Spanish Heritage Language Research Articles

Challenging deficit ideologies in Spanish heritage language policies and programs

AbstractThis study analyzes the programs and policies for Spanish heritage language (SHL) students in Iowa high schools. Previous research suggests that SHL students do not enjoy equitable educational experiences in Spanish language classrooms, which are often taught by and designed for traditional second language learners. In US states like Iowa, there is no language policy that provides a facilitative structure for Heritage language education, so issues of educational opportunity for SHL students are addressed locally. Teachers are, therefore, particularly influential language policy and education arbiters. In this paper, we analyze (1) how Iowa language policy is interpreted and appropriated by high school Spanish teachers and (2) the perspectives of high school Spanish teachers about Heritage language education. Findings reveal that many teachers reject the monoglossic ideologies popular in Spanish language classrooms and instead celebrate the unique verbal repertoires of their SHL students. Implications for language policy and practice are discussed.

Spanish heritage language students’ writing perspectives

Although the field of heritage language education has thrived in recent years and has focused primarily on the development of biliteracies in Spanish heritage language (SHL) students (e.g., Belpoliti & Bermejo, 2020; Samaniego & Warner, 2016), there is a scarcity of research on SHL students’ writing practices. Moreover, instructional practices and technological developments have transformed the landscape of SHL writing, underscoring the need to understand SHL students’ practices and perceptions of writing. The present study explores this gap in the literature by reporting on an online survey taken by 96 SHL students in the United States. SHL students reported a desire to improve their writing and regarded linguistic issues (e.g., accuracy, accent marks, and writing conventions) as their primary challenges. They considered technology helpful while writing in Spanish, but their use of social tools was not widespread. Although student responses often aligned with educators’ perspectives from previous research (Padial et al., 2024), students reported using English to plan their writing more frequently than instructors reported teaching the use of English as strategy. Students overestimated the importance that their instructors gave to grammar and orthography/accentuation.

“Dime con Quién Andas y te Diré Qué Piensas Sobre el Español de los US”: Language Attitudes and Motivation to Learn Spanish as a Heritage Language through the Lens of Social Networks

This study explores the motivation and attitudes of heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish, focusing on the influence of their social networks. Previous research highlighted variations in HS motivation, attributed to social, cultural, and contextual factors. The study investigates how HS communities shape motivation and attitudes towards learning the heritage language (HL). Employing personal network analysis, the research surveyed 26 Spanish HSs in a Spanish heritage language program. Results revealed that HS networks primarily consisted of emotionally close family members. Positive and negative factors within these networks, such as language support, confidence, shame, and expectations, significantly influenced HS motivation and attitudes. Language attitudes within the network positively impacted individual attitudes, indicating a process of internalizing shared values. The study emphasizes the importance of considering the context surrounding HSs and suggests that addressing language expectations and fostering language support in communities may positively transform perceptions of Spanish in the United States. The findings underscore the effectiveness of a personal network approach in recreating the external environment beyond the language classroom.

Voices of SHL educators

Abstract Even though the field of heritage language education has flourished in recent years and has placed emphasis on the development of biliteracies in Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners (e.g., Belpoliti & Bermejo, 2020; Samaniego & Warner, 2016), little is known about how SHL writing instruction is conducted in terms of educators’ practices and perceptions. Through an online survey distributed across the United States, SHL educators reported the main challenges they face (e.g., working with accuracy, writing conventions), strategies they use (e.g., modelling), and the technology they use to teach writing. The survey also provides an overview of the importance given to various elements of a composition (e.g., task type, range of vocabulary) when teaching SHL courses. Overall, SHL educators’ perceptions provide a knowledge base of instructor experiences and practices that can assist in teacher training and inform curricular models.

Voicing Spanish Heritage Language Learners’ Identity through Writing: An Activity Theory Conceptualization of Self-Representation and Cultural Belonging

Voicing Spanish Heritage Language Learners’ Identity through Writing: An Activity Theory Conceptualization of Self-Representation and Cultural Belonging

Written Subject Pronoun Expression among Spanish Heritage Language Learners

Este artículo analiza la producción del pronombre sujeto en español desde una nueva perspectiva: el género escrito. A través del análisis de 90 ensayos escritos por estudiantes de español como lengua de herencia, el presente estudio ofrece avances en el entendimiento del comportamiento del pronombre sujeto en la escritura. Aunque el comportamiento del pronombre sujero varía en cuanto a su frecuencia de uso en las diferentes variedades de español, se han encontrado patrones similares que predicen el comportamiento de dichos pronombres (Carvalho et al., 2015). El presente estudio explora si estos patrones de comportamiento (explorados hasta ahora solo en el ámbito de la oralidad) se mantienen en la escritura de nuestros participantes: hablantes de herencia.

