32, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 27-35 To the Editor Search

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Works Cited

HERITAGE students of Spanish are an ever-increasing consideration in education at all levels and are viewed by many as a valuable national resource (Campbell and Peyton). United States Secretary of Education Richard Riley favors dual-language immersion programs in K-12 education and has emphasized the importance of Spanish heritage students in the educational setting and in the nation as a whole. Echoing language educators (Latoja), Riley notes that our nation increasingly needs to utilize its language resources well rather than treat heritage students as deficient and that our schools will serve ever-increasing numbers of heritage students. Although Riley was speaking of K-12, his statements are no less true for higher education, where we have many heritage students and many Spanish language programs that serve them, whether by accident or intent. Postsecondary educators are increasingly recognizing the need to serve this population more effectively, but only 26% of Spanish language programs offered heritage classes in 1990 (Wherritt and Cleary). Currently, 32% do. Thus we are reminded that in an era of ever-shrinking resources in higher education, we are still seeing many mixed classes (LeBlanc and Lally, "Foreign Language Placement"), especially in institutions where numbers and economics do not permit separate ones. For this reason we must consider how to be effective for heritage speakers both in programs tailored for them and in regular Spanish programs serving all types of students.

Variations among Heritage Programs

In addressing the issue of heritage learners, we find that the literature contains a wide variety of definitions of the term and that in practice we are serving a very diverse population of students. Guadalupe Valdes's hierarchy is widely used to help us focus on the complexity of that population, on such factors as students' country of origin, their length of residence in the United States, their dialect, their proficiency level and prior language study, and their range of academic success, all elements that affect their learning needs and their performance in the programs they are offered ("Teaching"). In general, however, the literature focuses more on programs for the more proficient heritage students, with less attention given to those students with primarily listening skills (D'Ambruoso). Nevertheless, all types of heritage students require special consideration.

The types of Spanish programs in higher education that serve heritage speakers vary greatly in practice, and even those that appear in the literature as models for consideration by the profession comprise different characteristics. An initial consideration is the intake method, the procedure by which heritage students are identified and enter into the program and an important element in accurate placement and student success. Approaches include the use of demographic questionnaires about language use in the home and community (Schwartz); special tests designed to sort heritage speakers from other types of false beginners, such as the test used at the University of Texas, El Paso; standardized tests for heritage and nonheritage learners, such as those from Brigham Young University, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida (Leblanc and Lally, "Making"); local course-specific tests, which John Blackie says are more effective and Irene Wherritt and Anne Cleary note are used by 39% of institutions; catalog credit equivalences (Schwartz); interviews in Spanish conducted by Spanish faculty members with potential students; and even self-placement, with students deciding for themselves where they belong or where they will best benefit (LeBlanc and Lally, "Making"). Larger programs with many heritage students are more likely to use tests, with all the problems such tests engender regarding students' manipulating the test (LeBlanc and Painchaud; Wherritt and Cleary). In addition, the tests focus primarily on listening and reading comprehension and thus do not help to distinguish the "receptive" students from those who read and write the language. Questionnaires, like tests, however, are also subject to student manipulation by both heritage and nonheritage students. Smaller programs with more manageable numbers of students may use the interview, but here, too, students may perform in predetermined ways. The end result in many of these instances may in effect be self-placement, with results similar to those attained in a program that uses straightforward self-placement, perhaps supported by optional tests, checklists, and/or questionnaires. J. Jordan, however, suggests that students at the lower end of the proficiency scale have no reliable yardstick with which to assess themselves (Lewkowitz and Moon). A further complication highlighted by Wherritt and Cleary is that while 79% of the institutions used a placement test, only 49% required students to take it, indicating that what is available may not always be utilized. Further, while these various approaches have been discussed in the literature, there is no clearly best approach for programs to use, since both students and programs vary widely.

An additional element of variation in heritage programs is placement requirements. Having categorized a student through the various means indicated above, programs administrators then must indicate to the students who have been identified as heritage speakers of Spanish whether their placement in any special courses for the category is required or optional. Some programs, like the one at the University of Texas, El Paso, require a student to enter heritage classes. Others may leave this choice up to the students themselves, as at New Mexico State University, but with a strong effort to advise and entice students into the heritage classes. Leon Schwartz reported that 42% of California students registered below placement or in first semester, and Carol Klee and Elizabeth Rogers found that students registering below placement wanted to improve their grade point averages. Wherritt and Cleary note that 88% of false beginners enter first semester, and that only 32% of institutions offer credit with a higher placement as an incentive to go there. Penalties were assessed by only 28% for lower placement (no credit). Paul Sandrock alludes to the use of portfolios to place heritage students, an interesting idea. In addition, students are much affected by personal goals, and Kimi Kondo notes that most students' primary goal is good grades. Kondo also indicates that more students are interested in speaking (lower levels) than in reading and writing (higher levels). Again, the size of the institution affects the procedure, since the ability to guide students is often greatly reduced in very large programs and in programs where all aspects of registration are handled via computer. Once again the literature does not indicate clearly whether there is a learning advantage for students with one approach or the other. There is, however, a definite concern about spending scarce funds to teach students the same skills twice or to teach them skills they have already acquired elsewhere (LeBlanc and Lally, "Foreign Language Placement").

