Teaching cognates in isolation and context: a practical note on Montelongo, et al. (2009)

The use of cognates in teaching word identification and vocabulary meaning is an underused resource in the teaching of English-language learners, especially for learners whose language is similar to English, e.g., Spanish. A recent study by Montelongo, Hernandez, Herter, and Hernandez reported that the effect of initial consonants was strong for recognizing words in isolation. In addition, they pointed out that cognates containing suffixes identical between English and Spanish were more quickly recognized than cognates containing similar but not identical suffixes. Further, they stated teachers would do well to take these differences into account when employing a cognate strategy with their Latino English-language learners. The purpose of this response is to discuss how different types of cognates and their various meanings may be examined by educators and students when employing cognates as a strategy in learning English.