Efren Espinoza spoke Spanish all the time at home, but never at school. So when Cal State Long Beach offered a French class for Spanish speakers only, Espinoza was intrigued.
“I actually decided to double major in French because of the course,” said Espinoza, junior double major in French and English. “It just seemed so easy.”
The idea of using someone’s knowledge of one Latin-based romance language to learn another is a concept called “intercomprehension,” according to Claire Martin, a CSULB Spanish professor.
Martin helped start the program in 2007 with her colleague Clorinda Donato, chair of Italian studies at CSULB, thanks to a grant from the French Consulate.
At that time, Martin and Donato realized that at least 70 percent of the students enrolled in French and Italian classes were of Hispanic origin. When they looked into it further, they realized these students had a clear advantage because they already knew one foreign language.
“In Europe, this has been going on for 20 years,” Martin said. “Students are taught six romance languages when they’re very young. Instead of telling students, ‘Forget all you know about those other languages,’ we use it as a bridge to learn the new languages by comparing and contrasting.”
The program started with just one section of French and has now expanded to three courses in French and Italian. Approximately 600 students have taken the course since its inception, according to Donato.
Students in the program must either be native or heritage Spanish speakers, or have taken at least two years of Spanish in high school or college.
Espinoza thinks that having the French classes taught in Spanish makes the learning process a lot quicker.
“The vocabulary, syntax, grammar and even writing style are all very similar,” Espinoza said. “In fact, learning French even helped my Spanish get better.”
In the future, Martin hopes to expand the program at CSULB and beyond.
“Our goals are to expand the program to Portuguese next and to high schools and community colleges not just in the area, but nationwide,” Martin said.
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