Teach English in LantiAn XiAng - Chongqing

Problems for learners in spain I have chosen to write about the problems for Spanish learners. As I currently live in spain in this will most likely be the situation that I will encounter the most. Many problems exist for Spanish learners of English, but I have chosen to focus on pronunciation and phonology, the spoken language versus the written language, and grammar/verb tense and word order. I will discuss these problems to gain a better understanding of the potential difficulties of Spanish learners and the possible study stage activities to aid with learning. Pronunciation and phonology The definition of pronunciation is the way that a word or a language is spoken. English pronunciation is comprised of consonant sounds such as the ?th? fricative sound and vowel sounds such as short and long vowels a,e,i,o,u,y. Consonant and vowel sounds cause problems for Spanish learners as Spanish is a phonetically written language; how you see the word written is how it is pronounced. English presents problems as it is not a phonetic language and the structures between speech and the written language vary greatly. For example, if the end consonant is not pronounced strongly enough the word ?hard? may be pronounced by a Spanish speaker as the word ?hart? which may result in the word being misunderstood as the word ?heart?. In my three years in spain I have experienced the following examples that correspond to the latter point: words that start with the letter ?s? may be prefixed with the sound ?e?. For example, the word ?Skype? is pronounced as ?eSkype? or ?skip? is pronounced as ?eskip?. As well, in the Spanish language the length of the vowel is not important for distinguishing between different word pronunciations, for example, distinguishing between words such as ?cheap? versus ?sheep? or ?this? versus ?these?. This is justified as in the Spanish language there are 5 pure vowel sounds and 5 diphthongs versus the English language which has 12 pure vowel sounds and 8 diphthongs. In order to aid Spanish learners with English pronunciation I will focus on mouth movement techniques in the study stage. These techniques will include mouth drawings and word repetition exercises that include the proper lips, jaw, and tongue positions. The internet notes as well that a Spanish learner will greatly benefit from learning the phonetic alphabet, which I intend to include in my English classes. English phonology may be particularly difficult for Spanish learners as Spanish is primarily a syllable-timed language versus English which is a stress-timed language. The effect that is created by syllable-timed language is referred to as a ?mora?, which is created by saying each syllable with a quickly as one beat and without putting specific emphasis on any syllable in particular. In a stress-timed language such as English sentences are spoken by adding emphasis and rhythm to specific syllables and words to give meaning to that sentence. Spanish learners may not add stress to any syllable or word, which essentially ?flattens out? sentences resulting in a sentence that lacks meaning. In order to effectively teach Spanish learners about word/syllable stress I will introduce musical rhythm study stage activities that will allow students to ?tap? out the stress in a sentence. The spoken versus the written language The biggest problem that Spanish learners have with the English language in terms of the spoken versus the written language is ?spelling?. Spanish learners generally encounter two main problems with spelling: they may know the word, but not know how to write it or they may know how to write the word, but demonstrate difficulties in pronunciation. These latter problems are heightened as English words may not be written exactly the way that they should be pronounced, therefore Spanish learners may need to memorize English words. As opposed to the English language, the Spanish language uses the Latin alphabet where there is the presence of vowels with acute accents and the letter ñ. Spanish learners are more apt to errors with English vowels a, e, and i and the consonants h, j, y, and r as vowels and consonants possess different Spanish names. I will ensure to offer proper vocabulary lists and word repetition exercises to reinforce the spoken versus the written language. Grammar/verb tense and word order The internet states the following problems that Spanish learners have with learning English grammar/verb tense and word order. I will discuss three that I have found to be the most prominent in my experience while living here in spain: 1. Incorrect usage of tenses. For example, a Spanish learner given the task of writing a sentence in the future tense may instead use a simple tense when writing or speaking. An adequate study stage activity for verb tenses would be a ?time-line? worksheet to demonstrate the simple versus the future tenses. 2. The incorrect usage of auxiliary verbs and confusion with the interrogative versus negative forms. Take for example the following interrogative sentence, ?When did you talk to him?? The Spanish learner may express this sentence as, ?When do you talk to him?? I will ensure to give appropriate explanations for auxiliary verbs in the study stage and how they relate to other verbs in a sentence. For example, study stage activities about what animals can do. 3. The absence of the subject in a sentence. In the Spanish language the verb tenses adapt to the subject, however the presence of the subject in English is essential to the general understanding of the sentence. Spanish learners may inadvertently omit the use of the subject in either the written or the spoken language. I feel that gap-fill worksheets would be the most appropriate for a study stage activity as the Spanish learner will visually see the subject that is missing in the sentence. Spanish learners may also demonstrate difficulties with word order such as the order of adjectives, verbs, and nouns in a sentence. English sentence structure is rigid and requires that a sentence follows the structure of subject-verb-object. The Spanish language maintains a similar sentence structure, but allows for much more flexibility. Native Spanish speakers are able to place emphasis on a particular word in a sentence just by changing the word order. As well, Spanish speakers may change the word order of a sentence in order to add in an afterthought to the sentence. I believe that a great study stage activity for word order would be to write parts of sentences on A4 sized papers and then have students present the sentence to the class in the right order by holding up the papers to the class. In conclusion I have established what I believe to be the areas that Spanish learners have the most problems with in terms of the English language and I hope to apply the knowledge discussed and use it to provide effective English classes as a tefl teacher.