Most language departments that offer heritage classes do so only in the lower division. In many instances heritage students join nonheritage students in the second or third year (D'Ambruoso; Villa). Since the literature on language acquisition suggests that many nonheritage students will attain only Intermediate-High proficiency by the end of a major, with others attaining Advanced-Low or Intermediate-Mid (Hiple and Manley), program faculty members will wonder whether combining the two types of students in second or third year is advantageous pedagogically if there was a pedagogical advantage to separating them in the first place. The heritage students are much more likely to achieve Advanced proficiency by the fourth year, according to the same research. Many heritage speakers enter their programs in the Advanced or Intermediate range, thus placing them far ahead of the nonheritage true beginner. However, the mix in lower-level classes is also complicated in some instances by the presence of large numbers of other types of false beginners--students who may already be in the Intermediate range, especially in institutions where size and economics do not permit special classes for these students (Wherritt and Cleary). Further, in programs with a heavy communicative emphasis, many nonheritage students can advance into the Intermediate range after three or four semesters (even though they may not achieve Advance proficiency during their upper-level studies if these are not communicative in nature). Thus, determining the level of each type of student in the second year of study and who benefits from what type of study and what type of peer mixture is very difficult, and again the literature is far from clear on these issues.

A further complicating factor is that in many institutions in the Southwest upper-level Spanish programs may consist largely of heritage students and thus are de facto heritage programs at that level, as at the University of Texas, Pan American; the University of Texas, Brownsville; and Texas A&M International University, Laredo. Even graduate programs in some Southwest institutions may serve largely heritage populations and be de facto heritage programs, as at our institution, the University of Texas, San Antonio. Thus, in those cases, the inverse question can be asked about how well the program is serving the needs of the nonheritage learner. However, the question must also be asked about the extent to which upper-level and graduate programs attend to the language-learning needs of the heritage speaker or whether classes focus primarily on content--literature and culture--with little attention to students' language needs. Again, language-acquisition research suggests, though not with great clarity, that acquiring alternate forms of the language may take several years and may not be accomplished by most students within the first- or second-year heritage classes available to them. Margarita Hidalgo indicates that in some programs in Mexico it is estimated that a dialect speaker needs six hundred contact hours to shift to standard language.

Heritage programs also vary widely in their approach to teaching the students they identify and place in their special classes. They may vary even more widely than the nonheritage portions of programs, which today tend to be either semicommunicative or very communicative in orientation. While many heritage programs focus on building students' proficiency along with attending to other aspects of their learning needs, some focus very heavily on reading, writing, and grammar, with little attention to listening, speaking, and vocabulary building for a broad variety of contexts. Programs that use newer texts for bilinguals, however, are including listening and speaking on real-life topics of interest to students (Blanco, Contreras, and Márquez; Roca, Nuevos mundos). In addition, some programs are incorporating content-based instruction, sociolinguistic study (Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego, "Framework"; Pino), classes to develop academic domains in Spanish (Sánchez; Carrasquillo and Segan), community-based projects (Trueba; Pino; Varona), Chicano literature to infuse culture (Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego), cooperative learning (Valdes, "Teaching"), and opportunities to tutor, which facilitate both learning and building confidence. Having moved from the "normative approach" to the "comprehensive approach" to program design and skill building (Valdes-Fallis), instructors are trying to build students' confidence, to overcome their internalization of society's negative attitudes toward their language (Roca, "La realidad"), and to help them interact through real-life applications. Faculty members need to be ever more aware of how some professors alienate students with their negative attitudes toward dialect (Perez-Leroux and Glass) and of their own assumptions of the superiority of one variety of native speech over another (Koike and Liskin-Gasparro). Recent studies have shown that the self-confidence of bilinguals influences their use of the language outside class and thus their further learning (Kondo). For this reason the finding that professors rate Chicanos' language ability below that of other heritage speakers and even below that of anglophones is telling (Valdes, "Chicano Spanish"). Since there is little research on how speakers of nonstandard dialects acquire the standard, however, the end effects of these newer approaches are not yet known (Valdes, "Teaching"). Further, since many heritage students with Intermediate-High and Advanced proficiency may enter Spanish programs at the upper level through credit by examination, they may miss the courses in which the reading and writing processes are taught and may thus be at some disadvantage in upper-level classes where knowledge of these processes is assumed and where their special needs as new entrants into the program are not always considered in an integrated and organized manner.

