Writing practice for Spanish speakers

A decreasing emphasis on the traditional grammar approach to the teaching of Spanish in our secondary schools has increasingly hindered the possibilities of meeting the needs of Spanish speaking students who desire to study the Spanish languages. The problems faced by non-Spanish speaking students and those faced by the Spanish speaker are quiet distinct and cannot be approached with the same objectives and methodology. Spanish speaking students by and large do not face the same problems of structure and vocabulary; furthermore, their problems of pronunciation are unique and lend themselves to specific linguistic objectives. Unlike the non-native speaker who is concerned with learning a new language system, the Spanish speaking student is burdened by a well imbedded dialect which he must substitute with a standard dialect. Consequently, instructional materials for Spanish speakers must define a specific set of language objectives, help the student focus on his particular language needs, and facilitate the learning of a specific set of language skills. The second major weakness of the existing Spanish curriculum offered in our secondary schools is that it does not five a majority of Spanish speaking students an opportunity to concentrate on what is relevant to them. Spanish speaking students, unlike the non-natives who want to become proficient at speaking Spanish, are concerned with learning to read and to write Spanish, the emphasis on the audio-lingual has therefore made irrelevant for the Spanish speakers much of the learning activity in the classroom, this must not be taken to imply that Spanish speaking students are not concerned with improving their speaking ability in Spanish, but once they have mastered the fundamentals of reading and writing they will be able to expand their vocabulary, increase their confidence in the use of the language and further their language proficiency in all areas. After four years of having the opportunity to work with Spanish speaking students, I decided to coordinate this workbook to assist the many teachers who are burdened by the lack of materials aimed at the needs of their Spanish speaking students, this workbook is by no means a complete program} it is a supplementary reading and writing manual for Spanish speakers in the first year of Spanish at junior high or high school level, the workbook is specifically designed for students who have acquired a speaking knowledge of Spanish but have not mastered the fundamentals of reading and writing and for those students who wish to acquire a standard dialect. It is not the intent of this workbook to imply that the dialect spoken by the student is inferior? but it is to help the student discriminate between the so called "chicano dialect” and "formalized Spanish” with the hope that he will desire to further his knowledge of the Spanish language and its many dialects. This workbook has been coordinated to expose the students to the fundamentals of reading and writing and to minimize errors in writing unique to the Spanish speakers who have had no formal instruction in Spanish. This manual includes exercises on sound symbol relationships, pronunciation and grammar. Simple dictation, syllabication of words, and counting syllables in simple poetry are sound symbol exercises provided to give the student the needed reinforcement and to minimize boredom. Pronunciation, which is a basic objective in all the exercises, is aimed at helping the students focus on "anglicismos”, "arcaismos” and sounds which they generally transfer to reading and writing. Grammatical items have been selected to help the students focus on a standard dialect and to give them a better understanding of the Spanish language. The poetry and short reading selections are included to reinforce the stated objectives, but a creative instructor can develop the contents to generate oral expression in the classroom, the sequence of drills generally follows a pattern of discrimination, application, variation arid evaluation. Discrimination is used in the sense that a student is able to focus on the item to be learned, and his particular language needs.