Maintaining bilingualism and developing biliteracy: Challenges for heritage students of Spanish in post-secondary education in the U.S.

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Maintaining bilingualism and developing
biliteracy Challenges for heritage students of
Spanish in post-secondary education in the U.S.

• Claudia Fernández
• DePaul University
• Bi-and multilingual universities - challenges and
  future prospects
• University of Helsinki, Finland
• September 1-3, 2005

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Introduction

• The status of English as the language of power
  and prestige and the lack of support to maintain
  languages other than English in the U.S. have had
  as one of their consequences the partial or
  complete loss of languages learned at home by the
  second and third generation minorities.
• Hispanic children are required to to achieve high
  linguistic and academic competence in English to
  be able to continue with their elementary and
  secondary education, but receive no support at
  school to maintain an develop their heritage
  language (HL).
• This scenario poses many challenges at higher
  levels of education, when these students arrive
  at college or universities with both limited HL
  linguistic competency and literacy, but seek to
  revitalize their linguistic abilities and gain
  Spanish academic knowledge.

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Introduction

• While attending the needs of heritage students
  is equally difficult for students, language
  instructors, directors of language programs, and
  other authorities in higher education
  institutions, this presentation will focus on the
  heritage students of Spanish (HSS) and the
  challenges they currently face to maintain and
  develop their heritage language.

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Background

• Hispanics in the U.S.
• Hispanics in education
• Profile of the HSS in higher education.

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Hispanics in the U.S.

• More than 41 million of Hispanics in the U.S.
  (13 of total population) (U.S. Census, 2004)
• 29 million speak Spanish at home. Half of them
  also speak English very well (U.S. Census 2000)
• 34 of U.S. population under 18 years of age is
  Hispanic (U.S. Census, 2004)

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Hispanics in U.S. education

• Hispanics account for 27 of the 500 largest
  school districts, and in some urban areas the
  number reaches 50 or even 100 (Potowski
  Carreira, 2004)
• Hispanics comprise approximately 10 of the
  students in higher education institutions
  (National Center of Education Statistics NCES,
  2000)
• The number of Hispanics in higher education rose
  from 4 to 10 from 1975 to 2000 (NCES, 2000)

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Profile of the Heritage Student of Spanish in
Higher Education

• What is a heritage language student?
• is a student who is raised in a home where a
  non-English language is spoken, who speaks or at
  least understands the language, and who is to
  some degree bilingual in that language and in
  English (Valdés, 2001, p. 38)

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Profile of the Heritage Student of Spanish in
Higher Education

• HSS present the following characteristics
• Foreign-born immigrants arriving at early age or
  recently or first, second, or third generation
  of U.S. born Hispanics (Silva-Corvalán, 1994)
• They posses different degrees of proficiency in
  English and Spanish (Silva-Corvalán, 1994
  Valdés, 1997)
• Their speech can be characterized by varying
  degrees of borrowings from English,
  code-switching, or giving Spanish lexical and
  grammatical properties to English words or
  expressions.

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Profile of the Heritage Student of Spanish in
Higher Education

• Although they share the commonality of the
  language, their cultural and linguistic
  backgrounds vary (Aparicio, 2001).
• Most of them are first generation college
  students. In 2000, 57 of Hispanics in higher
  education had parents who had no more than high
  school studies (Horn, Peter Rooney, 2002).
• The Hispanic high school and college drop out
  rate is the highest among minorities and
  non-Hispanic whites (Horn, Peter Rooney, 2002).

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Challenges of HSS to maintain and develop their
linguistic and academic abilities in Spanish

• 1. Strong societal pressure towards English use
  and limited exposure to the heritage language
• 2. Stigmatization of their variety of Spanish
• 3. Spanish programs specially designed for HSS
  are non-existing or developing

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Strong societal pressure towards English use and
limited exposure to the heritage language

• In order to participate in the social, cultural,
  political, economic and academic sectors of U.S.
  society one must learn English well.
• By second or third grade, Hispanic children are
  placed into mainstream classes where the
  instruction is only in English.
• English is the language of the activities and
  also the language that children are exposed to in
  popular culture, media, their peers, teachers and
  famous stars.
• Crawford (1999) has stated English hegemony in
  American economic and cultural life, along with
  its high social status, make it irresistible to
  younger generations

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Strong societal pressure towards English use and
limited exposure to the heritage language

• In contrast, heritage languages are usually
  perceived as low-status languages. Children who
  speak them often internalize this and try to
  distance from the minority and become more like
  the majority (Tse, 2001).
• The heritage language use gets reduced to
  informal conversations in the family or the
  community.
• By the time heritage speakers finish high school
  and enter college, their linguistic abilities in
  the HL have deteriorated and the reading and
  writing skills have not developed. They have
  become English dominant speakers.

