Spanish and English: Towards an Integrated Language Curriculum

PATRICIA CORNAGO Y JOSÉ MARÍA GIL

Symposium Proceedings: First International Symposium about Bilingualism and Bilingual Education in Latin America

Universidad de San Andrés

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2005; p. 63 - 74

An integrated Spanish-English curriculum may be the means to solve some fundamental problems that frequently arise in many bilingual schools. It would also serve the purpose of having a greater number of students achieve the so-claimed excellence in these institutions. Though complicated and ambitious but feasible still, one of these objectives is that students be able to produce coherent texts in which they show a clear notion of linguistic register and a sound awareness in the choice of lexical items and grammatical structures. It would be convenient to explain a number of problems which may have hindered a possible Spanish-English integration, causing therefore a failure in achieving the objectives above mentioned. The fundamental problems we are referring to may be listed as follows: 1. Negative interference of L1 (Spanish) in L2 (English). Even texts produced by the most advanced students evidence certain difficulties which prove to have their origin in the transfer of Spanish grammatical structures to English texts. Among these common errors we can mention problems dealing with word order, agreement, passive voice, conditional sentences, etc. 2. The existence of linguistic prejudices in language teaching. Although we may say that scientific linguistics has done away with the ideas of ?correctness? of forms and ?superiority? of language varieties, it is still frequent among language teachers to assume some prejudices and stereotypes which they also transmit to their students. 3. Divorce of Spanish and English Language Departments. Teachers from both areas share objectives, topics, teaching strategies. They also share the problems mentioned in (1) and (2). Nevertheless, hardly ever do they work together when writing syllabuses, often considering there is little to work in common. The purpose of this paper will be, then, to develop an integrated curriculum which may help solve these problems. It will be based on three theoretical issues. 1. A comparison of the linguistic systems of both languages. 2. The analysis of the complexity of grammatical, communicative and literary themes. 3. A theoretical decision about the bond between the linguistic system and the use of language. Finally, the contents of Spanish and English Language from the first grade of elementary school to the last one of the secondary will be organized around three main areas: ?Grammar?, ?Text Production? and ?Literature?.