The University of Texas, San Antonio, an urban, largely commuter institution, has had an off-and-on approach to the offering of special courses for heritage speakers. In a community with Spanish speakers from many different national origins and Spanish speakers whose families have spent from one to eight generations in the area, the situation is complex. A majority of the residents are Mexican Americans, and 40% of the more than eighteen thousand students are minority. Many of them are Spanish-speaking, although the institution does not compile specific information about language use. When the university opened in 1973, it offered heritage classes but ceased to do so when students objected strongly to being "segregated." After a decade without such classes the institution tried unsuccessfully to reintroduce them, only to find that they did not draw sufficient registrants despite advance publicity inside and outside classes.

Communicative in orientation, the lower-division program focuses heavily on listening and speaking skills and vocabulary development in the first semester. This emphasis continues in the second and third semesters, with more extensive attention to the integration of grammar and writing. The fourth semester and the fifth semester bridge courses, which traditionally attract students who have CLEP credit for the lower-level sequence and would otherwise go to the upper level without ever having had a course in Spanish (and possibly without ever reading or writing the language), focus on Advanced-level oral and written skills, with considerable attention to Advanced functions and accuracy. In addition, the program affords several special purposes courses and a culture content course that utilizes that context for language instruction. More than half of the first-year students are Hispanic; more than 80% of the second-year students are Hispanic. Testing comprises listening and reading comprehension, speaking and writing performance, and some grammar, vocabulary, and culture items. All courses afford only three contact hours each week, plus a required video-based laboratory hour, optional computer materials, and a listening comprehension program. Chicano literature selections in Spanish are used in some classes, although some students have reacted unexpectedly by saying that they objected to reading about poor people (Gonzalez Pino and Pino).

The university requires the use of a computer-gradable placement test of listening and reading comprehension, an approach that does not place heritage students effectively, since those whose comprehension skills are disproportionately greater than their production skills score into a level in which they are often uncomfortable. However, the university does not require that the student accept the placement. Students may enroll lower than their placement, though not higher, and many choose to do so. There is currently no foreign language requirement other than by degree in some majors. Given this context and its many confounding variables, we undertook research to determine what students' perspectives were regarding their own language abilities and needs, the types of classes they sought, their level of awareness of the configuration of Southwest Spanish in the general language constellation, their desire to learn more about it, and in general how well they aligned with the students in the literature. During 1998 and 1999 students responded to questionnaires on these topics so that faculty members could consider the findings and their implications for more effective program design. Because similar circumstances exist at other institutions of higher education in the Southwest, where heritage courses are in some instances suffering declining enrollments, the findings may inform faculty members in many locales who are trying to meet the needs of heritage students.

Studies of Lower-Division Heritage Students

Since students showed no interest in heritage classes, the first questionnaire (app. A) in 1998 addressed students' views of the classes they were currently taking. Two hundred students in first through fourth semester participated; of these, 45% classified themselves as heritage speakers, 25% were true beginners, and 30% were other types of false beginners.

Seventy percent of the respondents agreed that students should have the right to register for any course for which they did not have prior credit, even if overqualified. Among heritage speakers, 11% disagreed, compared with 17% of the true beginners, indicating that a clear majority of any category agreed with the statement. All the students agreed that they should have the right to test out of a course if they wished. All also agreed that students overqualified for a course are there to improve their grade point average (GPA).

Seventy-six percent of the students agreed that they could learn from more proficient students. Only 7% of the heritage learners and 12% of the true beginners disagreed, again affording a clear majority. Only 14% of the overall respondents agreed that they felt intimidated by more proficient learners, with 25% of the true beginners agreeing. Overall, 63% agreed that more proficient students were helpful to them, with 20% of the true beginners disagreeing. Only 7% thought that instructors called more often on proficient students, and only 11% thought the course was harder because of the more proficient students. Eleven percent agreed that the course moved too fast because of the proficient students. Only 12% thought that a true beginner couldn't earn an A, and 75% thought the course was taught at its appropriate level.

