Claudia Fernández DePaul University

1. 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

2. 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.

3. 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.

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

5. 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)

6. 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)

7. 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)

8. 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.

9. 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).

10. 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

11. 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”

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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 instructor’s beliefs and feel embarrassed, suffer low-self stem, lose their confidence in their linguistic ability and question their identity.

15. 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).

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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 other’s 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.

22. Thank you