Transcript Spanish for Heritage Language Learners : Lesson 1

Spanish for Heritage Language
Learners : Lesson 1
Presenter: Betzaida Imperiale
Sumner Academy of Arts and Science
Spanish and Spanish Heritage Language Teacher
Betzaida Imperiale
 Born and raised in Puerto Rico
 BA Modern Languages - Cum Laude (Italian and
French)
 MA in Arts, Spanish /Latin America Literature
 PhD in - Grand Canyon University, in progress
 Member: MLA, KSWLA, KSDE World
Languages Advisory Committee, Phi LambdaTheta
 Sumner Academy First Spanish Native Speaker
Program Teacher
 Instructor: 11 yrs. Teaching K-14 and 4 yrs.
Teaching Spanish for HL Level I - III
What do you know…?
 …about
Language Learners
 Second Language Learner (L2)
 Exposed to formal second language
instruction at an older age
 Already have an understanding of the
meanings, uses, and purposes of (first)
language; they now must… go on to
learn how the second language--oral and
in print--expresses those purposes, uses,
and meanings (Lindfors, 1987).
Heritage Language Learner
(HLL)
 1970’s Canada
 Since the 1990’s in USA
 Exposure to non-English language outside the
formal educational system
 Anyone who has had in-depth exposure to
another language
Hornberger &Wang (2008)
Synonyms
 Native speaker
 Bilingual
 Home background
*Different names, different interpretations
(Valdés, 1996)
Guadalupe Valdés Graphic Organizer
Language
Native
Foreign
Heritage
L1 or L2 (age) L1 (child)
L2 (after the first
language has been
acquired)
L1/L2?
Exposure to
target
Language
Outside of community
Limited
community
Full
language
Community
Assist HLL language self assessment
Check point
 Students language proficiency (myth vs reality)
 Students knowledge about grammar forms
 Students skills: performing their knowledge of
Spanish grammar
 Students learning style preferences (yes, you
have them!)
 The number of languages they have studied
 Students continuous exposure to the target
language
(http://www.carla.umn.edu/strategies/sp_grammar/variety.html)
HL student’s needs
 To learn Spanish for academic purpose
 understanding language for specific learning goals
 Clear future goals
 content relevant to learners short and long term goals
 Effective language teaching
 organizing learning around subject specifics
 purposeful activities
Sloan & Porter (2008)
Teacher’s needs…
 to learn students culture and learner’s
characteristics
 to get prepared with unit, lessons and activities
with this audience in mind
 to ensure a bias free and good quality of learning
environment
 to revisit and adapt classroom behavior rule
Teacher’s needs…
 to discuss and recognize the relevance of
achievement/success in class
 to relate transferability of knowledge to other
courses
 to focus on reading for comprehension and
understanding (making inferences,
critical thinking and critical analisis…)
 to write on target language (creative,
summarizing and translations)
“Recognizing the Needs and talents of the
Heritage Language Learner”
We are called to:
 Blend native and second language
methods, not students
 Impact the formal studies of the HL
 Impart will and motivation toward
reading in target language
 Improve their reading skills, their
development and knowledge to read
in another L2
(Berstain, Bruke, Fafre & Delcourt)
Goals and content of instruction
Instructional Strategies
 Differentiated
 Student-center
 Collaborative
 Memorization
 Higher level thinking
skills
Skills
 Reading
 Writing
 Translation
 Listening
 Speaking
How will/do you teach
your HL students?
How proficient are
your HL students?
Reading Motivation Assessment Plan Prototype
 How do we evaluate HL
ability to read?
 What are the underlying
components of motivation
to read?
 Are the HL reading
motivation equal for the
L2 group? Do they have
similar or different
reading motivation
profiles?
 To what degree is
motivation related to HL
reading ability?
 Have students self rate
their ability to read.
 Provide six reading
tasks from basic to
more complex.
 Provide a reading
motivation
questionnaire that
includes items to
measure some
theoretical motivation
components
Recommendations
 Set-up clear knowledge-based reading goals
 Use stimulating activities that connect reading to
the students’ lives outside of the classroom or
school
 Support students autonomy by providing a variety
of texts to choose from, based on their capacity and
topic of interest
 Provide strategy instruction that may help students
improve bottom-up and top-down processing
 Encourage collaborative learning by allowing
students share their opinions on what they read
 Create assessment tools easy to students
systematically self-monitor what they read and how
they read it
 Let them know you care about their progress
 Explore/focus on production skills: I.e., writing and
speaking effectively
References
Kagan, O., & Dillon, K. (2003). A new perspective on teaching Russian Focus
on the heritage learner. Heritage Language Journal, Available:
http://www.carla.umn.edu/strategies/sp_grammar/variety.html
http://www.ksde.org
http://www.international.ucla.edu/languages/heritagelanguages/journal/article.
asp?parentid=3693
Polinsky, M. & Kagan, O. (2007). Heritage Languages: In the ‘Wild’ and in
the Classroom. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1/5: 368–395,
10.1111/j.1749-818x.2007.00022.x
Sloan, Diane, and Porter, Elizabeth (2008). The management of English
Language support in postgraduate business education: the CEM
Model (contextualisation, embedding and mapping), Northumbria
University DOI:10.3794/ijme.72.188, International Journal of
Management
Education 7(2)
Valdés, G. (2000). The teaching of heritage languages: an introduction for
Slavic-teaching professionals. The learning and teaching of Slavic
languages and cultures, Olga Kagan and Benjamin Rifkin (eds.),
375–403.