Antes no pensaba mucho en eso: Student and teacher voices in the articulation of Critical Language Awareness
Damián Vergara Wilson, Universidad de Nuevo México
The topic of Critical Language Awareness (CLA) has gained momentum among researchers and educators of Heritage Languages over the last two decades. Since Martínez’ (2003) landmark call to empower heritage learners through promoting agency and critical awareness when deploying non-normative community forms, the understanding and implementation of CLA in HL contexts has evolved considerably. While subsequent calls tended to focus on understanding the ideological implications of CLA (e.g. Leeman 2005), recent works have supplied practitioners with practical guidelines for implementation and assessment (e.g. Beaudrie, Amezcua, and Loza 2019, 2021; Wilson and Marcín 2022). As part of this critical evolution, an ongoing consideration of the individual element enrichens our conceptualization of CLA.
How do individual speakers articulate elements of CLA? How do these speakers describe their language experiences? This talk looks at narratives that come from SHL students (Wilson and Ibarra 2015), students in mixed classes (Wilson and Marcín 2022), and a combination of students and teachers (Showstack, Pascual y Cabo, and Wilson 2024). While different individuals will approach the teaching and learning context with personalized manifestations of criticality, heritage speakers may display more pronounced levels of observable critical awareness. However, these data also document individual transformation. For example, Showstack, et. al (2024) examines participant narratives over time and reveals emerging interrogations from individuals regarding Spanish in the US and their own positionality. Considering individual dimensions of CLA, this talk provides suggestions for implementation. On a final note, we consider the implications of promoting CLA in an increasingly hostile political climate.
Works Cited
Beaudrie, Sara, Angelica Amezcua, and Sergio Loza. 2019. “Critical Language Awareness for the Heritage Context: Development and Validation of a Measurement Questionnaire.” Language Testing Online:1–22.
Beaudrie, Sara, Angélica Amezcua, and Sergio Loza. 2021. “Critical Language Awareness in the Heritage Language Classroom: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Curricular Intervention.” International Multilingual Research Journal 15(1):61–81.
Leeman, Jennifer. 2005. “Engaging Critical Pedagogy: Spanish for Native Speakers.” Foreign Language Annals 38(1):35–45.
Martínez, Glenn A. 2003. “Classroom Based Dialect Awareness in Heritage Language Instruction: A Critical Applied Linguistic Approach.” Heritage Language Journal 1(1):1–14.
Showstack, Rachel E., Diego Pascual y Cabo, and Damián Vergara Wilson. 2024. “Language Ideologies and Linguistic Identity in Heritage Language Learning.”
Wilson, Damián V., and Carlos E. Ibarra. 2015. “Understanding the Inheritors: The Perception of Beginning-Level Students toward Their Spanish as a Heritage Langauge Program.” EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 2(2):85–101.
Wilson, Damian V., and Marisol Marcín. 2022. “Building Connections and Critical Language Awareness between Learning Communities Collaborating across Two Distant States.” Languages 7(4):257.