MTLE Spanish (164/165) cheat sheet

Spanish has five pure vowel phonemes (/a e i o u/); each is short and stable, so English-style gliding (diphthongization of /o/ or /e/) marks a non-native accent.

Spanish /p t k/ are unaspirated; releasing them with English aspiration (as in 'pot') is a salient foreign accent feature in listening and speaking tasks.

The tap /ɾ/ (pero) and trill /r/ (perro) are distinct phonemes; minimal pairs like pero/perro, caro/carro test both perception and production.

Syllable-timed rhythm with relatively even stress; Spanish does not reduce unstressed vowels to schwa, unlike English.

Lexical stress follows the written accent rules: words ending in a vowel, -n, or -s stress the penultimate syllable; others stress the final syllable; any exception carries a written accent.

A written accent also marks interrogatives and exclamatives (qué, cómo, dónde) and distinguishes homographs (el/él, mas/más, si/sí, solo/sólo).

Formal address: tú for solidarity, usted for distance or respect, vosotros in peninsular Spain, ustedes in Latin America for both formal and plural informal.

Listening items often hinge on discourse markers (sin embargo, por lo tanto, a menos que) and on intonation: a rise-fall can signal a statement rather than a question.

The imperfect describes ongoing background, habitual actions, and mental or physical states; the preterite reports bounded, completed events, so 'cuando era niño' pairs with imperfect while 'ayer' typically triggers preterite.

Preterite/imperfect contrast in narrative: simultaneous background uses imperfect, while a single interrupting event uses preterite (leía cuando sonó el teléfono).

The subjunctive is triggered by volition, emotion, doubt, and impersonal expressions (quiero que, es posible que, dudo que); indicative follows expressions of certainty (es cierto que).

Spelling changes preserve pronunciation in preterite first person: -car to -qué, -gar to -gué, -zar to -cé (busqué, llegué, empecé).

Ser vs estar: ser marks inherent identity, origin, and time; estar marks location, condition, and progressive aspect (está cansado vs es cansado).

Por vs para: por marks cause, exchange, duration, and movement through; para marks purpose, destination, deadline, and recipient.

Formal writing requires accent placement on interrogatives, correct use of the diaeresis (güe, güi) after g, and agreement of adjectives in gender and number with the noun.

Reading comprehension items frequently test inference from connectors and pronoun reference; track antecedents of él, ella, su, and lo que across sentences.

Krashen's input hypothesis holds that acquisition occurs when learners receive comprehensible input slightly beyond their current level (i+1); the affective filter hypothesis explains how anxiety and low motivation block intake.

Cummins distinguishes BICS (conversational fluency, typically attained in about two years) from CALP (academic language proficiency, typically five to seven years).

Interlanguage is the learner's rule-governed transitional system; errors often reflect overgeneralization (yo sabo, haiga) rather than carelessness.

Error correction should target errors that impede communication or are fossilizing; fluency tasks favor delayed or recast-based feedback over immediate interruption.

Sheltered instruction (SIOP) integrates content and language objectives, with scaffolding through visuals, sentence frames, and modeled language.

Total Physical Response links commands to movement to build receptive vocabulary before production; the natural approach emphasizes silent periods and low-anxiety input.

Communicative competence comprises grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic components; instruction should balance accuracy work with meaningful interaction.

The ACTFL proficiency scale runs Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Superior, Distinguished, with the Intermediate level defined by the ability to create with language and handle simple transactions.

Spanish is official or co-official in 21 countries; 'vosotros' is peninsular, while Latin American varieties use 'ustedes' for plural address regardless of formality.

Voseo, the use of 'vos' with its own verb forms (vos tenés, vos sos), is standard in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and parts of Central America.

Products, practices, and perspectives form the three Ps of culture; teaching culture means connecting artifacts to underlying beliefs, not listing holidays.

Indigenous language influence appears in vocabulary: náhuatl (chocolate, tomate), quechua (papa, llama), and taíno (huracán, hamaca).

Greetings and formality norms differ by region; in many Latin American contexts a greeting precedes business, and using 'tú' prematurely with elders can be perceived as disrespectful.

Día de los Muertos (November 1-2) is a syncretic observance honoring deceased relatives, distinct from Halloween; ofrendas include cempasúchil, pan de muerto, and photographs.

Flamenco is Andalusian, with cante, toque, and baile; it is not a national Spanish genre, and conflating it with Latin American music misrepresents regional diversity.

Avoid deficit framing: culturally responsive teaching treats students' home language and dialect as resources, distinguishing dialect variation from error.

Formative assessment informs instruction during learning (exit tickets, thumbs-up checks, quizzes without grades); summative assessment measures achievement at the end of a unit.

Reliability concerns consistency of scores across raters and occasions; validity concerns whether a test measures the intended construct.

Inter-rater reliability in speaking and writing is improved by analytic rubrics with descriptors for each criterion and by calibration sessions before scoring.

Proficiency tests measure general ability independent of a curriculum; achievement tests measure mastery of taught content; placement tests assign students to levels.

Authentic assessment uses real-world tasks (a menu-based dialogue, a letter to a pen pal) and is scored with performance criteria rather than discrete-point items.

Backward design (Wiggins and McTighe) sequences instruction from desired results to acceptable evidence to learning activities.

Standard error of measurement quantifies score variability; a 95% confidence band is roughly plus or minus two SEM around the observed score.

Professional ethics require maintaining confidentiality of student records (FERPA), avoiding biased items, and providing test accommodations specified in IEPs or 504 plans.