Only 36% of the students thought there should be accelerated courses, and only 42% thought heritage courses should be offered. Indeed, a hefty 72% thought that, if offered, heritage courses should be optional for those who qualify. Finally, 94% thought that one track instead of two, with appropriate placement, was sufficient for everyone. Thus while the responses revealed some areas of concern, such as the 25% of true beginners who feel intimidated or whether it is acceptable for students to spend time and money on unneeded courses to improve their GPAs, overall this study did not provide great insights into how better to meet students' needs. It did, however, clarify very well student attitudes toward participation in classes of mixed heritage and nonheritage students and of true and false beginners. Students seemed to be fairly well satisfied and little interested in separate classes. The key would be to determine whether they could be interested in such classes.

We questioned how many students identified themselves as heritage speakers, hypothesizing that perhaps there was a discrepancy between the numbers of students that faculty members classified in this manner and the numbers of students who so classified themselves. A second questionnaire was used in 1999 (app. B), and again a random sampling of two hundred students in first- and second-year Spanish responded. Of the respondents, 70% were Hispanic and 30% were non-Hispanic.

Eighty-eight percent of the respondents indicated that they, their parents, and their grandparents had been born in the United States. Only 2% were themselves born outside the United States, and 10% indicated that their grandparents were born outside the United States. Seventy percent of the Hispanics indicated that they were true beginners, even though more than half of these individuals indicated some prior exposure to Spanish, either hearing or speaking the language. Eighty percent of them indicated that they would not register for heritage classes and that they wanted to be in the regular sequence where they can use what they know to advantage and make good grades. Thirty percent thought that heritage courses would be too demanding. Eighty percent said that they had not spoken the language before. Twenty percent of the Hispanics said they had heard the language at home or with relatives, and 17% of the Hispanics said they had spoken the language in the home or with relatives. Three percent of the Hispanics indicated they had used the language at school and at work.

Obviously, there was a discrepancy. Even though over half the Hispanics indicated some prior use of Spanish, only 40% counted themselves as experienced. Thus more than 10% of the Hispanics had experience in the language but classified themselves as true beginners. Once again there was little interest in heritage classes.

We decided to infuse some material about Southwest Spanish in the lower-level courses (1) to benefit heritage speakers by providing information they might normally have accessed only in heritage classes comparing their dialect (if applicable) with the text variety; (2) to benefit nonheritage speakers who are very aware that the language of the classroom and the language of the community are not identical, on the basis of their attempts to practice the language outside class; and (3) to determine whether exposure to this information would affect heritage students' level of interest in heritage classes (since many of the other recommended elements were already present in their classes). The material (app. C) was presented as a handout to students and was discussed in classes on several occasions. After these discussions students responded to a brief questionnaire about the information and about the offering of heritage classes in which more in-depth information could be provided. Another two hundred students participated, of whom nearly 70% were Hispanic. Most of these students were in second- or third-semester Spanish. One hundred percent of the students found the material helpful. Ninety percent found it clear. Fifty percent found it brief and requested more examples. Twenty-five percent favored creation of a study guide with a tape or CD, and 35% said that we should create a lower-division course on this topic. Fifty percent said that we should offer heritage classes, only a slight increase from the previous questionnaire in response to which 42% suggested that we offer such classes. Seventy percent said that we should offer this material in regular classes, and 70% said that the material was needed. One hundred percent found the material positive. In their comments, 40% of the students wanted help in applying the information to a variety of real-life situations.

This material met a need and was well-received by students. Even though the investigation was brief, it still did not seem to indicate that use of such material would facilitate a rapidly growing interest in heritage classes. Further research might help to solidify the trend that a slower paced growth of interest might be facilitated. For the meantime, however, it was clear that the material met a need and should be implemented in a broad range of classes. Currently, faculty members are implementing the material, and we are preparing a leveled and more extensive version of it so it can be included at each level without overlap or repetition of identical material.

Upper-Level and Graduate Programs

The upper-division students are 90% Hispanic, and many are heritage students, though most lack the academic domain on entry. The program offers three oral courses (one interactional and one presentational), with opportunities for comparison of Southwest and more universal forms of Spanish and a number of community-based projects. Students take one course in reading across the curriculum for vocabulary building and three composition and grammar courses (one is required, two are optional) that are function- and topic-based, again with opportunities for comparison of Southwest and more universal forms of Spanish. The literature and culture courses include Mexican American literature and film, and among the linguistics courses is one on Spanish of the Southwest. Ninety-five percent of the master's students are Hispanic, with some heritage students and a larger number of foreign-born students who were at least partially educated abroad. Within this program, too, there are courses on Mexican American literature and film and Spanish of the Southwest, along with the usual Spanish and Latin American offerings. Students have additional opportunities to compare Southwest and more universal forms of Spanish, and at both levels they may be required to take oral proficiency tests and write extensively. Performance demonstrates that many students exhibit regional language characteristics at these levels, but many of them enter this level with CLEP or transfer credit, having had few if any lower-division classes in Spanish at the institution. Nevertheless, many of the elements of the program at these levels are aligned with recommendations found in the literature and should benefit the heritage learners.

