2. Biographical Information of
Interviewee, Jenny Urbina
0 Native of Colombia
0 Age 29 years
0 Spanish is L1
0 Has lived in the United States for almost 10 years
0 Married to Mexican native
0 Has 3 small children ages 5 & 2 years and 10 months
• Family speaks Spanish at home
• Oldest child speaks English in school and receives supplemental ESL
services
0 Stay at home mother
0 Received formal schooling in Colombia through high school
3. Background of the Spanish Language
0 Roots derived primarily from Latin
0 comprised of five short vowel sounds (i.e. /ɑː/, /e/, /
iː/, /
ə/,
/uː/)
0 Comprised of short consonant sounds that have the same
phonemic/phonetic pronunciation in all words
0 Twenty-six letters of the alphabet, including ñ is a combination of
the /n/ and /j/ (i.e. niño)
0 Letter ch and the double letters ll and rr have been omitted from
the alphabet in recent years
0 Different phonemes than English
• Ll creates a /j/ use quite similar to that of the “y” (llamar = jɑː ɑːr
´m )
in English
• rr calls for a rolling of the tongue when being used (i.e. carro,
ferrocarril).
4. Background of the Spanish Language
(cont.)
0 Inflection typically falls on the second to last syllable of the
words. If the stress is not to be placed in that location, the
word receives an accent mark above the vowel
• i.e. Panamá, México, Haití, Gabón, Camerún
0 Diphthongs of vowel con are treated carefully as they occur
frequently in ion and ia combinations
• i.e. televisión- television, librería- book store
0 Has many cognates- words that sound or look the same in English.)
• i.e. clase, carro, interesante, etc.
0 Shares préstamos with English- borrowed words that do not offer
direct translations otherwise
• i.e. rodeo, enchilada, etc.
5. Background of the Spanish Language
(cont.)
0Written syntactic errors
• Accent marks
• Inverted question marks/exclamation points at the beginning
of written sentences
0Adjective placement and agreement
• Agree in number and gender
• Placed after noun being modified
i.e. la chica baja- the girl short; los perros grandes- the dogs big (literal
translations)
0“Do” questioning is implied in statements
6. Background of the Spanish Language
(cont.)
0 Sentence rearrangement of parts of speech
• Is she a friend?
¿Ella es una amiga?
¿Es una amiga (ella)?
¿Es ella una amiga?
0 General patterns often exist as they do in English
• Adverbs with the suffix –ly take form via use of –mente
• Infinitive forms of verbs (to...read, run, write) end in the letters –
AR, -ER and –IR
0 Significantly less pronouns are used in Spanish than English
7. Chart of Common Errors
Statement Error Classification
“You want eat?” Omission of preposition
“I no eat yet.” “No” as the word for negation rather
than “not”
“You welcome.” Omission of /r/ on the word “your”
“Church today really nice.” Lack of past tense verb
“My husband make the party for all Agreement: Lack of “s” for third
my family.” person subject/verb clause.
“When you make the translation, it’s Use of the verb “make” rather than
the same.” another more “advanced” verb.
8. Error Analysis
0 Incorrect use of prepositions. En can mean in, at or to in Spanish, thus it is
often omitted or used incorrectly by ELL native Spanish speakers.
0 Use of “no” to negate sentences rather than “not”. This is concrete
example of interlanguage.
0 Lack of past tense verb use. Jenny commonly speaks in the present. This
demonstrates her [can do] ability to go beyond her scaffold of speaking.
More exposure to English speakers with higher level fluency could aid in
expanding her vocabulary.
0 Omission of /r/ on the word “your.” /r/ is a “harder” sound that is not as
pronounced in Spanish. In fact, /r/ is often takes the sound of the English
letter “d” in Spanish.
0 Use of the verb “make” rather than another more “advanced” verb. The
verb “hacer (to make/do)” is commonly used in Spanish in a variety of
cases, thus interlanguage occurs.
0 Agreement: Lack of “s” for third person subject/verb clause.
Subject/verb agreement functions differently in Spanish than English. Each
subject has a different verb conjugation, so it may be difficult for Jenny
remember the singular/plural conjugation.
9. Implications for Future Classroom
Use
0 With Spanish-speaking population rapidly growing in
the United States, many classroom ELLs will have this
speaking background.
0 Helpful in structuring curriculum for Spanish L1
speakers.
• Negative sentence construction
• Use of prepositions
• Specific English phonemes (i.e. /r/, /d/)
• Ensure that students here past tense sentences throughout.
• Help students develop written syntax for adjectives and other
modifiers
• Make comparisons between concepts in English and Spanish.
