View Content #19600

Ruth Daza is a recent graduate of the Language Teaching Specialization Master's Program at University of Oregon.  She has over ten years of language teaching experience in both the United States and Colombia.  Her work with heritage speakers in a small rural high school in eastern Washington inspired both her MA project and this article.

Today heritage language learners can be found in almost any language class. Unfortunately, HLs often feel apprehensive about being in a ‘typical’ language class. This feeling can sometimes be traced to their perceptions of their own linguistic abilities as well as their fears about the value that others may place on the way they speak their heritage language (accent, dialect, register, etc.). HLs may perceive a lack of cohesion between their home life –which often has strong ties to the heritage language, and their school life –in which their heritage language and culture are typically overlooked. The following guidelines are meant to help teachers bridge this gap by affirming the linguistic and cultural knowledge that HLs already possess. Although these examples focus on Spanish HLs, they can easily be adapted for other heritage language populations.

1. Get to know your HL students. Discover what varieties of Spanish they have been exposed to, what cultural/ethnic group(s) they identify with, what Spanish means to them, when and where they use Spanish, etc. This can be accomplished by creating simple surveys, establishing an interactive journal, or conducting informal interviews with your students. This information can guide your planning and goal setting. Additionally this type of self-reflection promotes HL’s identity building, which can impact their motivation and ability to learn.
2.  Help students bridge their home life and their academic life by incorporating authentic language samples provided by SHLs into your instruction. Here are some examples of what that might look like:

• Adivinanzas (riddles) activity: see this week's Activity of the Week. 
• Ask SHL students to share any trabalenguas (tongue twisters) they are familiar with. Make an inventory and choose several throughout the year for focused pronunciation or fluency practice. Have students compete with each other to see who can say them faster.

3. Highlight the contributions of other Heritage Speakers in the local and national community. If possible, invite US Latino/as as guest speakers to your classes. During the course of your class select at least one or two texts written by US Spanish speakers that include characteristics of US Spanish such as code switching and lexical borrowings.  
4. Become involved in or at least more aware of the local Spanish speaking community. Attend quinceañeras or other events when invited. Occasionally shop at local mercados or tianguis. Your presence in these  places can make students feel pride in their heritage and culture as well as contribute significantly to building relationships with students and their families.