1. Spanish Language in Contrast
How the Spanish language contrasts to English and some cultural challenges facing our Colombian families, and the benefits of applying such knowledge through instruction.
By Patrick Barry, 12/18/14.

2. Purpose and Expectations
This presentation is intended to inform teachers of the importance of understanding how Spanish contrasts to English and how these differences impose difficulties for native Spanish-speaking ELLs who are acquiring English.
Also, it is important to have a general understanding of each language group’s culture, which in this case is Colombian culture. Many aspects of Colombian culture may also be true to other nations in South America and within Latin American culture overall.
Once an adequate degree of understanding on both a linguistic and culture level is obtained, we can then be more prepared to effectively instruct our Spanish speaking ELLs, thus helping to ensure the social and academic progress of every learner.

3. español
Spanish is a Romance language and part of the Indo-European language family. It is closely related to Italian and Portuguese. Approximately 406 million people in the world are native Spanish speakers making it second only to Mandarin in terms of its number of native speakers worldwide (Wikipedia, 2013).
Spanish is the most popular second language learned by native speakers of American English.

4. Spanish Alphabet
The Spanish alphabet and English alphabet are very similar, both using the Latin alphabet.
Thus, the Spanish alphabet has the following 27 letters and 2 digraphs:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, Ñ, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. . . Ch and Ll.
Spanish contains however an additional letter; ñ. (énye)
It can be safe to say Spanish speakers will not and do not have much difficulty at all learning the English alphabet in terms of letter identification. Phonemic awareness of course is another issue.

5. Vowel Contrasts
In Spanish “the main allophonic variation among vowels is the reduction of the high vowels /i/ and /u/ to glides—[j] and [w] respectively—when unstressed and adjacent to another vowel” (Wikipedia, 2013). Allophonic variation presents difficulty to English language learners who are native Spanish speakers because in the English language, vowels dictate allophonic variation due to English being a vowel-centric language. For the latter reason, Spanish speakers may overgeneralize short and long vowel sounds in English words and may mispronounce minimal pairs such as “chip” and “cheap,” thus pronouncing both as seemingly homophones.
So, if you are wondering why Spanish speakers often mispronounce particular English words despite how obviously distinct they are in English, here is your answer.
A strategy is to present word families so they are able to better see the similarities and spelling patterns.

6. Consonant Contrasts
“Spanish has 5 pure vowels and 5 diphthongs. The length of the vowel is not significant in distinguishing between words. This contrasts with English, which has 12 pure vowel sounds and 8 diphthongs. The length of the vowel sound plays an important role (Shoebottom, 2013).”
For the latter reason, Spanish speakers may overgeneralize short and long vowel sounds in English words and may mispronounce minimal pairs such as “chip” and “cheap,” thus pronouncing both as seemingly homophones. In other words, Spanish is a consonant- centric language, thus it depends more on consonants for native pronunciation and grammar. (The presence of accents distinguish pronunciation which are visible for many words as opposed to English which does not share the same characteristic)

7. Capitalization
The English language can appear to be UPTIGHT with capitalization. Spanish on the other hand is much more loose about it. Below is a list of topics that are NOT represented by capitalize letters en español:
The nationalities such as Italian (italiano)
Names of languages such as English or Spanish (inglés, español)
Months and days of the week (lunes is Monday)
Personal titles
No wonder native Spanish speakers struggle remembering to capitalize the above words. It is simply unnatural to do so!

8. ?
Que?
“Subject/verb inversion is not required in questions, and thus the recognition of declarative or interrogative may depend entirely on intonation” (Wikipedia 2013). Due to this characteristic in Spanish, understanding questions asked in English are usually difficult for English language learners who are native Spanish speakers because Spanish relies on intonation to indicate questioning whereas English questions are spoken and written differently, incorporating an auxiliary verb.
The absence of an auxiliary verb is another characteristic in Spanish that affects the grammatical structure of the writing and speaking of ELLs whose first language is Spanish. Aside from common errors made concerning questions (as mentioned above) many other verb tenses are also affected such as the present progressive and past progressive verb tenses. The auxiliary verb is commonly left out, which in particular cases may lead to misunderstanding.

9. Language and Culture
Despite Spanish being spoken in so many different parts of the world by over 406 million people, each country has its own unique, distinctly different culture (about 17 distinct dialects). In this presentation, I will touch upon Colombian culture since the majority of our native Spanish-speaking students are of Colombian dissent.

10. Language and Culture
“Ninety-five percent of the Colombian people consider themselves members of the Roman Catholic Church [. . .] More than 85 percent of Catholics in urban parishes attend mass regularly” (Everyculture, 2013). In United States, religious affairs within the public sector has become taboo to a certain extent, thus religious beliefs of individuals, while respected and protected by the law, truly are not integrated into academics or everyday student activities or in the media. While many Colombian families would not hesitate to address another (including teachers) through religious affiliation such as “Dios te bendiga” (God bless you), American born students and teaching staff are not generally prone to doing so as it is seen as inappropriate. Nonetheless, it is important to help make students feel proud of their beliefs when they come back from a religious holiday instead of upset that they missed school. We do not have to speak about beliefs, but a simple acknowledgment can make a great difference (and this goes for all cultures).

11. Language and Culture
Parental involvement in school is not commonly expected in Colombian culture as much as it is expected in United States on a general level. In Latin American culture in general, there is not a great effort socially to enforce parental involvement in schools, especially poorer areas where many parents have not completed middle school (Everyculture, 2013). This does not mean such parents do not care as much. Expecting parental involvement among Colombian parents is not a typical social cultural norm; therefore, there must be a stronger outreach to parents to help amend this. Aside from a language barrier, there is a cultural divide.
Visit for more information on other languages and cultures!

12. The key to an effective educational program for ELLs is to teach through a linguistically and culturally responsive approach. The better we know our students, the more equipped we will become in meeting their needs successfully to ensure their social and academic growth.

13. Final Thoughts . . .
It makes a great difference when teachers are able to understand and acknowledge students’ culture and implement the latter aspects of their lives into everyday instruction.
It helps to learn about the native languages (not to speak or understand every language; rather their structural differences relative to English) that our ELLs speak, especially concerning reading instruction. Applying a basic knowledge of linguistics in other words has an important role to play.
It is an undertaking to continue to learn about many other cultures, but we should see this knowledge as a way to enrich our own instruction and even our own lives.

14. I cannot emphasize enough how my efforts in learning a second language (Spanish) has actually helped me to empathize and relate to my ELLs, thus improving my effectiveness in meeting their needs.
If understanding can help to make a difference, then as educators, our instructional approach towards diverse learners should reflect this.
Even a basic knowledge of linguistics can be an avenue towards improving literacy instruction for ELLs.
Second language learners should be taught how language works, not just what works.

15. References:
Countries and their cultures. (n.d.). Retrieved December 6, 2014, from
Shoebottom, P. (n.d.). The differences between English and Spanish. Retrieved December 6, 2014, from
Spanish language. (n.d.). Retrieved December 6, 2014, from