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Introduction
According to a May 1, 2008, report by the U.S. Census Bureau, the estimated Hispanic population in the United States has surpassed 45 million. At roughly 15% of
the total U.S. population, Hispanics comprise the largest minority group and their
presence continues to grow. Consequently, heritage language (HL) speakers of
Spanish have also become a rapidly growing presence at all levels of education,
from elementary school through college (Lynch, 2003). According to Valdes (1997,
2003), most of these bilingual speakers have been enrolled either in traditional
foreign language classrooms or in remedial courses intended to re-teach the basics
of the heritage language they supposedly have not learned well at home. Though
there has been substantial interest among researchers in this minority language
population, most existing goals and pedagogical practices have been inappropriate,
and few Spanish departments have offered special courses to target their real needs.
As Draper and Hicks (2000) indicated, this situation has led to frustration for both
language instructors and advanced HL speakers: Foreign language instructors have
not been trained to deal with these bilingual learners, and HL speakers have not
had their particular needs addressed. For example, although some HL speakers of
Irma Alarcon (PhD, Indiana University) is Assistant Professor of Romance Languages at Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC.
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Method
Participants
The HL speakers of Spanish who participated in this study were the five students
enrolled in the first course specifically designed for HL speakers at their university.
All five of the students in Grammar and
Composition for Heritage Speakers of
Spanish, which was offered in the spring
2008 semester, were self-identified as HL
speakers. The average age of the four females and one male was 19.6. The present
study identifies them as Carmen, Isabel,
Vicky, Rosa, and Pablo. Rosa audited, but
the other four students took the course for
credit. Carmen and Isabel were freshmen,
Pablo was a sophomore, Vicky was a junior,
and Rosa was a senior.
These HL learners initially received a
departmental online diagnostic test con-
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Procedure
The researcher administered the survey in
two sessions. The first part (the first 37
questions) was given during the first class
meeting in order to obtain information necessary for adjusting the course objectives,
content, design, and methodology to coincide as closely as possible with the students
needs. The second part (questions 3856)
was administered the following semester and
was intended to expand upon some of the
earlier questions as well as to provide further
insights and feedback regarding the students
experience in their first HL university-level
course. The following sociolinguistic profile
and qualitative analysis is based on the HL
learners responses to all 56 survey questions,
which correspond to the eight main topics
presented below.
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topics, each of which appears in detail below: (1) personal background; (2) language
contact situations and interlocutors, including type and amount of input exposure;
(3) attitudes toward language and culture,
with particular attention to language usage;
(4) identity and culture issues; (5) awareness of Spanish dialects; (6) self-assessment
of language abilities in both English and
Spanish; (7) personal motivations and future use of the language; and (8) reasons for
enrolling in an HL course.
1. Background
All the participants were born in the United
States, were exposed to Spanish in early
childhood, and came from families of middle or upper socioeconomic class. Their
parents came from different regions of Latin
America but have lived in the United States
for at least 20 years. Except for two mothers, all the parents have college degrees,
some of them have graduate degrees, and all
are professionals, including physicians,
professors, social workers, and businessmen. Their English oral and written
proficiencies range from intermediate to
native-like. Table 1 displays more background details about the HL learners and
their parents.
2. Language Contact
2.1. Family Situations and Interlocutors
All participants reported speaking Spanish
at home, when visiting their relatives
abroad, and when talking with them by
telephone or computer. Although the parents speak Spanish at home, Rosa, Vicky,
and Pablo also indicated using English with
them. Though Spanish is occasionally used
in interactions with siblings, with grandparents and other relatives Spanish is used
exclusively. Nonetheless, the students
dominant language is English, which they
use most frequently in their daily life, at
school and social events, and when conversing with friends both in the United
States and abroad.
No
English
Spanish & English
Peru
Birth
North Carolina
20
Pablo
Birth
North Carolina
21
Rosa
Birth
New York
21
Vicky
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Yes
English
Spanish & English
Cuba
Yes
English
Spanish & English
Argentina
Yes
English
Isabel
Birth
Vermont
18
Mexico
Yes
English
Spanish & English
Birth
Florida
18
Nicaragua
Language in
formal education
Language
used at home
Parents
home country
Age of HL
acquisition
Carmen
TABLE 1
Home
state
Age
Speaker
Spanish instruction
in high school
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dence in their own Spanish language abilities, which is manifested in their approach
to speaking (3.1), listening (3.2), reading
(3.3), and writing (3.4). Positive attitudes
are also reflected in their responses to
questions on identity issues (Section 4 below), their own Spanish variety (Section 5),
and motivations to learn more about Spanish and Hispanic culture (Section 7).
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comfortable. I learned how to read in Spanish before learning how to read in English.
Nonetheless, some of them also realized
that reading is a different and more complex task than speaking. Rosa said, I like
reading in Spanish, though it is a lot more
difficult than speaking. Pablo put it this
way: I usually understand the meaning of
the sentences, but will often have to look up
a few words per page that I am unfamiliar
with to understand it fully.
6. Self-Assessment of HL Proficiency
The survey also measured the HL learners
perception of their own abilities in both
their HL and dominant language. For
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Discussion
Based on the survey results, the three research questions motivating this study,
which are repeated here for convenience,
can now be addressed.
1. What are the distinctive characteristics
of advanced HL speakers of Spanish?
2. How are they different from lowerproficiency HL speakers?
3. What are the pedagogical implications
for HL programs stemming from the
qualitative analysis of the present data?