Heritage learners need further information about what content could be made available to them in heritage classes. However, while they show an extremely strong interest in learning about Southwest Spanish, they show little interest in doing so in heritage classes. Like the students in the literature, they want a lower placement and higher grades. Unlike some of the literature, however, our study found that heritage learners enjoy helping or tutoring and that anglophone students are less intimidated than indicated elsewhere (Loughrin-Sacco). To build their confidence, students also need more information on levels of proficiency and on the skills they already have, since many "experienced" students see themselves as true beginners. Since several years are needed for any speaker of Southwest Spanish to acquire a broad base of information about dialect forms, a leveled curriculum on the subject that extends into the third and fourth years of study seems necessary and desirable. Infusing such material into the regular courses would circumvent the problem of students not registering for special courses, as well as the problem of students not seeing themselves as heritage learners. The heritage students resist being separated, and yet they bring valuable language resources that can serve as a foundation for further study and should receive special attention. The infusion approach that 70% of our students favored may help in this regard. If we follow Jorge Cubillo's advice about mixed classes and incorporate language variants, culture, and community with our communication, the program may be even more successful. For the time being, the evolving infusion curriculum seems to meet a need that cannot be met any other way in this context.

Works Cited

Blanco, George M., Victoria Contreras, and Judith M. Márquez. ¡Ahora Sí! Boston: Heinle, 1995.

Campbell, Russell, and Joy Kreeft Peyton. "Heritage Students: A Valuable Language Resource." ERIC Review 6.1 (1998): 31-35.

Carrasquillo, Angela, and Philip Segan. The Teaching of Reading to the Bilingual Student. Mahwah: Erlbaum, 1998.

Colombi, M. Cecelia, and Francisco X. Alarcón, eds. La enseñanza del español a hispanohablantes. Boston: Houghton, 1997.

Cubillo, Jorge. Temas. Boston: Heinle, 2000.

D'Ambruoso, Lorraine. "Spanish for Spanish Speakers: A Curriculum." Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego, Language 203-07.

Gonzalez Pino, Barbara, and Frank Pino. "Chicano Literature in the Lower-Division Spanish Classroom." South Central Mod. Lang. Assn. New Orleans, 1997.

Hidalgo, Margarita. "The Teaching of Spanish to Bilingual Speakers: A Problem of Inequality." Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego, Language 82-93.

Hiple, David, and Joan H. Manley. "Testing How Well Foreign Language Teachers Speak: A State Mandate." Foreign Language Annals 20 (1987): 147-54.

Klee, Carol A., and Elizabeth S. Rogers. "Status of Articulation, Placement, Advanced Placement Credit and Course Options." Hispania 72 (1989): 157-65.

Koike, Dale L., and Judith Liskin-Gasparro. "Perspectives of Job Seekers and Search Committees in Spanish." ADFL Bulletin 30.3 (1999): 54-62. [Show Article]

Kondo, Kimi. "Motivating Bilingual and Semibilingual University Students of Japanese." Foreign Language Annals 32.1 (1999): 77-88.

Latoja, Luis E. "Un programa de español para colegio universitario: Esfuerzos por lograr una mejor articulación." Hispania 78 (1996): 523-30.

LeBlanc, Leona B., and Carolyn G. Lally. "Foreign Language Placement in Postsecondary Institutions: Addressing the Problem." Dimensions 1997. Myrtle Beach: Southern Conf. on Lang. Teaching, 1997. 19-36.

------. "Making the Transition from Secondary to Postsecondary Spanish Study: Achieving Consistency in College Placement for Florida's Students." Hispania 79 (1997): 124-35.

LeBlanc, Raymond, and Gisele Painchaud. "Self-Assessment as a Second Language Placement Instrument." TESOL Quarterly 19.4 (1997): 673-87.

Lewkowitz, Josephine A., and Jane Moon. "Evaluation: A Way of Involving the Learner." Evaluation: Lancaster Practical Papers in English Language Education. Ed. J. C. Alderson. Vol. 6. Oxford: Pergamon, 1985.

Loughrin-Saccco, Steven J. "More Than Meets the Eye: An Ethnography of an Elementary French Class." Canadian Modern Language Review 48 (1992): 80-101.

Merino, Barbara J., Henry T. Trueba, and Fabian A. Samaniego, eds. Language and Culture in Learning: Teaching Spanish to Native Speakers of Spanish. Washington: Falmer, 1993.

------. "Towards a Framework for the Study of the Maintenance of the Home Language in Language Minority Students." Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego, Language 5-25.

