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Josephine Cambambia posted an update in the group Heritage Spanish Café 5 years, 1 month ago
Hello! I’m new to the site and hope that I’m posting the following question in the correct spot. I have been working as a teacher of heritage and native Spanish speakers in the Twin Cities for 20 years. I’m accustomed to teaching classes with a broad range of fluency in all aspects of the Spanish language, many times in the same classroom. So, when director of World Languages in our district recently asked me my opinion regarding a teacher who would like to create a separate class for heritage learners who she feels have little fluency in Spanish, I thought I’d reach out to experts, like you. It’s my understanding that there is a student-teacher conflict because the teacher is a native speaker of Spanish and the students are heritage learners. Although the students feel very attached to their heritage language and cultures, the teacher feels their language skills are too low for Native/Heritage Language classes. My thoughts are to accommodate and differentiate the curriculum to meet the needs of the students while her suggestion is creating a new class for Latinos who she doesn’t feel meet the language skills she wants them to have or to move them to “traditional” Spanish 1 classes (for non-native and non-heritage learners). I’d love your hear your opinions and see any articles you may think would be useful. Thank you for your guidance!
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Hello Josephine,
Thank you for sharing your question. Based on your post, it looks like the teacher wants to create a class for Heritage learners who she thinks are “low” compared to what she expects a Heritage Language class should be, right?
If that’s the case, I agree with you in terms of accommodate based on their needs.
However, if the teacher feels that by having a class just for that specific group of students, they could definitely expand their language skills, and if the school approves it, I don’t see why not.
On another aspect, it might be necessary to assess what the teacher calls low skills and what is her idea of necessary skills according to a certain level of fluency. For example, Check ACTFL’s Proficiency Guidelines to have an idea.
Finally, regarding the last part of your post, there are some studies about this kind of topics; Kim Potowski is a well-known researcher/professor from the Chicago Area -Close to you- who has done a lot of research in this aspect. Also, there will be a workshop in Minnesota at the end of July that could provide more information about these topics and guide everybody on making this kind of decisions. You can find more details about this workshop in our section called “Details”
I hope this information may be useful for you.
Thank you for your sharing.
Hola, Josephine. Is it possible for your school to create a Spanish I and a Spanish II for heritage learners? That could be a solution.
Agree with everything Oscar said. I am a believer in using ACTFL’s proficiency levels to examine what heritage sts can do. A Novice-Low heritage learner would basically be a student with a Hispanic last name but has little to no exposure to the language. An L2 class is probably the best placement – because ultimately, it is going to truly be a second language for that student – linguistically at least.
I don’t see there being a conflict between a teacher being a native speaker and the students being heritage speakers. In fact, I think that’s very ideal actually. A native speaker can often bring in the registers of language into the classroom discourse that another heritage teacher or non-native teacher may not be able to.
Personally, I feel like the ideal heritage classes should be geared to students that already possess Intermediate-Mid level proficiency or higher. Maybe really motivated Intermediate-Low students could do a course. But in my opinion, heritage classes should be about getting heritage speakers to become advanced speakers of the language, and if they’re already advanced, getting them to be superior speakers.
Agree with everything Oscar said. I am a believer in using ACTFL’s proficiency levels to examine what heritage sts can do. A Novice-Low heritage learner would basically be a student with a Hispanic last name but has little to no exposure to the language. An L2 class is probably the best placement – because ultimately, it is going to truly be a second language for that student – linguistically at least.
I don’t see there being a conflict between a teacher being a native speaker and the students being heritage speakers. In fact, I think that’s very ideal actually. A native speaker can often bring in the registers of language into the classroom discourse that another heritage teacher or non-native teacher may not be able to.
Personally, I feel like the ideal heritage classes should be geared to students that already possess Intermediate-Mid level proficiency or higher. Maybe really motivated Intermediate-Low students could do a course. But in my opinion, heritage classes should be about getting heritage speakers to become advanced speakers and writers of the language, and if they’re already advanced, getting them to be superior speakers and writers.
Thank you for all of your responses! I am thrilled to find a supportive and expert community and to have your guidance!
We are definitely users of ACTFL standards and guidelines, so I agree that we could better assess students in order for them to qualify for heritage classes or non-heritage classes. If anyone is willing to share placement tests that they use, I’d love to see what other schools are using. I think we are trying to figure out best placement for students. Do we place novice-low students who identify as Latinx into heritage classes or into Spanish 1 classes? We have the ability to offer at least 2 levels of heritage classes, I & II.
Thought or examples regarding placement? Thanks!
Thank you Josephine for sharing your concerns with us. The idea is that we teachers are not alone and here you can find a way to get the help / advice you need.
Thank you everybody for your wonderful ideas and comments; this is an excellent way to grow professionally and to make our role as Spanish teachers get the recognition it deserves. All in benefit of our students, our language and our culture.
Feel free to keep posting your questions, sharing important info / events and materials. That’s the purpose of COERLL. Hope to see all in our event in June.
Gracias a todos!
Josephine – You’ll have to articulate what types of heritage speakers you are reaching, and what level you will pitch the course at. If you decide to take my route (a course starting with HL learners who are pretty much Intermediate-Mid with proficiency, perhaps flexing for some Intermediate-Low’s), you would need a placement process that evaluates if sts are comfortable at the intermediate level. And that has to do with ACTFL’s proficiency levels, OPI type stuff, etc. What I’ve found is that 4-5 written prompts at the Int & Adv levels, and a hallway conversation with questions at those same levels also, renders a good placement.
Some heritage educators cringe at my application of ACTFL’s proficiency levels to heritage learners. I believe they’re very relevant.