Abstract:

The focus of the article is the issue of teaching Spanish to Russian schoolchildren, whose first foreign language at school is English. The relevance of the paper is determined by the fact that since 2019 the second foreign language has been a mandatory subject in the Russian school curriculum. The list of languages studied as a second foreign language includes German, French, Italian, Spanish and other foreign languages. Many secondary schools choose Spanish because among the top ten languages of the world it currently holds the second position. The purpose of the research was to identify the features of teaching Spanish based on English in a secondary school. The majority of schoolchildren have a certain command of the English language by the time they start learning Spanish. The research was also aimed at summarizing and clarifying the problems encountered in teaching Spanish on the basis of English and giving some recommendations on using textbooks like "Mañana" at Russian secondary schools.

When learning a second foreign language, students unknowingly transfer language phenomena from their native and first foreign languages to a second foreign language. The teacher's task is to help overcome interference by anticipating possible difficulties, comparing language systems, as well as teaching students self-study linguistic analysis. The authors have drawn the conclusion that the teacher should create at the lesson the atmosphere of cooperation and mutual assistance in doing communicative and interactive exercises, as well as a favorable psychological climate. It is important to show the practical significance of the study material, which increases the cognitive activity of students.

Keywords:

Language education, Spanish, student, teacher, learning, language interference.