Perez-Leroux, Ana T., and William R. Glass. "Linguistics Diversity and Inclusion in the Foreign Language Classroom." Foreign Language Annals 33.1 (2000): 58-62.

Pino, Cecilia Rodriguez. "La reconceptualización del programa de español para hispanohablantes: Estrategias que reflejan la realidad sociolinguística de la clase." Colombi and Alarcón 65-82.

Riley, Richard. "Riley Favors Immersion Programs." San Antonio Express News 16 Mar. 2000: 1.

Roca, Ana. Nuevos mundos. New York: Wiley, 1999.

------. "La realidad en el aula: Logros y expectativos en la enseñanza del español para estudiantes bilingues." Colombi and Alarcón 55-64.

Sánchez, Rosaura. "Language Variation in the Spanish of the Southwest." Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego, Language 75-81.

Sandrock, Paul. "Competency-Based Admission: A Project of the University of Wisconsin System." ADFL Bulletin 26.3 (1995): 55-57.

Schwartz, Leon. "The California Study on Foreign Language Articulation." ADFL Bulletin 17.1 (1985): 22-28. [Show Article]

Trueba, Henry. "Culture and Language: The Ethnographic Approach to the Study of Learning Environments." Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego, Language 26-44.

Valdes, Guadalupe. "Chicano Spanish: The Problem of the Underdeveloped Code in Bilingual Repertoires." Modern Language Journal 82 (1998): 473-501.

------. "The Teaching of Spanish to Bilingual Spanish-Speaking Students: Outstanding Issues and Unanswered Questions." Colombi and Alarcón 8-44.

Valdes-Fallis, Guadalupe. "A Comprehensive Approach to the Teaching of Bilingual Spanish-Speaking Students." Modern Language Journal 43 (1978): 102-10.

Varona, Lucia T. "La comunidad en el aula y el aula en la comunidad." Hispania 82.4 (1999): 806-16.

Villa, Daniel. "Theory, Design, and Content for a Grammar Class for Native Speakers of Spanish." Colombi and Alarcón 93-102.

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Appendix A

Spanish Class Profile Questionnaire

1. In my Spanish class there are students who are __________: (Circle all letters that apply.)

a. True beginners in the language. Students who have had little or no former experience with Spanish.

b. False beginners in the language. Students who have studied Spanish before starting to study it at the university level.

c. Native speakers from the United States who have been exposed to Spanish but don't speak it fluently.

d. Native speakers from the United States who are fluent in Spanish.

e. Native speakers from the Latin American countries who are very fluent.

2. My classification: Pick one letter from a through e above that best applies to you __________, or if none apply, write your own description of yourself vis-à-vis Spanish______________________________________________________________________________.

Also, indicate the following:    Age -       18 to 30 yrs.      31 to 50 yrs.       over 50 yrs.          Sex -       male       female

3. Please mark the column that most closely describes your opinions or reactions to the following statements.

Appendix B

Language Profile Questionnaire, Spring 1999

To serve our students of Spanish better, we would like to make adaptations to our program based on the language profiles of our students. To do this, we need more information about your language background and hope that you will assist us by answering the following questions, anonymously, of course. We appreciate your help. When we refer to heritage or Spanish-speaker courses, we mean courses that assume that the students has been around Spanish a little (lower level) or a lot (higher level) and that target reading, writing, vocabulary expansion, and culture and emphasize listening and speaking skills less than in courses for true beginners.

Age Range (Check one): _____ under 25 _____ 26-39
_____ over 40

Gender: _____M _____F

Family Language Background (Check the one that best fits your background.)

_____ 1. I did not speak Spanish at home or with relatives.

_____ 2. I did not speak Spanish at home but did with relatives or friends.

_____ 3. I heard Spanish at home but did not speak it.

_____ 4. I did not hear Spanish at home but did with relatives.

_____ 5. I spoke Spanish at home and with relatives.

_____ 6. I spoke Spanish at home, with relatives, and with friends.

_____ 7. I spoke Spanish at home, with relatives and friends, and at school and/or work.

Family Residence Background (Check the one that best fits your situation.)

_____ 8. I was born in the US and so were my parents and grandparents.

_____ 9. I was born in the US, as were my parents, but my grandparents were not.

_____10. I was born in the US, but my parents and grandparents were not.

_____11. I was born outside the US.

Your View of Your Spanish Language Skills (Check the one that best fits you.)

_____12. I am a true beginner in the language because I have never spoken or studied it before now.

_____13. I consider myself a learner in progress because I have been around the language at home.

_____14. I'm a learner in progress who has been around the language at home and studied it before.

_____15. I'm a learner in progress--I have studied the language before but have not been around it otherwise.

Your View of Heritage-Speaker or Spanish-Speaker Courses (Check one.)

