Running head: CROSS-LINGUISTIC COGNATES TO SCAFFOLD ELL LEARNING 1

Using Cross-Linguistic Cognates to Scaffold Learning for English Language Learners

Elizabeth L. Martin

Created for LING 560, Drexel University

CROSS-LINGUISTIC COGNATES TO SCAFFOLD ELL LEARNING 2

Abstract

Native Spanish Speakers (NSS) comprise at least 66% of the school-age population of English

Language Learners (ELL) in the United States today (Malabonga, 2008). With such a high

percentage of students in today’s American classrooms having Spanish as their native language

(L1) and learning English as a second language (L2), teachers have engaged in a wide range of

strategies to scaffold lessons (Gomez, 2010). One of the ways in which this scaffolding can be

done effectively is by drawing attention to cognates, which are words that have similarities

across languages, in order to facilitate vocabulary learning (Gomez, 2010). Using cognates in

instruction is a strategy that is frequently cited as being one of the most effective in leveraging an

ELL student’s L1 prior knowledge when learning English (Baird, 2016). In this paper, I will

define a cognate and a false cognate in terms of their linguistic characteristics; discuss the

implications for a positive and a negative transfer of data between languages using cognates;

elaborate on the effective difference between written and oral language acquisition when using

cognates; and suggest ways in which the use of cognates can successfully be integrated into

classroom instruction in order to most effectively scaffold ELL learning.

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Using Cross-Linguistic Cognates to Scaffold Learning for English Language Learners

A cognate is a pair of words that has similar meaning, spelling and form, due to being

inherited from the same ancestor branch of languages. In the case of Spanish and English, they

are both descended from the earlier derivatives of the Indo-European language family

(Malabonga, 2008) so there in significant overlap between the two languages. It has been

estimated that cognates comprise from a third to a half of the average English speaker’s

vocabulary (Baird, 2016). There are over 20,000 Spanish-English cognates, many of which are

among the most frequently used words in English (Montelongo, 2010). In fact, for a language

structure that has shared etymology, such as Spanish and English, it is estimated that

approximately 40% of English words have a related Spanish counterpart (Gomez, 2010). This is

also true for other languages that have a shared Latin root with English, such as Portuguese,

French, and Italian. However, for the purpose of this paper due to the high Spanish-speaking

population in the American school system today, we will be looking solely at the benefits and

drawbacks of using cognates to scaffold ELL learning between English and Native Spanish

Speakers (NSS).

Cognates and False Cognates

Cognates are words that are orthographically, phonologically and/or semantically similar in two

languages. They are also often successful in teaching morphological regularities between the

two languages, since there is often a 1:1 correlation between prefixes and suffixes across the

language base (Montelongo, 2010). Cognates may be cross-linguistic friendly cognates – words

that share form and meaning such as angle in English and ángulo in Spanish; partial cognates –

words that have shared ancestry but are not as obvious such as tri in Latin meaning three in
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English and trés in Spanish meaning three; non-cognates - words that are not similar in form

and meaning; or false cognates – words that look alike yet have different meanings, such as

embarrassed in English and embarazada in Spanish meaning pregnant (Gomez, 2010).

Orthography

Orthography is the study of the written form of a word. Due to orthographic

transparency, friendly cognates often can facilitate the decoding of an unknown word and

meaning for Spanish or Latino ELLs, working as a scaffold toward deciphering and subsequently

adding the English counterpart to their vocabulary (Montelongo, 2010). Due to the Latin and

Greek roots of many science and math content words, scaffolding content knowledge is

facilitated through the use of cognates. This is true for both friendly and partial cognates, such as

the examples below:

ENGLISH SPANISH
division división
congruent congruente
cent (100) cien
octa (8) ocho

Morphology

The morphological makeup of English and Spanish words often can highlight the

regularity of cross-linguistic prefix and suffix transfer for noncognates. This also can be

resourceful in scaffolding meaning for noncognates in context clue exercises (Montelongo,

2010). For example, the Spanish suffix –mente typically correlates with the adverb suffix –ly in

English, and in most cases this morphological similarity can be generalized between languages.

The first two examples given below are friendly cognates; once the mente/ly correlation is

generalized, the ELL student can likely determine that the root of the word is directly

transferable to English from Spanish. The second two examples are not quite as obvious, but if
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the student knows that rápido means quick and fácil means easy, also understanding the mente/ly

correlation, could help them to generalize by decoding these two unknown noncognate words as

easily and quickly (rapidly).

