Spanish

Spanish is a global language spoken by approximately 500 million people across the world. Spanish evolved from Latin on the Iberian Peninsula in around the ninth century, and travelled from Spain to the Caribbean and to North, Central and South America as a result of the expeditions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The language has been enriched by many other languages, including Arabic, Basque, Greek, French, English and the indigenous languages of the Americas.

The migration of Spanish speakers to Australia began in the nineteenth century and increased during the 20^th century with people migrating from countries such as Spain, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru and Guatemala.

As Spanish belongs to the family of Romance languages, derived from Latin, it has many lexical and structural connections with English as well as other European languages. As a result of this relationship, knowledge of Spanish can facilitate the learning of other languages from the Romance family, such as Catalan, Galician, Italian, French, Portuguese and Romanian.

The Australian Curriculum: Languages, Foundation to Year 10 for Spanish is pitched to second language learners, the dominant cohort of learners in the Australian context. The Australian Curriculum: Languages for Spanish has been developed according to two learning sequences: Foundation to Year 10, and Years 7 to 10 (Year 7 entry). Teachers will use the curriculum to cater for learners of different backgrounds by making appropriate adjustments to differentiate learning experiences for these students.