Complex Cognitive Processes

For the purposes of this example I would be teaching an eighth grade first time Spanish class.

To give the children a chance at a ‘positive transfer’ from their previous experience, I would teach them some vocabulary in Spanish that are conjugates (words that are the same or almost the same in both Spanish and English). This could give them an easy base to build on, and give them confidence while they start to learn Spanish.

For a ‘near transfer’ I would use the Spanish Alphabet song to teach them the Spanish alphabet (which is constructed differently than the English alphabet) just like everyone used the English Alphabet song, to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, to learn the English alphabet. In fact, most people have to sing that song to remember the alphabet in order.

For a ‘far transfer’ I would tell the students to go through their homes and tape index cards or sticky notes with the Spanish words for various items (doorè la puerta, etc.), so that they would have a more concrete way to understand the words instead of just matching English words with Spanish ones.

I would try to prevent a ‘negative transfer’ of English grammar rules in Spanish. For example, in Spanish the adjective comes after the noun, to clarify this idea, I would have them use their vocabulary to build many examples of each grammar rule as we learn them. I would have them write these examples out in class, share their examples with class mates, and select random students to write examples on the board, so that we could discus as a class whether or not and why or why not each example was correct.