Spanish for Heritage Speakers is a class offered by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Western Illinois University. The class is traditionally offered only in the Fall at the Macomb campus. In the past, Spanish for Heritage Speakers has been also offered in Quad Cities given the increasing number of Latino students on Western Illinois University’s campus.
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The class is offered at 300 level. Students are placed in this class via a placement test or with consent of instructor.
The Beginnings
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The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures launched SPAN 320 Spanish for Heritage Speakers class for the first time in 2009.
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The course is designed for students who grew up speaking Spanish at home and in their communities. Since the year 2014, the class seeks to offer a sociolinguistic informed approach to the use of Spanish in the United States through which Latino students can further explore their cultural and linguistic background and identity. The pedagogical approach applied in this class "aims to create possibilities for social change in relation to perceptions, attitudes, and linguistic practices" (Holguín 2019; Critical Pedagogies for the Teaching of Languages) , within the frame of Critical Sociocultural-Linguistic Literacy. See CriSoL Project
https://pedagogiascriticas.ucr.edu/
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The Latino population at WIU is currently estimated to constitute 12.1% in Macomb campus and 11.7% in Quad Cities.
Currently, Spanish for Heritage Speakers is the only course offered in Spanish, for this specific group of students attending Western Illinois University. Given the current numbers of students that have identified themselves as Latinos, this class results particularly relevant to the students educational development in our institution. It is vital that the students see themselves represented in the curriculum.
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The goal of this course is to empower learners of Spanish and provide them with critical language awareness about the variety of Spanish spoken in the US, but more specifically at home and in their communities.
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The West of the state of Illinois, in addition to the general Midwest region are very important cultural and linguistic centers of Spanish in the US. As most of our students are from these regions, this further establishes the need and relevance of this course to the identified Latino students attending Western Illinois University.