Teacher Development and National Standards for Spanish as a Heritage Language

Abstract: Given the increasing presence of heritage speakers at both the high school and postsecondary levels, greater numbers of preservice and in-service Spanish teachers need exposure to Spanish for native speakers (SNS) issues. This is because well-structured SNS courses should look more like native language arts courses than like Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) courses. Therefore, traditional foreign language methodology courses are insufficient to prepare teachers to work with heritage-speaking populations. In addition to offering considerations for national standards in SNS teaching, the authors suggest coursework components designed to prepare teachers to work more effectively with SNS students. Introduction Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. Latino population grew a staggering 40% while the rest of the population increased only 10%. This population change has profoundly impacted the American education system at all levels of instruction. Currently, Hispanics constitute nearly 32% of the student population of the 100 largest public school districts and 27% of the population of the 500 largest public school districts in the United States. In some of this nation's largest urban areas, the proportion of Latino students is even higher. There are 6,942 public schools that are between 50% and 100% Latino, including 71% of public schools in Los Angeles, 46% in Bade County, Florida, 34% in New York City and 33% in Chicago (Stearns & Watanabe, 2002). These demographics are directly at odds with current practices in many Spanish programs. A recent survey conducted by the National Foreign Language Center and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) (Ingold, Rivers, Tesser, & Ashby, 2002) found that only 18% of the postsecondary programs surveyed had Spanish for native speakers (SNS) classes. At the secondary level, the lack of SNS is even more acute: Just 9% of schools offered SNS instruction in 1997 (Rhodes & Branaman, 1999). This situation is not likely to improve soon, given the scarcity of teacher training resources in SNS. To date, there is no SNS methods textbook and there are no standards for SNS teacher preparation, no state-sponsored certification of SNS teachers, and no national language standards for heritage language speakers of Spanish. Additionally, few foreign language teacher-training programs include coursework on teaching Spanish to native speakers, a point that will be illustrated further in this article. This means that even at institutions with an SNS program, teachers often do not receive adequate preparation to work with these students. Calls for SNS teacher training began appearing at least 20 years ago (Garcia-Moya, 1981; Gutierrez, 1997; Roca, 1992), but to date no formal national surveys have determined how many preservice teacher-training programs include heritage issues. General curricular offerings in Spanish programs are also out of kilter with demographic realities. Although the United States is the hfth largest and the wealthiest Spanish speaking country in the world, the literature, history, language, and general contributions of U.S. Latinos do not figure prominently in the teaching of Spanish in this country. There is a growing volume of pedagogical resources with information of this nature, but the use of these materials is generally confined to basic and intermediate courses, where it is primarily intended to be used as a motivational tool rather than to provide substantive content matter instruction. Rarely, if ever, does this information make its way into the advanced language courses, much less into the literature and culture courses that form the core preparation of Spanish language majors. Clearly, these curricular deficits do not serve heritage language speakers well. Furthermore, as researchers and teachers have noted repeatedly, they do not serve the nation well. In today's global economy, the linguistic and cultural skills of heritage language speakers are vital to the security and economic prosperity of the United States (Brecht & Ingolcl, 2002). …