Research on university‐based Spanish heritage language programs in the United States: The state of affairs in 2022

AbstractResearch on Spanish heritage language (SHL) education has grown exponentially in the last two decades. The most recent nationwide study on SHL programs in US postsecondary institutions was conducted a decade ago. To continue this line of research, the primary aim of this study is to provide an update about the current state of SHL course offerings at 4‐year universities in the United States. SHL programs can promote academic success for Latinx students who see their language and culture asserted. In turn, valuing their heritage language skills and supporting their language development can help Latinx students expand their multilingual abilities for use with their families and communities, as well as in professional contexts. Results reveal that the last decade (2012–2022) witnessed tremendous increase in the availability of SHL programs, although some of the challenges reported in prior research still remain nationwide.

The Implementation of Critical Pedagogies in the Spanish Heritage Language Classroom

In an attempt to battle systemic oppression towards Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) speakers in the United States, theoretical advances in the field of SHL education have pointed to a critical turn (Leeman & Serafini, 2016; Martínez, 2003; among others). At the core of critical pedagogies is the goal of legitimizing and empowering SHL speakers. Developing students’ critical consciousness about how languages/dialects are valued differently based on power dynamics enables them to question taken-for-granted and essentialist language assumptions and, consequently, better engage in the quest for social change. Nevertheless, there is still a gap between theory and practice due to the lack of critical pedagogical materials. This paper shares and reflects on SHL students’ feedback on the implementation of such materials in the classroom. It discusses the challenges and lessons learned in attempting to bridge theory and practice. The ultimate goal of this study is to inform and encourage other educators to collaborate in a transformative agenda aimed at the integration of critical pedagogies into the field of SHL education.

Fostering Latinx/e Students’ Familial Capital in the Spanish Heritage Language Program at the University of Washington

In this En Acción paper, I show how we (director, coordinator, and instructors) have fostered Latinx/e students’ familial capital in the Spanish Heritage Language Program at the University of Washington. Familial capital recognizes the nurtured relationship students have with their immediate and extended family members and communities. This capital also includes the lessons students learned on caring, coping, emotional, moral, and educational consciousness from their family members. Additionally, this capital pulls from the research of Vélez-Ibáñez and Greenber (1992) on Funds of Knowledge that points out that Mexican Americans learn valuable lessons from their family and community that have been passed down across generations. In the SHL classroom context, familial capital focuses on creating relationships of care among students and educators. This includes building a sense of community in and outside the classroom and developing a mentorship relationship between the students and educator. This is possible by explicitly implementing Latinx/e community cultural wealth in the SHL curricula

Spanish Heritage Language Learners' Reading Accuracy and Spelling Difficulties

Spelling has been recognized as a challenging aspect of literacy for Spanish Heritage Language Learners (SHLLs). This study examines the relationship between reading and spelling accuracy, with a specific focus on the vowel e, in monophthongs and diphthongs. A total of forty-five participants completed the Bilingual Language Profile and a reading task involving the contrast between monophthongs and diphthongs in real words and pseudowords. The results of the study indicate that participants encountered greater difficulties in accurately reading the vowel e when it appeared in a diphthong (ie) than when it appeared in a monophthong. Moreover, participants’ reading abilities were subject to a lexicality effect and hindered by limited phonological awareness and decoding skills. The paper further explores the connections between individual language dominance factors and literacy measures.

A call for critical and open pedagogies in Spanish heritage language instruction: Students as knowledge producers of Open Educational Resources (OERs)

This paper stresses the urgent need to implement critical and open pedagogies in language teaching, especially in the Spanish heritage language classroom. Language courses are often compulsory in secondary and higher education and typically employ traditional pedagogical models that are structured by grammar and/or communication tasks. This study introduces how heritage language teaching emerged as a field of study in the United States and offers a brief overview of critical and open pedagogies and their connection to open educational resources. This paper then introduces critical and open pedagogies to teaching Spanish as a heritage language, followed by a critical look at the existing Spanish teaching material. As an alternative to this material, this article shares a project titled “Discovering El Barrio” which addresses an innovative and productive pedagogical practice carried out by a Spanish heritage language class at Lehman College, CUNY. In this project, Spanish heritage language learners (HLL) became producers of authentic teaching and learning materials for second language (L2) Spanish learners.

