Spanish is a vibrant language in the United Sates. It is the second-most used language in the United States, and Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens are the fastest growing linguistic group in the country. We have witnessed a tremendous increase in speakers of this language and other minority languages in recent years. As of 2017, almost 67 million individuals, or 1 in 5, speak a language other than English at home. This population has been steadily increasing for the last three decades, doubling since 1990 and nearly tripling since 1980. Spanish speakers account for a high proportion of that growth, reaching nearly 41 million in 2017. In the Southwest, almost 20% of the population claim to be Spanish speakers.
Worldwide, almost 600 million people speak Spanish today, making it the world’s third most spoken language, after Mandarin Chinese and English. Spanish is the official language in 21 countries, including Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, and others. It is the second most-used language in international communication and an official language of the United Nations, the European Union and the World Trade Organization.
In the United States, the Hispanic student population in higher education has also grown steadily over the last four decades from 383,800 (13%) in the Fall of 1976 to 3,540,600 (23.0%) in the Fall of 2017 (NCES, 2018). Not surprisingly, Spanish heritage programs in the Southwest are expanding as much as in other regions of the United States with as many as 66 out of 173, or 38%, of four-year universities offering especially designed language courses for these learners, comparable with national average of 40% (Beaudrie, 2012).
This book has been designed for learners who grew up in contact with Spanish and English, called heritage learners, who wish to continue developing their bilingual skills and avoid losing this valuable resource. It builds on the Spanish language competence they already have and aims at expanding their level of proficiency for bilingual use in a wide range of contexts. By working on speaking, writing, listening, and reading, this book aims to expand students’ bilingual abilities in Spanish in a confidence-building environment with engaging and meaningful activities. With a fluency-building curriculum, students will have many opportunities to gain confidence and practice their interactional skills in Spanish. Confidence is built through a very encouraging and nurturing environment where both students’ language abilities and their language varieties are fully respected and incorporated in the classroom.
Many of the themes and activities in the book will prepare students for long-term heritage language maintenance. They will learn about the value and benefits of maintaining their heritage language and how to do it. One important way to do that is by reading. Literacy development is another important goal for this course and students will encounter numerous opportunities to practice their reading and writing with engaging texts and projects. Also, students’ families and communities are incorporated as teaching resources through daily activities and projects. Students’ cultures are also included to form the core of the thematic presentations in this book. Students will explore cultural manifestations, values, and traditions of their own families and communities as well as others. This will also facilitate discussions and explorations of their bilingual and bicultural identities.
This books features units that follow project-based learning (PBL). PBL centers on student-led discovery through engaging projects that contribute to their active learning. The idea is that students learn from experience when they become engaged in a topic through inquiry, collaboration, and reflection. This approach is especially beneficial for heritage learners because it allows teachers to differentiate instruction and be able to address student diverse needs and abilities. Through PBL, students create projects of personal relevance using their language skills as a medium to grow linguistically while also acquiring content and 21st century academic skills. In addition, PBL opens opportunities to research, read about, share and connect with the Spanish speaking community surrounding the learners, exposing them to authentic language use outside of the classroom. Through PBL, the community is a valuable learning asset that can offer many opportunities for learners to maintain and strengthen their heritage language and culture.
Grammar instruction is short, meaningful, and contextualized by utilizing the themes and projects of each unit as discussion points. It is also meant to address the specific needs of the students with the use of pre-testing and post-testing for grammar and spelling topics. We also present different activities and choices within activities so that students can select the ones that are more relatable to them. Importantly, grammar content takes into consideration the linguistic realities and contexts of students in this course and avoids the imposition of certain dialectal forms that may be foreign to students.
The authors of this books are experienced professionals in the field of heritage language education:
Melissa Negrón is a Spanish instructor at Arizona State University and the coordinator of the Spanish for heritage learners program. She is completing her PhD in Spanish linguistics at the same university where she specializes in heritage language education and research.
Nayibe Azzad is a Spanish graduate associate at Arizona State University where she teaches heritage courses the Spanish for heritage learners program. She is completing her PhD in Spanish linguistics at the same university where she specializes in heritage language education and research.
Sara Beaudrie is Associate Professor of Spanish Linguistics in the School of International Letters & Cultures at Arizona State University and Director of the Spanish Heritage Program. She received her Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition Teaching with a minor in Spanish linguistics from the University of Arizona. Her research interests include classroom instruction, language program administration, critical approaches to heritage pedagogy, and heritage language assessment and literacy development. She has published over 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals and presented in over 50 invited and referred national and international conferences. She is the co-editor of Spanish as a heritage language in the United States: The State of the Field (Georgetown University Press, 2012), the co-author of Heritage language pedagogy: Research and practice (McGraw-Hill, 2014), and the co-editor of Innovative strategies for heritage language teaching: A practical guide for the classroom (Georgetown University Press, 2016).