_____16. I would sign up for such a course at my level if the day, time, instructor, etc., were right.

_____17. I would not sign up for such a course because I am a true beginner.

_____18. I would not sign up for such a course even though I've been around Spanish some or a lot.

(If you checked #16 or 18, please continue. If #17, you are finished, and we thank you.)

Check All That Apply:

_____19. I want the regular sequence because I don't know the language well and don't want to miss things.

_____20. I want to benefit from what I already know and be able to make an A in a regular class.

_____21. Special sections are discriminatory.

_____22. Special sections are likely to be too demanding.

_____23. Even though I've been around Spanish, I don't consider myself a Spanish speaker.

_____24. In order to attract me a special course would need a better title, such as ________________________________________.

_____25. I need a course with _____ listening _____ speaking _____ reading _____ writing _____ grammar _____ vocabulary.

_____26. I'd like a course that included study of Hispanic cultural heritage in the Southwest.

_____27. I'd like to study cross-cultural comparisons and intercultural communication.

_____28. In a special course I'd like ________________________________________________________________________________.

_____29. Overall my opinion of such special courses is _______________________________________________________________.

Appendix C

Southwest Spanish: Understanding It and Making the Most of It

Overview

The Spanish language and Spanish speakers are spread all across the United States today, and Spanish is a second language here rather than a foreign language, making it an integral part of our society. Spanish has also risen dramatically in importance for us because of our vastly increased contact with people, agencies, and companies in the enormous entity known as Latin America (which some say even includes an overlay of the United States because of our history and the Hispanic cultures among our citizenry). Therefore, more and more students are studying Spanish at all levels of their education, for these reasons and many others.

The varieties of Spanish taught in our educational institutions are not always exactly like the varieties spoken in our communities, however. Just as we recognize that there are many varieties of English in the world today, we recognize that there are also many varieties of Spanish, deriving from many different national origins, social classes, regions, and other societal variants. We also recognize that there are different registers of Spanish, or levels of formality in our speech, just as there are in English and other languages. Because Spanish speakers and heritage speakers of Spanish (those who are from the United States but who have lived and learned with Spanish as part of their families and/or communities) are ever more numerous in the United States, it is important that we recognize the vital natural resource that Spanish constitutes in our citizenry and our communities.

By understanding the variety of Spanish known in this country as Southwest Spanish, all those of us who are learning and/or using Spanish can do so even more effectively. Those who are learning Spanish for the first time can also learn at least in part to understand this important dialect of the language with which they will undoubtedly be in contact if they use the language in this environment. Those students who are heritage speakers of the language can learn more precisely how this variety of Spanish fits into the larger constellation of the entire Spanish-speaking world, and if they themselves and their families are speakers of Southwest Spanish, they can compare its characteristics with those of the more universal variety of the language taught in their classes. This comparison will empower them to add the additional form of the language to their repertoire more easily, building on the strengths they already possess from their lifelong exposure to the language, maintaining their Southwest Spanish for use in its appropriate settings, and adding the more universal forms to enable themselves to communicate more effectively in a broader context.

Southwest Spanish has many roots. First and foremost, it is Spanish and is especially related to the Spanish of rural Northern Mexico. It is also affected by English and contains anglicisms. It is a repository for some archaic forms of Spanish, which dropped from use long ago in more populated parts of the Spanish-speaking world, areas that have had more interaction with one another, especially through the media in more recent times, and where formal education has occurred through the medium of that language. Here the language evolved for a long time in more isolated communities; certain sound shifts and changes in usage have occurred and been reinforced without contact with those other areas and without significant widespread contact with print media in many instances.

Most beginning and intermediate Spanish texts treat transnational differences in the language, but none to date provide any extensive information about Southwest Spanish. While there are textbooks written especially for the heritage-speaker population, many students who speak Southwest Spanish do not have access to or do not avail themselves of these courses and thus do not have the opportunity to compare their dialect with the more universal forms. In addition, some heritage speakers suffer from being told by relatives, community members, teachers, or other contacts that their form of the language is inferior and best forgotten, when in fact they have an enormous advantage in the form of a variety of skills and knowledge that can easily be expanded into a more fully utilizable and extremely valuable resource. The Southwest speaker will at least have comprehension skills and a start on natural-sounding pronunciation. They likely have some subconscious syntax knowledge, and they possess a certain vocabulary. If this individual also speaks the language, he/she has an even greater advantage over the person who is just beginning the language.

