Jimary is a 14 year old student in 8th

grade.

Lived in Puerto Rico until she was 12.

Received limited informal instruction in

English prior to moving to the US.

Currently receives ESL services for 45

minutes per day.

Speaks Spanish at home and with friends

when applicable.

Both English and Spanish use the same

letter symbols

Both languages are inflected by plurality

Plurals are most often created by adding

an –s to the end of a word

Verb conjugation follows a pattern

based on the type of verb (-ar, -er, -ir)

While the same letter symbols are used,

Spanish uses all of the English letters, plus

the letter ñ and the digraphs ll and ch.

Spanish also has the rr, which is a rolling r,

used in words such as arroz (rice) and

perro (dog).

Words may also include accent marks to

indicate stressed vowels, and can be the

difference between two different words.

Spanish more closely resembles a one-

to-one grapheme-phoneme relationship

unlike English (Jones, 1996)

Many words in Spanish are inflected

based on gender

When using adjectives, the adjective comes after the subject, unlike in English (El coche rojo. vs. The red car.)

Apostrophes are not used in Spanish. There are no contractions, and possessives are shown in different ways.

Possessives are shown by using objects of prepositions (mi, ti, etc.) or by using dewhich means “of.” (Libro de Sonia means book of Sonia, or Sonia’s book.) (Jarvis, Lebredo, & Mena-Ayllon, 2005)

The silent e does not exist in Spanish.

When using exclamation points or

question marks, an inverted symbol is

also placed at the beginning of the

phrase.

ELLs may substitute d for th since in Spanish

they are allophones of one phoneme, so

changing the phoneme does not change

meaning. (Freeman & Freeman, 2004).

New rules, such as using an apostrophe and

an s to show possession, and adjectives

coming after the noun, might be over

generalized when they are learned, or they

may use the rules from the L1.

Both languages consist of many of the same phones, a small amount of time will need to be devoted to phonemic awareness. Some practice with minimal pairs may be necessary, especially with words that have sounds that are different from Spanish.

The learner is familiar with irregular verb conjugations, but explicit instruction is common with irregular verbs (to be, to do, to go, etc.).

Use of cloze notes

Point out cognates (words that are

similar in both English and Spanish such

as university and universidad, professor

and profesor)

Be careful of false cognates

(embarrassed and embarazada

(pregnant))

Freeman, D. E., & Freeman, Y. S. (2004).

Essential Linguistics: What You Need to

Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling,

Phonics, and Grammar. Portsmouth:

Heinemann.

Jarvis, A., Lebredo, R., & Mena-Ayllon, F.

(2005). Como se dice...? Boston: Houghton

Mifflin.

Jones, M. L. (1996). Phonics in ESL Literacy

Instruction: Functional or Not? Philadelphia.