put her in preschool when she turned 5, to help her learn English. Marcela shared with me that when she went to school she felt very sad, disconnected and was constantly looking for other children that spoke Spanish. She did find a girl who spoke Spanish and she became “buddies’ with her. The girl that she befriended would help her by translating everything the teacher would say, which was all in English. Marcela said she was speaking English by Kindergarten, but she must have had a strong accent because they put in her in speech

There are a lot of kids taking Spanish because of how big it is in Texas, and even though they knew Spanish, there were also kids that grew up with it and took Spanish for an easy A. These kids would speak Spanish to each other when they didn’t want others to know what they were saying or that’s how their parents expected them to talk to family. Now they did have their own variations of Spanish including mine. However, they were still doing the same work that I was doing, and since they knew what the teacher was talking about they would apply their knowledge easier than I

Hispanic ELLs students will be tested on their reading and on phonemics. The teacher will give the test to students individually because the teacher needs to hear the student read. The student will be given a book based on their reading level. The book will contain a picture and small amount of words. The picture is a way for students to make connections with the words, but there will be times where the student will not able to make the connections. Pictures are a visual for students so they could associate vocabulary words (Vacca-Ricopoulos & Nicoletti, 2009, p. 70). Once the student starts to read the book the teacher will use a timer to determine how long it took the student to read the book. Once the reading part is over, the teacher will ask the students questions regarding the book. The teacher will have a graded formatted sheet and that sheet will contain information based on the student’s reading capacity and understanding of the book.

The students that make up the school are mostly Latino, African American, West Indian and white. Language is the medium through which students gain access to the curriculum. (Tamara Lucas). For example, Maria was placed in a dual language classroom, since arriving from Mexico and when she entered middle school that was taken away. The teacher in her English class needs to realize it takes second language learners longer to develop fluency in academic English than in conversational English. (Tamara Lucas). Ms. O’reilly should take this inconsideration when it comes to the strategies used in the classroom. Social interaction will help Maria’s language development and a method that can be useful to promote social interaction is the use of group work. Using group work will allow Maria to not only expand her English skills but also learn from the other students. Tamara Lucas states; “Scaffolding learning for ELLs requires teachers to consider the relationship between students’ linguistic abilities and the tasks through which they are expected to learn”. Ms. O’reilly has set the goal of having all the students to be on the same level at the end of the school year, this might not be a realistic goal since each child comes from different backgrounds and learn at different speeds. Different scaffolding strategies should be use to accommodate the ELLs in her classroom. Group work, sharing about ones culture, knowing the child’s mother tongue and creating a comfortable environment where the students can raise their hand or ask questions without feeling dumb or like an

Despite my questions, I can make some recommendations based on the information given. First, in a perfect world, I would encourage the school to investigate bilingual approaches. NCLB does not prohibit bilingual approaches, and Colorado allows it as long as the approaches are evidence-based (English Language, n.d.). Understandably, with various language groups this is probably not a reasonable approach for this school. There are a significant number of Spanish speakers, but depending on the spread across the grade levels, this may not be possible, and the case study does not give enough information about the other languages groups to confirm

We also believe that as our society assumes an increasingly global focus, becoming proficient in at least one foreign language is important. To attain as many foreign language skills as possible during her high school years, Kaitlyn studied Spanish concurrently for four years at Aim Academy and augmented her Spanish courses with independent study, using a variety of print and online resources. In addition to her high school Spanish language studies, she has also demonstrated great personal initiative by engaging in further independent study of other foreign

The time that she really started to get into learning English was in high school preparing for the SAT and TOEFL. To prepare for these two tests she was enrolled in a special class. In this class was the only time, in Columbia, that she spoke English. This means that she only speaks Spanish at home. She is not the only one in her family that speaks English, her father speaks English but her mother does not. The reason that both of them don’t speak English is because of the different high schools that they attended. Even though her dad does speak English is not perfect but enough to

Spanish is spoken by a various amount of people around the word. Through the eyes of a Spanish speaking native, we are able to see how they view language. The phonological views of our native tongue shape how we perceive sounds and how we construct those sounds. We use these processes to filter what we think is right and how should each phoneme sound. Each language has a natural rhythm to it and when speaking another language we still carry the identity is given to us but our first language. We still carry the same cadence and use when we know from learning our own language to fit inside learning a new language. The vast amount of languages around the word gives the native speakers an identity that they utilize when speaking.

Thank you so much for everything. You have been an amazing teacher and I feel truly privileged to have had you for Spanish 1, 2, and 3. I have learned so much from you and come so far since that first day of Spanish 1. Not only as a Spanish student, but as a person. You have taught me so much Spanish and so many valuable life lessons and I am truly grateful.

“Neologisms” are new words added to a language to capture new ideas or phenomena when there is a gap in the existing vocabulary. In the last 10 years, the Oxford English Dictionary has added “bling”, “bromance”, “chillax”, “locavore”, “upcycle”, and “woot”. What word would you invent to add to the English language, and why?