Spanish as a Heritage Language Assessment: Successes, Failures, Lessons Learned

Abstract

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.

College‐level placement for heritage language learners

“…Wilson (2012) mentioned that Gonzales (1999) designed an electronic placement exam for Spanish HLLs at the University of New Mexico, but the test was proven to be unreliable in discriminating between high and low‐level learners (p. 28). MacGregor‐Mendoza (2012) also observed such ineffectiveness at her institution. This is congruent with what Fairclough (2012a) observed: more information about the effectiveness of the placement procedures is needed.…”

“…">A relatively narrow definition. While considering students' needs as well, the Spanish HL program at New Mexico State University adopted the definition proposed by Valdés (2000), emphasizing students' language learning context to identify HLLs in placement: learning it naturalistically through the informal home environment or formally through classroom instruction (MacGregor‐Mendoza, 2012). Similarly, Liu (2011) used the family background as one of the indicators of Chinese HLLs.…”

“…The same thing was kept in mind by other researchers (e.g., Burgo, 2013; Lee, 2000), when writing PTs for their programs. MacGregor‐Mendoza (2012) concluded that the uselessness of a placement primarily stems from its misalignment with their HL programmatic goals.…”

Exploring an Elicited Imitation Task as a Measure of Heritage Language Proficiency

“…For example, articles dedicated to this very topic in the 2012 special issue of the Heritage Language Journal emphasize assessment as a "necessary first step" for distinguishing L2 and HL populations (Beaudrie, 2012) and a step that provides important information to educators and curriculum designers about the knowledge that HL learners bring to the classroom (Fairclough, 2012). MacGregor-Mendoza (2012) argues that, to access HL speakers' linguistic knowledge, HL assessments should reflect activities with which HL speakers would be familiar. Additionally, she emphasizes that assessments used for placement purposes should be developed in-house and must be site-specific so as to ensure that they align both with the needs of the local HL student population and with the goals and realities of the specific language program for which linguistic knowledge and language abilities are being assessed.…”