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Strong societal pressure towards English use and
limited exposure to the heritage language

• The U.S. maintains the prevalence of English-only
  attitudes in the larger higher education system
  (Friedenberg, 2002).
• Students take classes, read textbooks, have
  extracurricular activities and socialize in
  English.
• Even those students who pursue majors or minors
  in Spanish, are exposed to only a few hours of
  academic Spanish compared to the rest of their
  academic life, which is English dominant.
• Mainstream colleges and universities in the U.S.
  are not characterized to embrace bilingualism and
  multiculturalism by offering subject classes in
  languages other than English.

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Stigmatization of HSS Spanish variety

• HSS are often speakers of non-prestige variety of
  Spanish.
• Many Spanish instructors show a negative attitude
  towards the HSS speech. They often correct or
  judge their Spanish as bad Spanish (e.g.,
  Potowski, 2002).
• HSS often internalize the instructors beliefs
  and feel embarrassed, suffer low-self stem, lose
  their confidence in their linguistic ability and
  question their identity.

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Stigmatization of HSS Spanish variety

• The way their Spanish has developed in the U.S.
  is also stigmatized.
• U.S. Spanish is the result of a language being
  isolated from a variety of social contexts and
  situations and in contact with a more powerful
  language (see de Bot Weltens, 1991).
• U.S. Spanish is often considered of low-prestige,
  incorrect and ugly by many Spanish
  instructors, by some people in the U.S. media and
  even by some intellectuals in the Hispanic world.
• HSS internalize these misconceptions and believe
  their Spanish is inferior and undesirable (e.g.,
  Potowski Carreira, 2004).

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Spanish programs or classes for HSS are lacking
or developing

• Only 18 of higher education institutions offer
  classes of Spanish for HSS (Ingold et al. 2002)
• HSS are placed in classes of Spanish as foreign
  language.
• This inadequate practice not only represents a
  great challenge for the professor, but it also
  results in both types of students feeling
  frustrated and disoriented (Potowski Carreira,
  2004).
• HSS programs and classes, where exist, are still
  in developmental stages.
• Professors and scholars are still in the process
  of defining the goals, planning an articulation
  model, designing reliable placement tests,
  creating syllabi and materials and training
  present and future teachers of HSS.

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Spanish programs or classes for HSS are lacking
or developing

• There is little research on how instruction
  affects language maintenance and learning
  standard varieties, and there are not theories
  yet that explain how bilinguals expand their
  range in both of their languages and how
  bilinguals acquire a standard dialect (Valdés,
  2001).
• As a result, HSS often experience problems such
  as being placed in inadequate courses, being
  taught by uninformed and untrained teachers, with
  no-researched teaching methods, and with
  materials that might not be effective to meet
  their needs.

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What are we doing to help these students?

• Creating awareness about the importance of
  preserving the linguistic and cultural heritage
  of the minorities at all levels of education.
• The Heritage Language Initiative by the National
  Language Center The Center for Applied
  Linguistics
• The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign
  Languages (ACTFL)
• The National Association for Bilingual Education
  (NABE)
• All of them have the common goal of building a
  multilingual society where minority languages are
  considered a resource.

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What are we doing to help these students?

• There is a growing body of research and interest
  in the teaching of Spanish for HS.
• Specializing journals, conferences and workshops
  are increasing and being more available for
  teachers.
• The American Association of Teachers of Spanish
  and Portuguese
• A listserv sponsored by ACTFL
• ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics
  has resource website

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To wrap up...

• HSS challenges to revitalize, maintain and
  develop their Spanish come from a variety of
  sources
• An overwhelming presence of English
• Lack of interest by the U.S. society and
  education policy makers to maintain heritage
  languages in schools
• Lack of resources or interest to create Spanish
  classes for HSS in higher education
• Lack of information about HSS raised in the U.S.
  and of the bilingualism phenomena
• Little research on teaching methods for HSS and
  effects of instruction

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Conclusion

• By creating awareness on the importance of
  heritage languages by national organizations,
  schools, universities, instructors and scholars,
  hopefully the U.S. education will be more open to
  embrace others languages in addition to English
  and HL speakers will find more support at school
  to maintain and develop their HL.
• By supporting research on bilingualism and HL
  teaching methods, instructors and other education
  authorities will be more informed, and thus more
  sensitive to the HSS backgrounds and needs. In
  this scenario, hopefully these students will no
  longer suffer stigmatization of their dialect and
  will find support at all levels of education to
  develop their HL both linguistically and
  academically.

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• Thank you