Running Head: LEARNER CHALLENGES: SPANISH PHONOLOGY 1

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan

Phonology and The Influence of Spelling on Pronunciation

Angela Carney Alcerro

May 26, 2014

EDUC 571, Section 27758

Dr. Shelly Baseri

Rossier School of Education

University of Southern California

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 2

Introduction and rationale

The aspect I wish to analyze is Phonology, specifically, the

influence of spelling on pronunciation. Unlike English or French,

the Spanish orthographic system is almost completely transparent

in its ability to express sound symbol relationships (Mackenzie,

1993). My rationale is that the difference in orthographies

(Spanish / shallow, English / deep) creates learner challenges.

This is not limited to native Spanish speakers acquiring English.

In a study on the impact of orthographic consistency in

acquisition of reading skills of both German and English

children, English children were found to have a more difficult

time in reading (Landerl, 1997). Since Spanish has a shallow

orthography, words are spelled as they sound, so when

transferring to English, learners tend to pronounce English words

letter by letter. Catalan speakers (deeper orthography) do not

have the same challenges. Although Spanish and English consonant

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 3systems have many similarities, the vowel systems and stress

within the sentence differ substantially, causing difficulty for

native Spanish speakers in learning English. European Spanish

speakers seem to find the stress variation most difficult.

Catalan speakers experience less difficulty since they have a

broader range of vowels and stress in sentences. So, the exposure

to a variety of stress systems within sentences does seem to

contribute to an easier time in learning to pronounce and

ultimately spell English. Vowels are another area that

contributes to the inability of one-to-one correspondence.

Generally, two English vowels will share phonetic space with one

vowel in Spanish and Catalan (Smith, 2001). This investigation of

phonology and its influence on spelling and resulting challenges

for the native Spanish speaking learner of English will include a

linguistic analysis of the specific differences between the L1

and English, the anticipated challenges, and a discussion of

difficulties I have experienced working with learners from this

L1 background. I will follow up with suggestions for addressing

these challenges within a classroom setting as well as options

for multigenerational learning.

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 4Differences between Spanish, Catalan and English in Spelling and

Phonology.

Spanish has a high correspondence between sounds and

spelling, making English spelling a challenge. Catalan is nearly

as complex as English, so spelling English comes easier. Spanish

and Catalan speakers will tend to pronounce all letters if they

do not know the word. Here are a few examples: asked is

pronounced asket, answer is pronounced answer with the w and r

being pronounced, friend, i and e pronounced separately while

dropping the final d. The rolled or flapped r is pronounced wherever

it is written, interrupting following consonants such as learn,

farm, four or bar. The double ll has regional variations in Spanish

that will tend to be carried over when Spanish speakers encounter

unknown English words with ll. Other sounds that beginners may

carry over from their L1 are j that in English is a voiceless

velar fricative, so that words like jam may sound like ham to

speakers of English (Smith, 2001).

Both groups will tend to use one consonant. This presents

some issues in spelling English words with double consonants

resulting in words written with only one consonant, such as:

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 5apear*, diferent*, necesary*, forgoten*. What complicates this

further is that Spanish/Catalan L1 English learners do not

usually distinguish contrasts in English phonemes and therefore

are not able to take advantage of sound spelling regularities

that do actually exist. This can cause confusion in words like

hoping and hopping and this and these. There are other regularities

in English, patterns such as two vowels and one consonant or one

vowel and two consonants which an English learner could miss

resulting in misspellings like *breack, *crak, and *shouting

(Smith, 2001).

Written contractions do not exist in the same way they do in

English in either Spanish or Catalan. Contractions like I’d come

earlier if I were you, or I’ll be there, are challenging for them to find

would and will in these examples. Instead they may say I come or

they help which is understandable but not natural. Early learners

are reluctant to use contractions, and in my experience, if they

have had even the minimal English instruction in their countries,

tend to equate contractions with substandard English. However,

once they get more experienced in using them, they may even

overuse them (Smith, 2001).

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 6

Punctuation in Spanish and Catalan are similar to English

with a few exceptions such as the inverted question and

exclamation marks and inverting the comma and period use for

decimals and thousands, though this is done in Europe, not only

Spanish speaking countries. Spanish and Catalan do not capitalize

first letters for national adjectives, days of the week or months

as is done in English. These differences are fairly minor and

learned easily if care is taken in writing (Corpus del Español,

2014).

Rhythm and stress: European Spanish does not have a great

deal of difference between stressed and unstressed syllables,

whereas Catalan is more stress timed, though not as exaggerated

as English. "j" is pronounced "y" and vice versa, also "sh" is

highly challenging for a Spanish or Catalan speaker to pronounce,

they usually pronounce it "ch". Consonant clusters: These can be

very challenging because they are not frequent in Spanish and

Catalan (Smith, 2001). 