ENGLISH SPANISH
exactly exactamente
probably probablamente
quickly rápidamente
easily fácilmente
Phonology

There is less cross-linguistic transparency in the auditory and oral (phonological)

domains when comparing Spanish to English, than in the written (orthographic) form. Inherent

differences in phonology, when combined with the temporary constraints of spoken language,

may be more difficult to scaffold through the use of cognates (Kelley, 2012). Even words that

are considered to be clear friendly cognates with 100% overlap in their orthography, may not be

quite as obvious to an ELL when hearing the words aurally. For instance, in Spanish the word

doctor is pronounced with an interdental d, a flapped final r, and stress on the second syllable.

However, in English doctor is pronounced with an alveolar d, the o gets reduced to schwa, and

stress on the first syllable (Kelley, 2012).

Semantics

Semantically, many cognates have a direct correlation - the English and Spanish words

have meaning that can be derived from one another. False cognates are words that are

orthographically and phonologically similar but are semantically different. Therefore, because

false cognates are conceptually similar to cognates, they will activate inaccurate prior association

knowledge to the word. This may cause the ELL to erroneously associate the word with an

incorrect meaning. By contrast, even knowing that this association is a false cognate relationship

will entail recalling an entirely distinct process. This process will require the native speaker to
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actually dissociate the word from its cognate and repress knowledge of this phonologically

similar but semantically different word in their native language (Malabonga, 2008).

Cognate Awareness

Many ELL students in the US schools are deficient in the English vocabulary necessary to be

successful in the classroom. This deficiency can impede their reading comprehension and

fluency (Malabonga, 2008). Cognate awareness is the perception or knowledge that will help an

individual to recognize that a relationship exists between an unfamiliar word in one language

(L2) and a familiar word (cognate) in another language (L1). When the individual has acquired

this sense of cognate awareness, they can decode the meaning of the unknown word more

fluently than if had they not had this skill (Malabonga, 2008). The goal of this strategy is to

facilitate the ability of ELL students to use their L1 Spanish language knowledge in order to

discern the meaning of the English cognates (Malabonga, 2008).

Positive and Negative Transfer of Information

During any type of second language acquisition, positive and negative transfer of information are

likely to occur, depending on the similarity of the language features. Transfer can be defined as

the cross-linguistic influence between a person’s native language and their target language

(Malabonga, 2008). It is the carryover of previous performance or knowledge to current or

subsequent learning. Negative transfer, or interference, occurs when previously learned

information hinders the understanding of new information features of the native language, and

they are inaccurately applied to the target language. In contrast, positive transfer occurs when

knowledge of a native language facilitates the learning of a target language; past knowledge is
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accurately applied to present subject matter (Malabonga, 2008). A child’s sensitivity to

orthographic cognates is associated with several factors: Student L1 proficiency in reading and

academics, age/grade level, frequency of word usage, phonological overlap of words cross-

linguistically, and teacher knowledge of L1.

Student L1 Proficiency. If an NSS knows a Spanish word and can recognize that there

is a cognate relationship, then they can use this L1 knowledge to positively transfer the

information from the native to the target language using cognate awareness (Malabonga, 2008).

However, if the student is not cognizant of the Spanish word, then the association will not be

seen without additional L1 foundational instruction, and likely a negative transfer of information

will be seen (Malabonga, 2008). From a pedagogical point of view, explicit targeted instruction

on how to grow cognitive awareness can result in positive cross-linguistic transfer of cognate

knowledge for Spanish-speaking ELLs who have sufficient L1 vocabulary knowledge. Those

who do not yet have that knowledge in their L1 will not benefit as much from targeted cognate

awareness instruction unless it is accompanied by targeted semantic L1 instruction as well to

increae foundational literacy skills (Baird, 2016).

Student Age. A student’s age can have an influence on whether their cognate awareness

will result in a positive or negative transfer of information between English and Spanish. Most

research on cognates has been done on bilingual, upper elementary, school-age children who

have literacy in one or both languages. There is evidence that the ability to accurately isolate,

identify and have the L1 knowledge to associate cognates in their native and target languages,

develops with age. It is typically facilitated by the acquisition of more robust literacy knowledge

and vocabulary that happens as they grow (Baird, 2016). However, in studies that have involved

younger elementary-age children, it has been noted that emergent readers are not able to rely
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upon knowledge of shared orthography when recognizing cognates. Instead, emergent literate

children often target the overlapping phonology in cognate pairs. This, however, must typically

be complemented through targeted cognate awareness instruction or increased literacy support in

order for it to develop and be accessible for transfer usage.