Characteristics of Advanced
Heritage Language Learners
Colombi and Roca (2003) reminded researchers that: As language instructors we
need to take into account the attitudinal
and sociohistorical factors affecting students in the environment in which we
teach. We should understand that teaching
Spanish as a heritage language in Los Angeles can and will vary widely from the
experience of teaching it in Miami (p. 4).
Similarly, there are significant differences in
teaching HL learners of varied cultural
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TABLE 2
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Pedagogical Implications
Since the backgrounds, attitudes, linguistic
needs, and expectations of lower-level
and advanced-proficiency HL learners
are not the same, course objectives and
classroom practices should also vary.
Most notably, beginning HL learners often
strive to talk more articulately, while advanced HL learners concentrate on
improving their formal writing skills. The
HL learner profile obtained from the present study can help the HL instructor to
better understand the complexity of advanced HL populations and thus create a
more relevant and culturally responsive
teaching and learning environment for heritage learners (Carrasco & Riegelhaupt,
2003, p. 176).
The design of courses for HL students
should not be dictated by any HL or foreign
language textbook, or course syllabus,
or the instructors own agenda, but by
the linguistic needs of the HL students
themselves. Therefore, sociolinguistic back-
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Conclusion
By using an extensive sociolinguistic background survey, the purpose of this study
was to analyze advanced Spanish HL
speakers language attitudes, language contact, and linguistic behaviors in order to
obtain a profile sufficiently detailed for
practical issues in course design. Survey results provided valuable information about
advanced HL speakers, a group whose profile had not previously been fully described
and accurately categorized. Advanced HL
Spanish students are educated and fluent
speakers of the standard variety in their
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Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Drs. Anne Edstrom and
Jennifer Ewald for their comments and support, and to the anonymous reviewers whose
feedback greatly improved this article.
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Notes
1. A stigmatized variety of Spanish implies
a nonstandard or nonacademic use of
the language.
2. Although this sample is small, all participants display comparable language features and sociolinguistic backgrounds.
Their characteristics and experiences
are typical of the type of heritage Spanish speakers enrolled in this specific
institution.
3. See Bogdan and Biklen, 2006, for a discussion of similar methodology.
4. For a detailed discussion of motivation
in general, and integrative versus instrumental motivation in particular, see Gass
and Selinker, 2008, pp. 426432, and
Ellis, 2008, pp. 677691. Although a detailed exploration of the role of motivation in HL speakers goes beyond the
scope of the present study, it is an
issue well worth pursuing, especially
because it has not received the attention
from HL researchers that its importance
suggests.
References
Achugar, M. (2003). Academic registers in
Spanish in the U.S. A study of oral texts produced by bilingual speakers in a university
graduate program. In A. Roca & M. C. Colombi (Eds.), Mi Lengua: Spanish as a heritage
language in the United States (pp. 213234).
Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press.
Alarcon, I. (2006). The second language acquisition of Spanish gender agreement: The effects
of linguistic variables on accuracy. Munich:
Lincom Europa.
Beaudrie, S., & Ducar, C. (2005). Beginning
level university programs: Creating a space for
all heritage language learners. [Electronic
version]. Heritage Language Journal, 3. Retrieved from http://www.heritagelanguages.org
Blake, R. J., & Zyzik, E. C. (2003). Whos
helping whom? Learner/heritage-speakers
networked discussions in Spanish. Applied
Linguistics, 24, 519544.
Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (2006). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to
theory and methods. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Carrasco, R. L., & Riegelhaupt, F. (2003).
META: A model for the continued acquisition
of Spanish by Spanish/English bilinguals in
the United States. In A. Roca & M. C. Colombi
(Eds.), Mi Lengua: Spanish as a heritage language in the United States (pp. 170197).
Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press.
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Edstrom, A. (2007). The mixing of non-native, heritage, and native speakers in upper-
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APPENDIX
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24. When youve taken Spanish at the college level, did you read Spanish outside of
class?
yes no
If yes, how often? ____________________
What did you read (magazines, newspapers, short stories, etc.)?
25. When youve taken Spanish at the college level, did you listen to Spanish music/radio?
yes no
If yes, how often? ____________________
26. When youve taken Spanish at the college level, did you watch Spanish television/movies?
yes no
If yes, how often? ____________________
27. Do you identify yourself as . . .
(a) American
(b) Latino/a
(c) Hispanic
(d) Other ____________________
28. What does it mean to you to know Spanish?
29. Have you considered working or living in a Spanish-speaking country? Why or why not?
30. Is Spanish your major/minor?
31. Are you planning to use your Spanish in the future? If yes, how?
32. What are some of the benefits for you of speaking Spanish?
33. Would you have your children learn Spanish?
34. What are the main reasons for your taking this course?
35. What are your expectations from a course for Heritage Speakers?
36. What types of material would you like to read in this course? (poems, newspapers, plays,
short stories, etc.)
37. On what aspect of language would you like this course to focus? Please circle all the
choices that are important to you.
(a) speaking
(b) writing
(c) listening
(d) reading
(e) grammatical accuracy
(f) vocabulary
38. How often (always, often, sometimes, etc.) do you speak Spanish with . . . .?
(a) your father
(b) your mother
(c) your brother(s) and/or sister(s)
(d) your grandparents (or other relatives)
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standard
educated
correct
stigmatized
less educated
incorrect
other (specify)
52. Do you think that some dialects are more prestigious than others? Explain.
53. Do you speak other Spanish dialects? If yes, which ones? If not, which one(s) would you
like to learn, and why?
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Mother
56. Any additional comments that you think would help in developing a heritage language
program at your university?
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