Anticipated challenges in Spelling and Phonology

The major difficulties I anticipate in English spelling are

that every letter is sounded out, including rolled r, the

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 7reluctance to use contractions, placing "e" before consonant

clusters such as "speak", and inversion of "y" and "j", "ch"

instead of "sh". As the English learner is exposed to more spoken

English, there should be less of a need to sound out as the

student will have a larger resource of known words. Contractions

also will become more natural with experience with spoken English

(smith, 2001). However, the placing of e before consonant

clusters requires some investigation as to why that occurs.

Consonant clusters are not common in Spanish and Catalan, so it

is more a lack of awareness leading to difficulty in noticing and

then producing consonant clusters in English. This leads to

results such as espres for express, istan for instant, brefas for

breakfast for example. More importantly to know from an

instructor’s perspective is that s plus another consonant never

occurs in Spanish or Catalan, so instead of Spain, skeptic and stop,

the result can be Espain, eskeptic and estop. Rhythm, stress and

intonation can be highly challenging for Spanish and Catalan L1

speakers, especially European Spanish speakers who tend to have a

narrower pitch. Spanish is a syllable-timed language, so to an

English ear, all syllables may sound as if they have the same

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 8stress (Smith, 2001). This is not as prevalent with Latin

American Spanish that has more tonal variance (Mackenzie, 1993).

In English, the stress changes depending on the message and what

is being emphasized while in Spanish and Catalan, stress is

usually at the end of the sentence. This makes reading aloud or

speaking in public a challenge and worthy of extra coaching. More

difficult still is reading in English, especially if the Spanish

speaker had been monolingual prior to learning English. If the

Spanish native speaker had studied even a related language such

as Portuguese or French, reading and spelling in English would

have probably been easier (Smith, 2001).

Difficulties experienced

Difficulties I have experienced are reliance on false

cognates to the point of fossilization, pronouncing letter by

letter that slows down reading, and challenges with spelling with

English. Catalan speakers have experience with a deep orthography

like English, so the adaptation is not as challenging. The

reliance of false cognates may stem from a desire to benefit from

the prior knowledge of latin-based words such as structure, derive,

difficult, confusion. While this gives learners access to a large

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 9vocabulary, it does make one sound more formal than the intention

may be. There are also false cognates that can cause a breakdown

in communication, especially if allowed to fossilize: caravana –

traffic jam, embarazada – pregnant, propaganda – advertizing, sensible – sensitive

(Smith, 2001). The pronunciation of words letter by letter again

needs to be addressed through exposure to spoken and written

English prior to any opportunity for fossilization, because at

that point, reading for pleasure or information could become slow

and unproductive and ultimately frustrating. Challenges with

spelling are mainly because of the difference in depth of

orthographies of the languages, but I have seen them be overcome

through regular reading of quality material. Since there is a

wealth of quality literature in Spanish, a good translation, Don

Quixote for children for example, meant for younger learners,

perhaps from a dual immersion program has been shown to be

useful, moving on to translations of the original text as the

student advances. Since the story is already familiar, the

student can activate prior knowledge that will help with

motivation. I do feel that more crucial than mechanical

challenges, in my experience, keeping students motivated and

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 10encouraged goes a long way towards achieving the goal of

acquisition of English. I am inspired by Krashen’s theory of

second language acquisition; the natural order, monitor, input

and affective filter hypothesis (Krashen, 1982). Possessing or

not possessing the command of English in many of the students’

countries of origin has been a lifelong judgment on one’s

education level and social class that has led to lowered self-

esteem and expectations (Rubdy, 2009). If a student is coming to

an ESL class as an adult, it is possible that many issues

contribute to a loss of motivation, so it is important to address

those issues as well by creating a welcoming classroom

environment that is inclusive with high expectations and support

for achievement. Other challenges I have witnessed are in some

children of those learning English with regards to early reading

challenges. This can get misdiagnosed and is at times

misunderstood by teachers who are not informed about the

challenges specific to Spanish and Catalan speaking English

learners. In many cultures throughout the world, multilingualism

is natural and not given too much attention, neither positive nor

negative. Those who are able, usually start English instruction

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 11early (Curzan, 2011).

Suggestions for how to address these challenges in the ESL/EFL

classroom

As for suggestions in the classroom, depending on the

situation, I would like to consider a multigenerational approach.

With regards to adult learners, I feel that showing examples in a

dialect of Spanish such as Catalan is worth trying. Catalan has

enough similarities with Spanish to access prior knowledge while

also possessing aspects that are similar to English such as

stress and deeper orthography. It also acknowledges the richness

of the Iberian culture. This could act as a bridge to learning

English that I find fascinating, because one could say it was

there all along. Adult learners have not had the advantage of a

bilingual education with English, or they would not be in an ELL

classroom setting. I have seen firsthand the advantages of a dual

immersion approach and while that is not possible with adult

learners, some techniques could be modified. For example,

students could watch a newscast in their own language either in

class or at home and then in class, watch the same topic covered

in English. This way the content is internalized and the students

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 12then start to build the matching vocabulary. Preloading key

vocabulary words prior to viewing the broadcast would also be

helpful.

