Understanding the Importance of English for Spanish Speakers

Most people who learn a foreign language do so for business or personal purposes; one of the most widely studied foreign tongues today is Spanish.

But English may prove challenging for Spanish speakers. Understanding some of their challenges will enable them to surmount them more effectively.

1. It is a lingua franca

English has long been known as a global lingua franca, for several reasons. While this may be accurate in many respects, it’s also essential to realize that other languages may become equally influential as alternatives may arise that could challenge English’s reign as the global lingua franca.

Spanish is one of the world’s most widely spoken and internationally used languages, making it an effective lingua franca. To best utilize its role as such, understanding how it may impact learning and teaching English would be extremely valuable.

English can be a challenging language to learn for students of any language background, even those who already possess excellent knowledge in their native tongue. English grammar rules may prove daunting, and students should practice regularly until mastery has been achieved.

Some learners may find the English and Spanish phonetic systems confusing, making matching spellings to sounds challenging. For instance, “banana” in English contains three syllables but only two in Spanish; this could prove very disorienting for them.

Spanish speakers may encounter difficulty when learning English due to its highly grammatical language; learning the new language may prove a significant additional challenge for those already fluent with its intricacies.

2. It is a language of business

English is the primary Internet language, used for news articles, essays and white papers online. Furthermore, English is used as the primary language by top technology companies as well as many Spanish words being derived from it – making learning it key if looking for work in tech fields.

Many companies today operate globally, requiring employees to communicate effectively with people from various cultures. According to one poll, over 25% of workers who interact with foreign nations say English is their primary business language.

But speaking only English isn’t enough: employees in fields like sales, marketing, and HR may benefit immensely from learning a foreign language; companies often pay their bilingual employees 10 percent more than their monolingual ones.

Being bilingual can sharpen both active listening skills and concentration – two essential traits for success in any field. Learning new phrases, vocabulary, grammar structures, verb tenses and cultural references in another language forces one to listen carefully as one learns its pronunciation correctly – something especially beneficial to heritage speakers who only speak Spanish at home and may not yet know all the intricacies of spoken English.

3. It is a language of communication

Spanish is spoken worldwide by approximately 400 million native speakers and 11 million speakers as second languages in the US alone. Therefore, many Spanish-speaking students will likely have at least some exposure to English through schooling, home, television or even simply living life; which makes learning English much simpler for them.

However, understanding English can still be challenging for some students who are heritage speakers; for example if your Spanish-only speaking students struggle to keep up with an English speaker as the speed of speech may differ significantly compared to their home language.

English grammar rules can also be more complex than those in Spanish, such as having more phrasal verbs in English than Spanish – adding new meaning through prepositional phrases – that may prove challenging for some learners.

Additionally, certain English sounds do not exist in Spanish (see Figure 1). If your students are Spanish speakers who have never received explicit phonics instruction, they will likely not recognize all six English vowel sound types — closed, open, diphthong and semi-closed vowels — so providing specific phonics instruction could help overcome difficulties they are encountering with pronunciation.

4. It is a language of education

Teaching English to Spanish speakers involves many considerations. Each of these students comes with unique experiences and challenges shaped by their backgrounds, worldviews and cultures – requiring evaluation procedures that take these factors into account in assessing linguistic competence and proficiency.

There are differences in both languages’ grammatical structures and pronunciation. English uses verbs like “I am 50 years old”, while Spanish uses “Tengo 50 aos”. Furthermore, English contains diphonhongs – sounds comprised of vowels and consonants – while there is nothing comparable in Spanish; and also English features final syllables with an “e” sound but Spanish lacks this feature altogether.

False friends (words with similar spelling and meaning in two different languages, but different interpretations) can also prove confusing for Spanish speakers, including make/do, lose/miss, history/story and know/meet.

As you design lessons and activities for Spanish-speaking learners, take these differences into account when creating lessons and activities. Show them the value of English in connecting to other cultures around the globe; this can serve as an incentive for them to put forth effort during classes and quickly master it.