Frequency of Word Usage. Many Spanish-English cognates such as infirm, castigate

and accompany are high frequency words in oral Spanish but lower frequency of usage in oral

English (Malabonga, 2008). Therefore, even if a word is known to be a cognate, unless that low-

frequency word is known in English, it may be orthographically recognized but not semantically

associated. These types of low frequency English words with known Spanish cognates are ones

that can be targeted for direct instruction, since adding these words to a student’s word bank will

give them a higher chance of being able to associate them with a Spanish cognate. Additionally,

applying cognate awareness skillsets to these high frequency Spanish words can also help to

drive understanding of the meaning of the associated low-frequency English words (Baird,

2016). Research on monolingual children indicates that word frequency is a primary basis for

the order in which children acquire words (Malabonga, 2008). Therefore, generalizing this same

principle to bilingual children when dealing with second language acquisition led to low English

frequency words to be deemed target words in studies.

Phonological Overlap. When working with emergent readers, in a productive language

task of low English frequency words (picture naming), bilingual children demonstrated higher

accuracy for phonologically similar cognates than noncognates. They have also proven to be

able to infer the meaning of English cognates and to orally surmise a definition for target words,

after having explicit instruction teaching them their Spanish equivalents (Baird, 2016). These

results indicate some level of Spanish-to-English, phonological-to-lexical-semantic

CROSS-LINGUISTIC COGNATES TO SCAFFOLD ELL LEARNING 9

“bootstrapping” (Kelley, 2012). This shows that with emergent readers, that there is a

phonological cognate advantage, which can foster emergent literacy skills by supplying ELLs

with a more robust understanding of words that are commonly used and affording opportunities

to understand their underlying semantics (Kelley, 2012).

Older children, however, were far more likely to benefit from cross-linguistic

phonological overlap between English and Spanish that younger children, when asked to match a

spoken word to a picture. This reinforces the concept that there is an age/developmental

advantage for cognate stimuli, as detailed in prior sections (Kelley, 2012).

Teacher Knowledge of L1. Teachers frequently wonder the extent to which they can

offer native language support to scaffold academic understanding. Any native language support

that is able to be offered can prove to be helpful in reaching ELL students, so teachers should

assess the extent to which they may be able to use the native language for content knowledge

enrichment. Since ELL students will consistently lag behind their monolingual peers

academically, using their L1 Spanish in order to scaffold language learning is beneficial (Gomez,

2010). Therefore, teachers who have some knowledge of a student’s primary language and can

amplify and enrich vocabulary building by way of using cross-linguistic cognates, as opposed to

simplifying classroom language, will give all students more opportunity to learn (Gomez, 2010).

Through using the cognate strategy, teachers will be able to demonstrate to their students that the

academic knowledge that they have in their primary language and having a sense of cognate

awareness, can help to accelerate learning in English (Gomez, 2010).

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False Cognates

False cognates are words that are orthographically similar but have semantically

difference definitions. Some false cognates are considered unreliable when attempting to use

cognate awareness strategies because they have semantic patterns that are surprising. These are

words that would be inaccurately used in English as compared to the native meaning in Spanish;

they are unreliable in being able to determine accurate English cognate meaning (Montelongo,

2010).

Some words are inaccurately used in the target language, because although they are

cognates, there are additional meanings in one language that do not apply in another language.

One type of unreliable Spanish-English cognates is Spanish words that include the meanings of

their English counterparts but also have meanings that only apply to the Spanish form. Examples

of unreliable cognates are the Spanish verbs asistir and admirar. Asistir is similar to the English

verb “assist,” but depending on context, it can also mean “to attend.” Likewise, admirar can

mean “to admire,” but it can also mean “to surprise” or “to astonish.” Other examples of

unreliable cognates are the Spanish words historia and discusión. Historia has the additional

meanings of “story” or “tale,” and discusión can mean “argument” (Baird, 2016).

In addition to cognates that have multiple meanings, another type of unreliable cognates

is words that have a related meaning in another language that differs in intensity. For example,

words can have similar meanings, but the negative associations in one language may not be

present in the other language. The Spanish word inferior is used to describe a subordinate in the

workplace, but there is no negative association as there is in English. Likewise, in English

“notorious” means famous for something bad, but the Spanish word notorio refers to general

rather than negative fame. In addition, some English words are narrower in meaning than their
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Spanish counterparts. In English, “parent” refers to an actual father or mother, but in Spanish

pariente may be used to refer to any relative. To native English speakers, a “reunion” indicates a

meeting of people who have not seen each other in a while or a family gathering. To native

Spanish speakers, a reunión refers to a meeting or gathering of any kind (Baird, 2016).

While some cognates are unreliable, other cognates are completely false. These deserve

special attention because of the strong possibility for negative transfer and the significant

miscommunication that could result. One example of a false cognate is the English word

“bizarre” which means “strange, odd.” Although bizarro could easily be mistaken to have the

same meaning, it actually means “handsome, brave.” In English, “exit” means “a way out,” but

the Spanish word éxito means “a result, success” (Baird, 2016).