Examining Oral (Dis)Fluency in—uh– —Spanish as a Heritage Language

Silence, self-interruptions, or hesitations in spontaneous speech are often interpreted as markers of oral disfluency as they lead to difficulties in delivering a message and in processing it. The main purpose of this study is to examine how such markers of discourse structure factor into the overall oral fluency of 58 US Spanish heritage language learners enrolled in Spanish classes at the college level. Participants were grouped according to age of onset of bilingualism (i.e., sequential or simultaneous) and the order in which they acquired each language (i.e., English first or Spanish first). After completing a semi-controlled oral production task, in both Spanish and English, breakdown pauses and repair pauses were extracted and then analyzed in terms of quantity, quality, and mean duration. Our findings revealed (i) that all groups produced shorter pauses in English, their dominant language; and (ii) that all experimental groups behaved very similarly in Spanish despite having had different experiences with bilingualism growing up. Albeit tentatively, given the sample size and the nature of the present study, we take these findings to suggest that type of heritage bilingualism and the order in which each language was acquired does not seem to play a significant role in terms of production of breakdown and repair pauses.

The Phonetic and Morphosyntactic Dimensions of Grammatical Gender in Spanish Heritage Language Acquisition

Abstract Previous studies disagree as to whether heritage bilinguals demonstrate loss of knowledge of Spanish grammatical gender. As phonetic variability is known to affect the acquisition of certain grammatical markers, we examine whether bilinguals’ gender difficulties relate to bilingual contact-induced phonetic variability, namely, reduction in the inventory of word-final unstressed vowels. We analyzed narratives from children in the United States (n = 49, ages 4–12). All NP s (n = 1415) were analyzed for structure, noun class, and morphology. Word-final vowels were sub-selected for acoustic analyses. Morpho-syntactically, group results show high accuracy with gender (95%), but with wide individual variation (44%–100%). Speakers also show individual variability and substantive numbers of vowel misclassifications (6%–33%) with higher variability for /a/ and /o/. We found bilingual effects in both domains but no association between phonetics and gender accuracy. These findings have implications for the relationship between phonetics and grammar, and for the morphosyntax of Spanish gender.

Building Comfort and Pride at the Borderlands of Spanish and English

Language teacher identity shapes how teachers teach (Kayi-Aydar, 2019) and is vitally important to understand in the context of a Club that aims to support high school students in reclaiming their Spanish. This paper describes how three undergraduate university students of color’s raciolinguistic identities (Rosa & Flores, 2017) were impacted by reflecting on events in the Club and in their own lives while facilitating an afterschool Spanish heritage language Club at a continuation high school. Analysis of interviews with the teachers, curriculum, and observations in the Club through a postcolonial lense revealed that a focus on building comfort and pride in the contested space between English and Spanish through flexible use of English and Spanish, not knowing Spanish, practicing Spanish, pride in Spanish, raising the status of Spanish(es), and the space between two worlds strengthened and deepened the three teachers’ raciolinguistic identities.

Spanish heritage language learners’ motivational profile in the postsecondary classroom: Insights from psychological network modeling

AbstractThis study sought to investigate the psychological network structure of adult Spanish heritage language (HL) learners’ motivational profile by considering interconnections among the following variables: the possible HL selves, family influence, intended HL learning effort, HL achievement goal orientations, HL enjoyment, HL anxiety, perceived classroom environment, and critical language awareness. In line with a complex systems perspective, mutually interdependent connections among variables were estimated using psychological network modeling. The analysis revealed a majority of positive associations among the system constituents, with nodes representing the possible HL selves, HL enjoyment, and intended HL learning effort holding the most central influence on the network. Results also shed light on the unexplored relevance of critical language awareness in understanding HL learners’ motivational and emotional dispositions. We discuss the theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological implications of the study, highlighting the potential of network analysis for providing insights into complex psychological phenomena.

Digital Storytelling: Changing Learners’ Attitudes and Self-efficacy Beliefs

Abstract This study examines the impact of writing instruction on Spanish heritage language (SHL) learners’ attitudes towards digital stories (DS) and self-efficacy beliefs with regard to academic writing, multiliteracies, and computer abilities. Two types of writing instruction—a traditional curriculum centered around genres and a multiliteracies curriculum consisting of the interpretation and design of DSs—were implemented in fourth and fifth-semester SHL courses at a US university in the Southwest. Drawing on Gardner’s (1985) conceptualization of attitude, and Bandura’s (1991) construct of perceived self-efficacy, a survey was designed to explore changes in participants’ (n = 225) scores before and after the treatments. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine the reliability of the instrument and a latent mean structure analysis was used to explore differences among groups before and after the 16-week intervention period. Findings indicate that curricular changes aimed at developing multiliteracies benefitted participants in two of the four domains under examination: attitude towards DSs and self-efficacy in multiliteracies abilities. Areas in which participants exposed to the multiliteracies curriculum did not experience a positive impact—self-efficacy in academic writing abilities and computer abilities—provide insights into how multiliteracies abilities develop and potential modifications that can be implemented in the curriculum to maximize its positive impact.