Native Spanish speaking learners of English have concerns

about their children’s education that I have thought of how to

address as well (Anderson-Levitt, 2005). I am interested in

learning more about the possibilities of the Montessori early

reading method for use with younger English language learners

with Spanish as their L1. I interviewed a Nancy Schwab, a

Montessori school superintendent who had developed over the last

30 years an early reading program that in many cases has been

able to intervene students at risk for dyslexia. She learned

while living in Italy that children who speak languages with

shallow orthographies (Spanish and Italian) rarely develop

dyslexia even if they have the genetic markers, but that if those

genetic markers exist in an English speaking student, chances are

high that dyslexia will surface (Nancy Schwab, personal

communication, May, 2006) (Fidler, 2004). Her method includes

starting with Spanish and "mapping" shapes with a particular

starting sound. Her method was later evaluated by a professor at

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 13Wittenberg University in Ohio with 4 control groups and found

that both children taught in Montessori and those taught in

public school using the same reading method had similar results

(See Appendix A). The reading method is now being used in EFL and

dual immersion programs in a Montesorri Sierra Madre school in

Monterey, Mexico (About Us, 2014). My interest is in

possibilities for early intervention in preschool or at home with

Spanish L1 to help in reading English prior to starting school,

to avoid potential problems with dyslexia that may surface when

they encounter English due to major differences in the depth of

orthographies.

Conclusion

Native Spanish and Catalan speakers encounter many

challenges when learning English that are complicated by the

difference in the depth of their respective orthographies, but

they are not insurmountable. Catalan may be an exquisite tool to

use to bridge knowledge between the Spanish and English because

of its similarities with Spanish in pronunciation and with

English through its deeper orthography. While there are major

differences in spelling, intonation, stress and vowel/consonant

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 14patterns, with consistent deliberate exposure to both spoken and

written English as well as focused effort in reading will render

the gift of English for Spanish and Catalan speakers as a vehicle

for inclusion and international communication, allowing for equal

participation in technology and emerging developments. There are

many areas of complexity and challenge in learning a language.

This analysis focused on phonology and its influence on spelling

and its resulting challenges for Spanish and Catalan speakers in

learning English. By taking a multigenerational approach to the

problem, spelling difficulties do not need to become an issue for

future generations relating to this difference in orthographies.

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 15

Appendix A – Evaluation of The Nightingale Montessori Pre-Primary

Reading Program

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 16

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 17

References

About us - sound shapes precision phonics™. (n.d.). Retrieved May

26, 2014, from

http://www.soundshapesprecisionphonics.com/about-us/

Anderson-Levitt, K. (2005). The schoolyard gate: Schooling and

childhood in global perspective. Journal of Social History,

38 (4), pgs. 987-1006. Selected excerpts.

Corpus del español actual -- CQPweb. (n.d.). Retrieved May 7,

2014, from

http://sfncorpora.uab.es/CQPweb/cea/

Corpus del español. (n.d.). Retrieved May 7, 2014, from

http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/x.asp

Curzan, A., & Adams, M. (2011). Chapter 10: Language acquisition.

In How English works: A

linguistic introduction. Boston: Longman.

Fidler, W. (2004). Dyslexia: A practical Montessori response.

Montessori International, 7-9, 32-

35. Retrieved May 26, 2014.

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 18Key strengths - sound shapes precision phonics™ - a montessori-

based reading program. (n.d.).

Retrieved May 8, 2014, from

http://www.soundshapesprecisionphonics.com/key-strengths/

Krashen, S. D. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition.

Oxford:

Pergamon.

Landerl, K., Wimmer, H., & Frith, U. (1997). The impact of

orthographic consistency on

dyslexia: A German-English comparison. Cognition, 63(3), 315-

334.

doi: 10.1016/S0010-0277(97)00005-X

Rubdy, R. (2009). Reclaiming the local in teaching EIL. Language

and Intercultural Communication, 9 (2), pgs. 156-174.

Smith, B., & Swan, M. (2001). Speakers of Spanish and Catalan. In

Learner English: A teacher's

guide to interference and other problems (pp. 90-112). Cambridge ;New

York:

Cambridge University Press.

Mackenzie, Ian. (1993). The transparency of Spanish orthography.

Learner Challenges: Spanish and Catalan phonology: Spelling and pronunciation 19In Journal of the Simplified

Spelling Society (pp. 15-21) Retrieved May 7, 2014, from

http://www.spellingsociety.org/journals/j15/spanish.php

Van den Bosch, A., Content, A., Daelemans, W., and De Gelder, B.

(1994). Analysing

orthographic depth of different languages using data-

oriented algorithms.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?

doi=10.1.1.48.9845&rep=rep1&type=pdf