Jimary is a 14-year-old ESL student who lives in the US and receives English language services for 45 minutes per day. She speaks Spanish at home and with friends. Both English and Spanish use the same letter symbols and have similarities in terms of pluralization and verb conjugation, but Spanish also includes additional letters and rules for pronunciation. The document provides details on linguistic differences between English and Spanish and strategies for supporting Jimary's English language development.

2.  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.

7.  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)

8.  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.

9.  Spanish more closely resembles a one-
to-one grapheme-phoneme relationship
unlike English (Jones, 1996)
 Many words in Spanish are inflected
based on gender

10.  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 de
which means “of.” (Libro de Sonia means
book of Sonia, or Sonia’s book.)
(Jarvis, Lebredo, & Mena-Ayllon, 2005)

11.  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.

12.  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.

13.  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.).

14.  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))

15.  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.