Everything you need to know about acquiring Spanish

1. Everything you need to know about acquiring Spanish • Mini-tutorial 1

2. Communication • Express your ideas. • Figure out what some else’s ideas mean. • Make sure you’re understood, and make sure you can understand someone else’s Spanish. 2

3. Can you communicate all in Spanish by the end of this year? • ¡Sí! • But it takes commitment and work on your part. 3

4. Second Language Acquisition Research • Some Basics to Help You Earn an A in Spanish 4

5. The Affective Filter • Researchers tell us we have an “Affective Filter” in our minds that can help or hurt our progress. 5

6. The Affective Filter implies … • The more comfortable you are with your classmates, the faster you learn to speak Spanish. • MEANING: We’re going to have to have FUN together! 6

7. The Affective Filter implies … • Positive support for each other helps everyone learn to speak Spanish. We’re a community. • No cut-downs of anyone allowed. • Ever. Period. Starting right now. 7

8. More Research: Comprehensible Input • Getting lots of “Comprehensible Input” is how we learn to speak any language. • Comprehensible input is Spanish that you hear and/or read that is at a level just a little beyond what you can understand. You understand most, but usually not all, of what the Spanish speaker says to you. 8

9. Comprehensible Input • Even absolute beginners don’t start at zero Spanish. • El taco … croissant … femme … magnifique … 9

10. Comprehensible Input • Listening to and reading lots of Spanish input is how we learn to understand, read, speak and write Spanish. 10

11. Comprehensible Input in a nutshell: • It’s the fuel that drives your speech motor. • Without plenty of input, you won’t learn to comprehend and speak much Spanish at all. 11

12. Comprehensible Input implies: • The more Spanish you hear in class, the faster you learn to speak it. • Students work hard to learn how to listen, read and think in Spanish. • Students and Teacher make a pledge: only Spanish during specific periods of time*! (unless you ask permission to speak English.) • *Those periods of time will start short and get longer as the year goes on. 12

13. More Research: Acquisition Vs. Learning • Acquiring a language is “picking it up” in context, from input. • Learninga language means knowing how Spanish language works after we study the rules. 13

14. More Research: Acquisition Vs. Learning • Do you see any parallels to how students start playing basketball? 14

15. Acquisition Vs. Learning • We acquire (pick up) our first language from family, friends and others around us. • We pick up language by using it. • We use language to express ourselves and to understand others. 15

16. Acquisition Vs. Learning • We learn about our first language—usually—in school. We learn about how our language works by studying its structure and rules. 16

17. Acquisition Vs. Learning • Learning about how Spanish works can help us with some tasks. 17

18. Acquisition Vs. Learning • Tasks such as: editing your writing to polish it. • Crafting a speech to sound articulate. • Satisfying your curiosity about how Spanish and English are similar and different. 18

19. The Implications? • Since Input and Acquisition make speech happen, acquisition activities form the bulk of our classwork. 19

20. Some Spanish Class Acquisition Activities • Listening comprehension tasks … mini-dialogues … conversations • partner interviews … whole class discussions .. Games… • class surveys … problem-solving activities … exercises… • Role-playing … language play … readings … videos …dictations • Puzzles … word challenges … cartooning & drawing … 20

21. Some Spanish Class Learning Activities • Memorization … pattern study … practice exercises … proofing your writing … practicing study skills … reading about how Spanish works 21

22. More Research: The Monitor • There’s a kind of “judge” in our heads who helps polish our writing IF he stays in the corner he’s supposed to. OR, if he gets too big and pushy, he interferes with our speaking because he makes us feel self-conscious. 22

23. The Monitor • He’s a little bit of a rule bully who gets bigger and bigger the more you worry about making errors or when you worry about what other people think. 23

24. Implications for The Monitor • Use him when you write. • Ignore him when you speak. 24

25. More Research: Natural Order of Acquisition 25

26. More Research: Natural Order of Acquisition We all pass through the same stages of Acquisition, but at different rates. What does this mean for you? 26

27. More Research: Natural Order of Acquisition Some students in class will start speaking Spanish faster than others. That’s normal. The more you listen, study vocabulary and use phrases your teacher gives you to communicate in class, the more quickly you proceed through stages of Acquisition. First important goal: stick to Spanish and avoid English in class. 27

28. Everything you need to know about acquiring Spanish • Part II 28

29. Remember Communication? • Express your ideas • Figure out what some else’s ideas mean. • Make sure you’re understood, and make sure you can understand someone else’s Spanish. 29

30. We work on Spanish communication skills infour areas • Strategic Competence • Discourse Competence • Sociolinguistic Competence • Linguistic Competence 30

31. Strategic Competence means: • you know how to stay in Spanish during conversations. • You know how to work around words and topics you don’t know yet. • You manage a conversation so you get the speaker to talk withyou, instead of over your head. 31

32. Discourse Competence means • You express your ideas, even with simple language to start. • You develop skills rather quickly: • you ask and answer questions • joke • describe people/things/events • tell a story/your opinions • …and so on. 32

33. Good news! • You start developing Discourse and Strategic Competence right away, during the first week of class. 33

34. Good news! • Your teacher shows you tricks and study skills to learn how. • Your main job: the faster you build up your Spanish vocabulary, the faster your Discourse Competence grows. 34

35. Sociolinguistic Competence • You develop Sociolinguistic Competence as you learn to use the right phrase at the right time. • For example … 35

36. Sociolinguistic Competence • In English, what do you say when: • You want to pass in front of someone? • Your family friend gets married? • Your best friend’s grandmother passes away? • Your brother wins a competition? • You step on someone’s toes on the dance floor? • You want to politely interrupt the school principal? 36

37. Sociolinguistic Competence • If you know the answers, you have Sociolinguistic Competence in English. • You’ll learn how to develop it in Spanish as well. 37

38. Linguistic Competence • You show LinguisticCompetencewhen you tie your sentences together the way a native Spanish speaker would. 38

39. Good news! • Your teacher shows you how to do this in writing fairly quickly. • BUT, it takes a lot of studying to do this. 39

40. Good news about speaking Spanish! • It takes a long, long time to speak Spanish fluently and without errors, so long that you might as well not worry about speaking perfectly. • Mistakes are inevitable when you start speaking Spanish in a natural way. 40

41. Good news about speaking Spanish! • Beginners can’t control mistakes when they speak Spanish. • In class, we’re interested in whatyou say, not howyou say it. 41

42. ¡Habla! • So, just speak Spanish, and don’t worry about how you sound. 42

43. Bad news! • If you worry about errors … the Monitor pops up and makes it hard for you to express yourself. • Ignore him, and he’ll go away until you call on him. 43

44. Try to avoid some very common beginner pitfalls by doing the following: • Have faith in your teacher’s skills & let go of English. • Avoid translating for your classmates. • Remember that classroom work is only part of your quest to speak Spanish. 44

45. Try to avoid some very common beginner pitfalls by doing the following: • Be patient: you’ll communicate fairly quickly, but, it’s a lifetime adventure to learn to speak Spanish well. • Always ask for help (in Spanish) and let the teacher decide to use English or Spanish to help you right now. 45

46. ¡Hablamosespañol! 46