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Spanish for Native Speakers


The question is often asked: “Why do you have a class called Spanish for Native Speakers ?”

Spanish for Native Speakers refers to courses that teach students Spanish language, literature and culture to students who already speak Spanish. Its similar to teaching students who already speak English about English literature and teaching them literacy skills. Speaking the language is not enough. We need to develop the literacy skills in a way that helps define what an educated person knows and can do. Spanish for Native Speakers teaches a lot of the skills a regular high school English course teaches: It teaches students to be able to read and comprehend text at a deeper level, and it teaches them to express themselves orally better, as well as to write better.

There's lots of reasons why families and schools support Spanish for Native Speakers courses.

The first reason is family support for maintaining the home language and culture. Many families who speak another language at home want their student to be supported in the language, culture and history at school. They would like to see the home culture continued, and the family's ethnic identity strengthened, not weakened, at school.

Besides the wishes of the families, there's sound research that supports teaching students in the family heritage language.

Researchers Collier and Thomas wrote:

“We have found that for young children and adolescents in Grades K-12, uninterrupted cognitive, academic, and linguistic development is essential to school success, and neglect or overemphasis of one of these three components may affect students' long-term growth. Our data show that extensive cognitive and academic development in students' first language is crucial to second language academic success.” (Collier 1995)

The same researchers also found that the number one predictor for long_term academic achievement in English is the extent and quality of the L1 schooling. (Collier 1995) The language spoken at home is often referred to as “L1.” This means the first language the student learned.

For educators, this is significant. We want our students to come to us fully literate in their first language. The skills they learned about reading, such as making inferences, will transfer to the new language as soon as their L2 language skills are good enough.

These students are ready for deeper understanding of written text. They are ready to advance their literacy skills. However, if we deny them the only language they are fluent in, then we deny them an opportunity for further cognitive development. Therefore we encourage students to continue with developing their literacy in L2.

This notion is supported by the researchers who found that adolescents need cognitive, academic and linguistic development uninterrupted for optimal academic success. (Collier 1995)

The Roseville Joint Union High School District offers two class for Native Spanish speakers. Spanish for Native Speakers 1 and 2 earn the same credit as any foreign language course on our campus. Both classes count for University of California entrance requirements.

Spanish for Native Speakers classes offer language, literature and culture in more depth than a Spanish class for English speakers can. We use what the student already knows - - a rich vocabulary and an ability to speak and listen in Spanish, and add skills for reading and writing in the student's heritage language.

Spanish for Native Speakers not only reinforces the home culture, but it also helps students read and write in English by teaching skills that transfer from Spanish to English.

The class is a lot of fun, and part of the curriculum focuses on enhancing the students' rich cultural heritage.

Families support it and the research supports it, so we teach it.

Our next challenge is to develop a Russian for Native Slavic Speakers course series to serve our strong native Russian and Ukrainian populations.

Reference

Collier, V.P. (1995). Acquiring a second language for school. Directions in Language and Education, Volume 1, Number 4, Fall 1995. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition (NCELA).