AMÀLIA LLOMBART-HUESCA
  • Home
  • RESEARCH
  • TEACHING
  • MULTIMEDIA
  • Co-Authors and Students
  • BLOG ON SPELLING

Empesar, comensé, alcanzé...

1/21/2018

8 Comments

 
Picture
I am a strong believer that in order to help students to correct or avoid spelling errors, we need to understand why they make that particular error. It is not enough to say: “they should have written ‘c’ instead of ‘s’.”  We need to understand why the student wrote ‘s’ instead of ‘c’ in that particular context.  And, for that, we need to consider why we need to write ‘c’ and reject all the other options. 

In this post, I want to focus on one particular error. In a previous post, I explained that many spelling errors involving s/z/c were found in verbs ending in –zar, such as empezar, empecé, empezó, alcanzar, alcancé, alcanzamos, etc. And here I want to explain why these words are particularly problematic, as well as a little experiment that I did, and that you can do in your classroom.

First, these words are particularly problematic because the sound /s/ is associated with three different letters: s, z, and c. Therefore, the student needs to choose between three options.

Second, the different choices require different strategies. Let’s see…

To write empezar, we need to write z and reject ...
          s (*empesar), because that’s how the word is spelled. There is no orthographic rule                              that  allows us to know that. In fact, other verbs end with -sar: like pesar, pensar, besar,                        or pasar.  That makes the word *empesar not so ugly at our eyes (or the students' eyes).

          c (*empecar), because that would result in the wrong pronunciation: like /empekar/.

Now, to write empecé, we need to write c and reject ...
          s (empesé), because empecé is a conjugated form of of empezar, and not empesar.

           Z (empezé), because there is a rule that says that z appears only at the end of a word                             or before a, o, u, but not before e or i.  Therefore, the reason why writing verbs ending                           in –zar is so difficult is that the student faces three conflicting requirements:

Picture
In 2017, I conducted an experiment with Spanish HL students.* I gave them sentences with made up words similar to empezar, which they had to complete with a related made-up word. Try to complete the sentence before you look at the right answer.

                          Ayer yo curicé mi pasaporte, pero tú todavía lo tienes que ______________.
               
                                
                                                     [scroll down to see the answer]
Picture
The right answer is curizar.  Did you come up with this word? A few students did, but many of them wrote the wrong word. What was interesting is that their wrong answers were either:
           curicar
           curicear
           curisar
           
Each of these words is the result of breaking one of the demands for that word, as shown in this table.
Picture
What does that experiment show us?
It shows us that writing verbs like alcanzar, empezar, … and their related forms is much more difficult that it might seem, because writing the right form requires paying attention to different (and conflicting) things. Most of us can do it because we have a strong visual memory of these written words. Doing this experiment with made-up words allows us to look at those words without having any visual memory of them.


You can try this experiment with your students, as a spelling game, with the objective of forcing students to focus their attention to the morphological relations between words and the –zar > -cé alternation. Here are some sentences you could use:
  • La semana pasada yo talacé mi casa y mañana voy a  _________________ mi auto.
  • Juan ya derizó su tarea, pero yo todavía la tengo que _____________________
  • Mis amigos todavía están puisando sus libros, pero yo los __________________ ayer.    
  • Juan necesita tipazar su ropa pero yo ya la __________________ ayer.
  • Mi profesor me dijo que tengo que turazar, pero yo le dije que ya _______________ ayer.
Working with made-up words (selectively) are a fun way to make students focus on specific spelling difficulties.  

*Llombart-Huesca, A. (2017). “Morphological Awareness and Heritage Language Learners.” Linguistics and Education, 37, 11-31.
***********************
Have you encountered any interesting spelling error (frequent or not) you would like me to write about? Feel free to let me know in a comment. 
8 Comments
Stella Manley
1/23/2018 10:51:40 am

How would you explain the recurrent error of spelling CUIDAD instead of CIUDAD? Gracias!

Reply
Amalia
1/23/2018 11:56:50 am

Gracias por tu comentario / pregunta. Voy a escribir mi próxima entrada sobre esa palabra (y otras similares).

Reply
Christmas Lights Installation Alabama link
2/22/2023 08:32:42 am

Great post thannks

Reply
ye7 link
7/7/2024 05:21:40 am

I like your perspective in this topic.

Reply
kaswerteye7 link
7/7/2024 05:26:46 am

Thank you for sharing your idea to this blog.

Reply
YE7 link
7/7/2024 05:30:01 am

Creating engaging and approachable writing is akin to extending a warm invitation and kindling interest effortlessly.

Reply
kaswerte link
7/7/2024 05:32:53 am

Your encouragement is like finding the perfect puzzle piece, making your writing better and helping you improve!

Reply
Black Male Escorts Cambridge link
3/22/2025 06:09:25 am

I find your explanation about why students struggle with these specific verb endings very insightful.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    BLOG ON SPELLING 
    Picture
    Author: Amàlia Llombart-Huesca
    This is a blog about spelling in Spanish Heritage Language Learners. Some posts will be in Spanish and some in English.  Feel free to ask your questions in the comments section. 

    Archives

    September 2023
    September 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017


    Popular Posts
    Made-up words and other fipers.
    ​

    Tips for teaching stress marks.
    ​
    Los hablantes nativos y la ortografía

    Subscribe to Newsletter
Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo from Daquella manera
  • Home
  • RESEARCH
  • TEACHING
  • MULTIMEDIA
  • Co-Authors and Students
  • BLOG ON SPELLING