Teaching Gender in Spanish as a Foreign Language: Gendered Occupational Nouns

In a world that is constantly changing, speakers need to keep up with current trends in the language they are choosing to interact in, be it their native language or a foreign one. More often than not, learning a foreign language means learning a second culture and understanding the social changes that represent the cause behind each and every innovation that occurs in that language. Seeing as how the topic of gendered occupational nouns has proven to be highly debatable in recent years, and given the fact that it represents a major and undeniable change in modern-day spoken and written Spanish, its importance as an educational topic is evident. The aim of this paper is to present a systematization of some of the issues that may be encountered in the process of teaching gender to students that are learning Spanish as a foreign language, particularly when it comes to studying gendered nouns in professional settings. The second focus of the study is to provide a list of relevant themes and topics that could prove useful when designing syllabi for a Spanish language and gender course, in order to achieve optimal results by selecting proper and adequate curricular content according to the students' educational needs. (C) 2016 Published by Future Academy