If one is interested in being familiar with or in expanding Southwest Spanish for professional use, it is helpful to understand the characteristics of Southwest Spanish and how these compare to the more universal national forms of the language. In the material that follows, you will engage in a brief perusal of some of the areas of comparison. Should you find this material helpful, you can interact with your Spanish instructor regarding further readings and/or classes that would help you continue this vein of study.

Lexicon

1. While Southwest Spanish uses much universal vocabulary, there are also anglicisms. Words such as torca, biles, espelear, huachar, and tichar are common adaptations of English words. Expansion will help us add the universal words for these concepts to our repertoire.

2. There are also archaic forms. When we use maneas for brakes, truje for brought, or estofata for post office, we are using forms that were part of the language when it was brought here, but these are concepts for which speakers in other locales have since developed other terms. Other examples comprise haiga, ansina, nadien. A good course or resource helps us learn these new forms.

3. There are many cognates (words similar in two languages) for English and Spanish. Mathematics and matemáticas are a good example of the many pairs that help us to expand our vocabularies in both directions. There are some false cognates, however: words that appear to be the same but are not. Embarasado and constipado are common and humorous examples of these, but there are other more subtle examples. Educado is a good example. In English it refers to formal education; in Spanish it refers to good manners, knowing how to treat others appropriately. Letra, librería, atender, su(c)ceso, parientes, papel, and nuevas are additional examples.

4. In the Southwest we use many mexicanismos, words that work quite well in a Mexican national environment but that are sometimes different in other settings. Guajolote, tecolote, and zoquete are good examples. Again our classes and resources can help us become familiar with additional forms.

5. In the Southwest we tend, as do speakers in other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, to overwork some of our vocabulary and function with a rather limited repertoire in some cases. A good example is the verb agarrar, which we may use for getting the bus, getting a cold, getting the idea, etc., much as we might overwork get in English.

6. We also codeswitch, meaning that we mix English and Spanish into the same sentence, switch languages from one topic to another, and switch languages from one listener to another.

Grammar

1. In the Southwest we have sometimes changed the gender of vocabulary items. It is not uncommon to hear la problema, la sistema, la mapa, el canción, la papá. It is also common for us to translate the two-word verbs from English (to come back, to call back, to give back, for example) into Spanish as llamar pa'tras, doy pa'tras.

2. We change past participles, sometimes to regularize them, and do not use the irregular forms common elsewhere. We say murido, escribido, abrido, cubrido instead of muerto, escrito, abierto, cubierto.

3. We may use prepositions in different ways. We may say debo que ir or necesito que ir. We may say las cosas que ellos necesitan ayuda instead of las cosas con que (or con las cuales) ellos necesitan ayuda.

4. We may mix tú and usted liberally and are generally less familiar with the use of this distinction.

5. We may use an archaic ending in the past, e.g., by saying tú hablastes or tú hablates instead of tú hablaste.

Pronunciation

1. We may add sounds, as in the following examples: (a)tocar, (a)bajar, o(y)ir, cre(y)o, mu(n)cho.

2. We may subtract sounds, as in (a)hogarse, (ha)ber, (es)taba, teléfon(o), pa(ra), clas(e), e(ll)a, torti(ll)a, ne(ce)sita, or tam(b)ién.

3. We may switch sounds, as in luenga, siudad, pader, porblema, estógamo.

4. We may otherwise change sounds, as in estoria, deficil, ofecina, joventud, dicir, dishonesto, nojotros, pos, gradar, experencia, cencia.

Postscript

The foregoing are a few examples of the areas that are helpful for us to understand as we learn to communicate both in the Southwest environment and in a much broader one. Certainly the person who knows all the above forms already has valuable vocabulary (though most heritage speakers don't exhibit all these forms) and with the opportunity for study in class or with appropriate materials can build on what is already known to broaden Southwest Spanish as a valuable resource and foundation for a universal Spanish.

To Lower-Division Spanish Students:

We are interested in knowing how you react to the reading on Southwest Spanish, since we are including material of this type in our classes. Please read the selection and answer the following questions, since your input would be very helpful to us. Thank you for assisting.

Check all that apply.

______ 1. The material is helpful.

______ 2. The length is appropriate.

______ 3. The material is too brief.

______ 4. The points are clear.

______ 5. More examples are needed.

______ 6. Additional information is needed.

______ 7. Delete some of it.

______ 8. Create a self-study guide with a tape or CD and exercises.

______ 9. Create a lower-division course to cover this in depth.

______10. Offer courses for heritage speakers.

______11. Include this material in the regular 1014, 1024, 2013, 2023.

______12. This material is needed.

______13. The tone of the material is positive and constructive.

______14. Other comments:______________________________________________________________________________________

© 2000 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.

ADFL Bulletin 32, no. 1 (Fall 2000): 27-35

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