Promoting and Teaching French to Spanish Speakersi
Jacqueline Thomas
Texas A&M University-Kingsville
A population of students that continues to grow, speakers of Spanish form a promising
pool of prospective learners of French. For both second language speakers and especially
heritage language speakers, associating the relationship between the Spanish and French
languages with the students’ pre-existing knowledge of family ancestry and the cultural
value of the family provides a rich source of promotional ideas. Teachers of French, such
as Elaine Maguire of San Antonio, Texas, have found success recruiting Spanish speakers
by making explicit the connotation of familiarity, resemblance, belonging, pride, mutual
support, and loyalty.
Testimonials
To promote French to the Spanish speaking student population, teachers have asked
successful former students to provide testimonials in both Spanish and English about
what learning French meant to them. Accompanied by a photograph of the student in
class and distributed to both heritage and second language Spanish speakers, such
testimonials can become a powerful recruitment tool at functions that many students
attend with their parents such as open house or career night.
Handouts and Fliers
Similarly, double-sided handouts (again, available in both English and Spanish) inviting
students to become trilingual in order to compete successfully in the global job market
can be distributed to counselors, and to teachers of Spanish and English as a Second
Language (ESL). The focus of these handouts is to draw attention to the family of
languages to which Spanish and French both belong and their common ancestry,
developing as they did from Latin. Further, the message is that as members of the same
language family, they resemble each other: “If you speak Spanish, you could learn
another language of the same family without too much difficulty.”
Alternatively, or in addition, tri-fold fliers that visually represent the similarities between
Spanish and French can be distributed. The following image, developed by another
Texas teacher for students in Copperas Cove, is powerful as the front panel of such a
flier, when lines are drawn linking the letters (i.e., the two letter Fs, the two letters Rs,
etc ).
F
R A N C É S
F
R
A
N
Ç A I S
The French Language Initiative: The World Speaks French
American Association of Teachers of French
Thomas: Promoting and Teaching French to Spanish Speakers
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When enhanced by an image such as the Eiffel Tower and a statement such as “French is
a natural companion to Spanish,” fliers can be handed out wherever speakers of Spanish
gather, including in Spanish classes in high schools or universities. Students of Spanish
who have no more advanced level courses left to take often find they excel when inspired
to try French.
FRENCH IS A NATURAL
COMPANION TO SPANISH
Add a second panel listing words that are very similar in spelling in the two languages—
but different in English—and you have an appealing hook. For example:
pan
pain
vino
vin
fresa
fraise
amor
amour
mundo
monde
número
numéro
felicitaciones félicitations
sympático
sympathique
fuerte
fort
mal
mal
evitar
éviter
dormir
dormir
mentir
mentir
The message that only knowledge of Spanish would help a student understand the
meaning of those French words (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs) is patently clear.
A third panel can stress the advantage Spanish speakers have in some areas of
pronunciation. Again, this message can be presented visually, as follows:
The French Language Initiative: The World Speaks French
American Association of Teachers of French
Thomas: Promoting and Teaching French to Spanish Speakers
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razón
pie
español
mal
raison
pied
espagnol
mal
Research reveals that students who have learned a second language formally have an
easier time with learning a third language than students in the same classroom learning
that language as a second (Thomas, 1992). Whether they have learned English or
Spanish as a second language, learners have developed a conscious awareness of
language as a system, which is known as metalinguistic awareness. In particular, this
awareness helps learners to develop a conscious awareness of grammar rules. Therefore,
devoting a panel to the grammatical similarities between French and Spanish can be
effective:
√ The pervasiveness of reflexive verbs
me llamo
je m’appelle
se va
il s’en va
se traducer
se traduire
√The placement and agreement of adjectives
la puerta roja
la porte rouge
√The placement of direct and indirect objects before the verb
Ella la da a la maestra
Elle la donne à la maîtresse
Ella le da el libro
Elle lui donne le livre
√The difference between the use of “saber” and “conocer” parallels the
difference between “savoir” and “connaître”
√The parallel between “hacer” and “faire” to describe weather
√Idioms with “tener” and “avoir” to convey “to be” in English:
tener razón
avoir raison
tener frío
avoir froid
A caveat should be included on the final panel in case Spanish speakers are incorrectly
led to believe that, because of their prior knowledge, they would be guaranteed an “A” in
French class. It must be pointed out that in spite of the kick-start provided by knowledge
of Spanish, studying will be required. There are even numerous pitfalls to be avoided,
such as sí + the subjunctive in Spanish, but not in French.
Teaching
Not all students who are classified as Spanish speakers have the metalinguistic awareness
referred to above. For students whose knowledge of Spanish is informal, similarities
The French Language Initiative: The World Speaks French
American Association of Teachers of French
Thomas: Promoting and Teaching French to Spanish Speakers
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between French and Spanish must be made explicit by the teacher. Students who have
not learned Spanish in a classroom are not necessarily consciously aware, for example,
that Spanish words have gender so do not guess the gender of cognates such as
“bibliothèque” more accurately than monolingual English speakers (Thomas, 1988).
Likewise, many of the elements featured in the flier above, such as the parallels between
“hacer” and “faire,” “tener” and “avoir,” “saber”/”savoir” and “conocer/”connaître,” must
also be explained for all Spanish speakers to reap the benefit.
As a corollary, in mixed classes, the teacher has to be careful not to make those who do
not know Spanish feel resentful of their classmates who do. Too much emphasis on the
similarities between French and Spanish without mentioning cognates in English and
French (such as tying “jaune” to “jaundice”) or in all three languages (e.g. professeur)
can lead to frustration on the part of students not familiar with Spanish.
For that reason and others, such as the track record of success at French exhibited by
Hispanic heritage speakers who have received schooling in Spanish, some teachers have
offered accelerated classes of French for Spanish speakers. Populated by students
recruited from ESL classes or exchange students, as well as students in AP Spanish or
other advanced Spanish classes, the teacher designs the course explicitly to exploit the
similarities between the two languages. Such French teachers further exploit the cultural
similarities between Latins, (i.e. people using Romance languages) and the
interconnections between French and francophone culture and Latino culture (e.g. love of
soccer, Spanish artists who have lived and worked in France, South American authors
who have been influenced by French authors, to name just three). Some even use
materials used in Mexico or Spain to teach French or provide Spanish-French dictionaries
for their students’ use.
In conclusion
The three languages of NAFTA are English, French, and Spanish. Therefore it makes
sense to invite our students in United States schools to develop trilingual competence in
order to compete with our multilingual competitors in the European Union. Basing our
promotion and our teaching on the family resemblance between these sister languages
can help us increase the number of students successfully studying French.
Works cited
Thomas, Jacqueline. “The Role Played by Metalinguistic Awareness in Second and
Third Language Learning.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 9
(1988)
Thomas, Jacqueline. “Metalinguistic Awareness in Second- and Third-language
Learning.” In Cognitive Processing in Bilinguals. Ed. Richard Harris (Elsevier, 1992)
i
First presented with Elaine Maguire, formerly at Judson Senior High School in San Antonio, Texas, at the
AATF convention in Montreal, 1998
The French Language Initiative: The World Speaks French
American Association of Teachers of French
Thomas: Promoting and Teaching French to Spanish Speakers
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