Fundamentación teórica de la importancia de la lengua materna en el proceso de adquisición de lenguas extranjeras

This paper analyzes the role the mother tongue plays in the acquisition of foreign languages. The main motivation for investigating this issue is an awareness, after years of teaching experience with students of various nationalities studying Spanish as a foreign language, that materials and teaching methodologies must be adapted to the individual characteristics of students, with particular emphasis to their mother tongue. In today's foreign language classes, regardless of where these are taught (universities, language institutions, private schools, etc.), teaching is carried out in a uniform way, without taking into account the origin or linguistic background of the students. From a linguistic point of view this is a serious error, as the ease or difficulty of learning the target language will vary greatly depending on the learner′s mother tongue.