Cognate Awareness Teaching Strategies

Integrating instruction to promote cognate awareness for ELL students within the

classroom is a process that can be enhanced in several ways, all of which can be beneficial in

scaffolding instruction to promote accelerated English language learning. Cognate awareness

involves making meaning out of unknown words – the cognate recognition strategy - and

promoting the notion that students can utilize this strategy when decoding unfamiliar words in

English (Montelongo, 2010). However, recognizing Spanish-English cognates is not an

automatic process. ELLs require direct instruction on how to recognize cognates in context and

are taught this skill and then further encouraged to generalize it to other academic areas

(Montelongo, 2010). Detailed below are methods in which direct and intentional ELL cognate

awareness instruction can be integrated into the classroom.

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Introducing Cognates Early. Teachers can begin to incorporate cognates early in the

elementary years, even phonologically for an emergent reader if they will not yet recognize

similarities orthographically. Introducing cognates prior to reading a story aloud or after having

read can both be successful strategies depending on the lesson. What is important is getting the

ELL to think about the relationship between English and Spanish words. Visually displaying the

cognates side-by-side on a Word Wall or other high visibility location in the classroom so that

they can be seen and said aloud as a class, often will promote positive transfer of cognate data

(Montelongo, 2010). As teachers introduce cognates to ELL students, the primary purpose is not

only to introduce the meanings of the words to them in order to grow their word banks, but to

also stimulate thinking about how many regular connections exist between Spanish and English

words (Montelongo, 2010).

Expository Texts. As students get older, and even in their early years when non-fiction

texts are first explored, the curriculum and standards incorporate knowledge of and exposure to a

variety of expository texts, such as textbooks, tradebooks, magazine articles and informational

web pages. These are often loaded with cognates and often these are the bold-print words that

are the main idea on pages and in glossaries (Montelongo, 2010).

Science and Mathematics Content. Many science and mathematics words have a Latin

or Greek language base and therefore are friendly cognates with both English and Spanish

counterparts. Despite the misconception that mathematics is a universal language based on

numbers, a student will not succeed if they do not know the science or mathematics content

language, especially the context in which a word may have a double meaning. (Gomez, 2010).

Through the process of activating prior content knowledge by associating a Spanish word with
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the English cognate, teachers can have more success in advancing a student’s language and

content abilities, as they are able to conceptualize new meaning for an unknown English word.

Enhancing Reading Strategies. Teaching students to utilize context clues when reading

can be one strategy that can be employed for both early readers and upper elementary students.

Giving the empowerment to try to figure out the meaning of an unknown word through the

context of the story, can teach students to use the clues provided in the text for support. Teachers

can model looking in the text for clues about what the unknown word could mean. They also can

show students how to activate the cognate recognition strategies that will teach students to use

cognates in text to guess the meaning of unknown words.

In addition, tiered support for low-frequency English words with high frequency Spanish

cognates can help to expose students to new vocabulary that could be relevant when activating

cognate recognition strategies in context (Montelongo, 2010)

Conclusion

Although learning English is a challenging task for many Spanish speakers, positive

transfer of information can simplify the process of acquisition. Knowledge of the similarities and

differences between Spanish and English is crucial in regards to facilitating positive transfer

from Spanish to English. Becoming more familiar with Spanish to English cognates is a strategy

that many classroom teachers are utilizing in order to enhance the decoding process when

learning English. Through implementing positive instructional practices into the classroom that

can help to facilitate the process of cognate awareness between Spanish and English, teachers

can assist ELLs in making connections from their native language to English, which will be

beneficial in a more effective and accelerated English language acquisition.

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References

Gómez, C. L. (2010). Teaching with cognates. Teaching Children Mathematics, 16(8), 470-474.

Kelley, A., & Kohnert, K. (2012). Is there a cognate advantage for typically developing spanish-

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43(2), 191. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2011/10-0022)

Malabonga, V., Kenyon, D. M., Carlo, M., August, D., & Louguit, M. (2008). Development of a

cognate awareness measure for spanish-speaking english language learners. Language

Testing, 25(4), 495-519. doi:10.1177/0265532208094274

Montelongo, José A. "Library Instruction and Spanish-English Cognate Recognition." Teacher

Librarian 38, no. 2 (2010): 32.

Simpson Baird, A., Palacios, N., & Kibler, A. (2016). The cognate and false cognate knowledge

of young emergent bilinguals. Language Learning, 66(2), 448-470.

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