Multilingual Realities, Monolingual Ideologies: Social Media Representations of Spanish as a Heritage Language in the United States

Abstract Little is known about how monolingual ideologies and their effects manifest in online contexts as compared to offline contexts. We conducted a corpus-assisted discourse study to investigate this, with a focus on Twitter representations of Spanish as a heritage language in the USA. We analysed two corpora (one English and one Spanish—over 30 million words), examining frequencies, collocations, concordance lines, and larger text segments. The results revealed evidence of the same ideologies found in offline contexts: normative monolingualism (drawing on the one-nation-one-language ideology and language purity ideologies) as well as raciolinguistic ideologies. We show how the semiotic processes of iconization and erasure lead to the (evidently erroneous) essentialization of Spanish heritage language speakers as a homogeneous group of un-American, racialized immigrants with broken language. This discursive creation of difference constitutes the basis for the systematic discrimination of Spanish heritage language speakers, thus reflecting and reproducing social inequality. Our findings therefore indicate the necessity of extending planning measures to protect heritage language speakers (and other minority groups) from offline contexts to online contexts.

Interactional Competence in the Heritage Language during a Study Abroad Service-Learning Program: A Case Study

Abstract This case study describes the interactional competence of one U.S. Spanish heritage language learner (HLL), during a five-week study abroad program in Spain that included service-learning. Data were drawn primarily from audiotapes, reflection essays, and an exit interview. The audiotapes included “Mía’s” conversations at the service-learning site, a summer camp for young children. The three resource categories in Young’s (2019) model of Practice Theory of identity, linguistic, and interactional resources facilitated the analysis of Mía’s intercultural competence. The qualitative analysis describes, first, Mía’s resources during discursive practices with children and peer teachers at the camp, reflecting the construction of her identity as an educator. Second, we examine possible connections between Mía’s resources and her Spanish learning history. We show that the linguistic and interactional resources observed in her interactions are congruent with her HLL background, as seen in her lexical choices and flexibility interacting with diverse interlocutors. These findings of one HLL’s linguistic activity shed light on her interactional competence in this context, thus contributing to the literature on HLL s in study abroad.

A Linguistic and Socio-affective Approach to Developing an Online Spanish Heritage Placement Exam

Abstract This article describes the development and validation of a placement exam designed to identify and place Spanish heritage language learners in the heritage language program at Lehman College, the City University of New York (CUNY), an urban institution located in Northeastern United States (Bronx, New York City). Building upon previous research (e.g., Fairclough et al., 2010; Potowski et al., 2012), we provide an overview of the process we followed, including selecting content, computerization of the exam, and reliability analysis. A combination of quantitative analyses and qualitative observations during the pilot phase allowed us to identify the linguistic areas that were better at discriminating among levels, and the socio-affective factors that had to be taken into account to understand learners’ needs. As we continue to improve subsequent versions of the exam, this approach will allow us to better place students while reassessing and redesigning the curriculum.

Default Grapheme and Language Transfer in the Spelling of /s/ in Spanish Heritage Language Learners

Abstract This study investigates the spelling proficiency of Spanish heritage language learners (SHLLs) in the Spanish phoneme-grapheme correspondence that has been identified as the source of the greatest number of spelling errors: /s/ → s, c, z. Using a naturalistic corpus, this study aims to ascertain whether (1) s is SHLL’s default grapheme in the representation of /s/; (2) cognate status is a facilitative factor in spelling; and (3) previous Spanish language instruction affects individual performance in the spelling of /s/. The results show that the preference for s is mediated by difficulties with the c/z alternation and poor spelling in z words. In addition, cognate status was shown to have a facilitative effect in the three relevant graphemes. Finally, the results indicate that one or more years of previous language instruction in secondary school make a statistically significant difference, but that additional Spanish instruction beyond two years did not bring corresponding gains. The results of this study contribute to the scarce literature in Spanish spelling in this population and have pedagogical implications for orthographic patterns that merit particular instructional focus, as well as for strategies that take full advantage of cognates (including semi-cognates and false cognates) in spelling instruction.