This article employs a language ideological framework to explore how particular language attitudes and beliefs shaped one group of U.S. students' choices to avoid producing a dialectal variant, Castilian Spanish [theta], in the context of an undergraduate Spanish pronunciation class. An analysis of ethnographic data points to the significance of…

Contextualized within our "Projects in Humanization" in language teacher education and part of our on-going collaborative self-study of our language teacher educator practices, we used multiple case study to examine multimodal representations of cultural and linguistic identities curated by three language teachers--Daniel, Yuseva, and…

Portuguese language students in the United States typically also speak Spanish, and Portuguese programs, influenced by ideologies of linguistic purism, ceaselessly battle against its interference. This article describes a qualitative study of the treatment of Spanish utterances--called "taquitos" by participants--in a beginner-level…

This study examines how language attitudes play a role in the adoption of dialectal variants in second language (L2) pronunciation in a study abroad context. Twenty-four North American university students participating in a 6-week program in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were administered pre and posttest questionnaires and a posttest oral production…

This article reports the findings of sociolinguistic research investigating the use of second-person singular pronouns in Costa Rica. The study was carried out onsite and involved 132 interviewees from all seven provinces of the country. These subjects reacted to scenarios in which they had to choose their preferred pronoun of use…

Many scholars have argued that an intercultural approach to foreign language instruction best reflects the inherent interconnectedness of language and culture. However, abundant evidence of the effectiveness of such an approach is lacking, particularly at the secondary level. This two-year curricular experiment, which took place in two public high…

This study examined the effects of participation in a community service-learning experience on Spanish heritage language learners' attitudes toward their heritage language and culture. Quantitative and qualitative data from heritage language learners demonstrated that engagement in community service-learning activities as part of the Spanish…

Advanced grammar courses often present standardized grammar rules to students without considering sociolinguistic variation. As a result, many native/heritage students feel that they speak "incorrectly," and many second language learners do not get an accurate picture of the target language's real-world grammar. This article describes…

This article makes the case for using critical pedagogical approaches to the teaching of Spanish as a heritage language (HL). Having different language tracks is not enough: As long as HL learners hold negative linguistic attitudes about their own language variety, they will be unable and unprepared to learn successfully. First, I define who HL…

This article reports on an extensive survey administered to advanced heritage language (HL) learners to examine their language behaviors, attitudes, and backgrounds. To date, there have been no detailed categorizations of advanced HL learners to guide classroom instruction and curriculum design. Thus the present study is a first attempt to fill…

This study aims to identify the two principal reasons why college students choose a certain language to satisfy a general education second language requirement by polling 172 students enrolled in first-year language courses in 13 languages at a large Northeastern research university. Students answered a questionnaire and chose the two main reasons…

Discusses national linguistic tensions related to the increasing number of Spanish speakers in the United States. Focuses on a group of language scholars who are engaging in efforts to change or suppress the use of U.S. Spanish, particularly in the domain of Spanish. Asserts that the arguments put forth by this group are based on attitudes of the…

Teaching Spanish has become increasingly popular in the United States due to demographic shifts. This study focuses on a Spanish-only initiative for an existing Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) program proposed by a southeastern public school district's school board. It analyzes discourses underlying the policymakers' rationales…

A survey of 358 university students enrolled in first- and second-semester French and Spanish classes indicates that students are overwhelmingly positive about the importance of knowing a foreign language. This article presents the results of this survey, along with its pedagogical implications. (Author/VWL)

This study compares 27 sixth grade students who have been learning Spanish since kindergarten with 5 who have had Spanish for only 1 year using a battery of Spanish oral and written tests. The students who started early out performed the new students in listening, speaking, and writing Spanish. Those who started early also displayed a positive…