Portuguese and Spanish: A Comparison
Objective
As a result of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Identify 6 common pattern changes between Spanish and Portuguese.
- Convert words between Spanish and Portuguese using the 6 common pattern changes.
Teacher Note
This lesson presupposes that students already possess a working knowledge of the Spanish language.
Material
Activities
- As an anticipatory set, ask students the following questions:
- Where is Spanish commonly spoken? (List student responses on the board. If global maps are available, direct students to locate these nations on a map.)
- Where is Portuguese commonly spoken? (List student responses on the board. If global maps are available, direct students to locate these nations on a map. Emphasize that Portuguese is the primary language of Brazil.)
- What do Spanish and Portuguese have in common? (Emphasize that they are both Romance languages and have many similarities.)
- Distribute the student worksheet entitled Spanish vs. Portuguese.
- Explain to the students that there are several common pattern changes between Spanish and Portuguese as reflected in this handout.
- Review with the class the pattern changes in the handout, encouraging students to pronounce the words in both Spanish and Portuguese.
- Following the review, distribute the student handout entitled Now Its Your Turn!
- Divide students into pairs, and direct students to work with their partner to apply the common patterns and convert the Spanish terms to Portuguese.
- Circulate among the working pairs and provide assistance as needed.
- When students have finished, review the conversions with the class as a whole.
- Keeping the students in pairs, pass out sets of The Memory Game cards. (Note: The teacher will need to photocopy and cut-out sufficient sets of Memory Game cards.)
- Explain that the objective of the game is to match as many Spanish words to Portuguese words as possible.
- Direct students to lay out their Memory Cards face down.
- Students need to take turns choosing two cards. When the students find a match, they are to keep the cards.
- The student with the most pairs at the end of the game wins
- Concluding activity.
- Review the common patterns between Spanish and Portuguese by reviewing the matches from the Memory game.
- Ask students come to the board and to illustrate one of the common patterns between Spanish and Portuguese using the words discussed in this lesson.
