Linguistic diversity and student voice: the case of Spanish as a heritage language. (3rd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Vergara Wilson, Damián; Pascual y Cabo, Diego
• Is Part Of: Journal of Spanish language teaching. Volume 6:Number 2(2019)
• Page Start: 170
• Page End: 181
• Publication Date: 2019-07-03
• Subjects: Spanish heritage language (SHL) -- heritage language education -- Spanish in the United States -- linguistic diversity -- student voice; Español como lengua de herencia (ELH) -- educación de lengua de herencia -- español de los EE.UU -- diversidad lingüística -- voz del estudiante; Spanish language -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 468
• DOI: 10.1080/23247797.2019.1681639
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2324-7797

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article examines the issue of teaching Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) focusing primarily on the issues of linguistic diversity and the socio-affective issues related to heritage language learners. First, we consider linguistic diversity in speech communities where students use SHL. Second, we discuss students' perceptions of the teaching of Spanish in a linguistically diverse setting and draw upon a corpus of interviews with 35 students attending an SHL program at a large southwestern university in the United States. We examine stated perspectives regarding the (mis)match between students' heritage varieties and what is promoted in the classroom. The data reveals the importance of considering the student perspective in validating heritage language varieties and indicate both challenges and insights in achieving this validation given the sociolinguistic diversity found in most SHL learning communities.