Teacher Development and National Standards for Spanish as a Heritage Language

Abstract

Given the increasing presence of heritage speakers at both the high school and postsecondary levels, greater numbers of preservice and in‐service Spanish teachers need exposure to Spanish for native speakers (SNS) issues. This is because well‐structured SNS courses should look more like native language arts courses than like Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) courses. Therefore, traditional foreign language methodology courses are insufficient to prepare teachers to work with heritage‐speaking populations. In addition to offering considerations for national standards in SNS teaching, the authors suggest coursework components designed to prepare teachers to work more effectively with SNS students.

Institutional representations of ‘Spanish’ and ‘Spanglish’: managing competing discourses in heritage language instruction

“…It is widely accepted that one of the main goals of teaching Spanish to heritage speakers should be to broaden students' linguistic repertoires (Beaudrie, Ducar, & Potowski, 2014;Potowski & Carreira, 2004;Valdés, 1997), but the best way to do so remains a topic of debate in the scholarly literature (Del Valle, 2014). In order to address this need, others have made important arguments for teaching methodologies that raise students' awareness about linguistic variation and the relations of power embodied in the ways people use and make reference to language and language users (Del Valle, 2014;Leeman, 2005;Martínez, 2003) and critical service learning projects that aim to combat linguistic injustice and simultaneously provide HL students with opportunities to use their linguistic skills in different contexts outside of the classroom (Leeman, Rabin, & Román-Mendoza, 2011;Martínez & Schwartz, 2012).…”

Recursos para la enseñanza de español como lengua heredada

“…La investigación lingüística y educativa más reciente en este campo propone de manera consistente que, dadas las características lingüísticas, sociales y culturales de los jóvenes latinos, es imperativo diseñar cursos de español que consideren tanto las fortalezas como las necesidades específicas que los caracterizan (Potowski y Carreira 2004;Valdés 2001Valdés , 2005. Por ejemplo, ya que estos jóvenes han crecido dentro de un ambiente familiar donde se habla español, tienen un conocimiento y dominio de la lengua y cultura que no tienen sus pares no-latinos.…”

Implementing concept-based instruction in the heritage language classroom: A pedagogical proposal

“…The field of Spanish heritage language (SHL) education has traditionally focused on two key areas of the HL classroom: the implementation of fair assessment tools capable of evaluating such a heterogeneous student population and the development of effective instructional methods dedicated to the teaching of grammar and other aspects of language. Regarding the former, Beaudrie (2012Beaudrie ( , 2016 and Potowski and Carreira (2004) propose that placement exams and classroom assessments should be as individualized and as flexible as possible. As Carreira (2012) showed, this can be achieved by setting up ongoing formative assessments throughout the semester, which allow for close monitoring of HLL's progress and the adaptation of classroom practices to better suit their needs.…”