From its origins over three decades ago, interest in the field of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL) has grown and has produced a wealth of research. While our understanding of the sociolinguistic profile of Spanish heritage language learners has increased and we have advanced in our knowledge of the linguistic abilities and strategies Spanish heritage language learners bring to bear on specific language tasks, we are just beginning to apply this knowledge in meaningful ways for the purposes of assessment. The present paper describes the evaluation of the efficacy of the Spanish Placement Test (SPT) that has been used for over 15 years to evaluate students initiating their Spanish language study at New Mexico State University (NMSU). The SPT is intended to distinguish between students who would be best served by either the SHL sequence or the Spanish as a Second Language sequence and, further, to suggest which course
within the appropriate sequence would best allow their skills to grow. An examination of the SPT was warranted as the population for which the SPT was originally designed did not appear to match that of NMSU’s population of SHL learners. Additionally, at first glance, the items on the SPT did not appear to be a good fit with the goals of the courses in the SHL sequence. The present paper discusses the findings of our evaluation of the SPT in light of its ability to assess the skills of learners of Spanish as a heritage language and place them accurately in the sequence of SHL courses.
In addition to enhancing language skills of their students, instructors of Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) learners seek to address the social and emotional needs of their students yet are challenged to do so only in a classroom setting. Service-learning (SL) offers the authentic opportunities in which learners can employ their language skills and evaluate how these abilities are valued outside of the classroom setting. In addition to encouraging deep grounding of the course material, SL promotes learners’ general abilities in critical thinking, self-awareness, knowledge, tolerance, and compassion (Eyler & Giles, 1999). We add to the emerging literature of SL with SHL populations (e.g., Trujillo, 2009; Martínez, 2010; Leeman, Rabin & Román-Mendoza, 2011; Petrov, 2013) and find that SL is a powerful tool to not only connect SHL learners to their identity, the Spanish language, and the community, but also to validate the high level of cultural and linguistic skills that SHL students already possess and to spur the development of more skills. Moreover, integrating SL in SHL courses aids learners in developing their knowledge of the Spanish language and of course material far and beyond what could be accomplished in the classroom alone and allows the community to provide students with valuable knowledge, skills and insights as well.
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