Here is a video from Rachel’s English about English as a stress-timed language.
Spanish speakers stress syllables relatively equally. They don’t say function words faster than content words.
We say function words (articles, auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, determiners, modals, prepositions, pronouns, and quantifiers) faster than we say content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs). Teach that English is stress timed and Spanish is syllable timedĮnglish is a stress-timed language. Spanish speakers need extra practice producing these sounds.Ĥ. In addition to having difficulty with the phonemes above, Spanish speakers also have difficulty “finishing” words that end in consonant sounds (“ed” verb endings, for example), as well as pronouncing words that begin with the consonant clusters sp, sl, sm, sch, etc. These videos come from Rachel’s playlist of 33 sounds in American English. She has a video for each phoneme. To help students with these phonemes, try these videos from Rachel’s English. The circled phonemes tend to give Spanish speakers difficulty. Target the phonemes Spanish speakers have difficulty with See the first section of this guide for Spanish speakers for an explanation of the false cognates used in the exercise.ģ. This practice exercise contains over 50 examples of English to Spanish false cognates. There are many English to Spanish false cognates students need to be aware of. Where there are cognates, there are also false cognates. Students will be surprised to learn how many English words they already know.Ģ. Show your students the thousands of words they already knowĮnglish to Spanish cognates (PDF from NYU which shows how Spanish words with certain endings can be converted to English words)Įnglish – Spanish cognates list (PDF from Colorín Colorado which includes some cognates that don’t follow the rules outlined in the first PDF)įor practice, have students translate Spanish words to English by following the rules in the first PDF. These tips will help your students (a) capitalize on the similarities between English and Spanish, and (b) lessen negative transfer from Spanish to English.ġ. In this article, I’ll cover six tips for teaching English to Spanish speakers. Spanish speakers have unique challenges with English that you will need to address. Of course, this doesn’t mean English is easy for Spanish speakers. Your students have an advantage many English language learners don’t have. This is good news if you teach Spanish speakers. Spanish and English are similar languages.
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