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12. Advanced Biliteracy Development in Spanish as a Heritage Language
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C H A P T E R 12 Advanced Biliteracy Development in Spanish as a Heritage Language M. Cecilia Colombi and Joseph Harrington, University of California, Davis T HE FIELD OF HERITAGE LANGUAGE has expanded in both scope and depth in recent decades and thus has brought a new understanding of the nature of how heritage languages develop and are acquired, along with their use in various contexts. In educational institutions, specifically, there is heightened attention to how heritage language learners can develop biliteracy in their home language. However, research into the development of Spanish heritage language biliteracy—particularly at advanced levels—is only now becoming a topic of more active research in suggesting why and how these learners become biliterate. This chapter presents an overview of the research that is being done on the development of advanced biliteracy in Spanish as a heritage language in the university context. CONTEXTUALIZING ACADEMIC SECOND-LANGUAGE LITERACY IN THE UNITED STATES Indigenous, heritage, and immigrant languages have a problematic status in US society historically and contemporaneously. Stemming from strong monolingual ideologies, official and nonofficial policies have been at best indifferent toward the preservation and development of these languages locally and nationally and have often led to either their diminished presence in the public sphere or to linguistic extermination (Gal 1998; Ortega 1999; Ricento 2000). 241 242 M. CECILIA COLOMBI AND JOSEPH HARRINGTON This antagonism has more often than not resulted in restricting languages other than English primarily to the home and a limited number of public spaces, such as community religious observances. In short, the United States has not been a favorable environment for the maintenance of languages other than English. These monolingual ideologies have also been strongly felt in educational institutions . Proposition 227 and Proposition 203, which, respectively, passed in California in 1998 and Arizona in 2000 (both states have a predominantly Latino population) aimed at eliminating both bilingual education in the schools and also academic opportunities that could facilitate the development of literacy in heritage languages.1 In terms of literacy development, these propositions affected educational institutions in that they found themselves more focused on developing academic competence in English to the exclusion of advancing literacy in any other language. Consequently, these educational limitations severely denied opportunities for learners to both develop and acquire literacy in their home languages, in addition to English. Moreover, the number of educational contexts that can support the academic literacy development of non-English languages is quite limited. Even where they do exist, their primary goals are more transitional than developmental. Although there are numerous bilingual education programs nationwide, they are distributed in an unbalanced manner toward the primary level, with scant offerings at the secondary and tertiary levels.2 This is especially crucial because it is during secondary and later education courses that students develop the necessary advanced literacy practices to become full participants in the various academic and professional contexts. The near nonexistence of advanced bilingual education at an institutional level, therefore, severely circumscribes opportunities for learners to develop advanced literacy in their home language. In addition to the limited number of contexts in which students can develop advanced literacy in a home language, the goals of most bilingual education programs that do exist often eventually favor transitional forms of bilingualism, with the resulting academic abilities in English far exceeding those in their home languages. For example, though learners may achieve incipient biliteracy through bilingual instruction, eventually these programs shift from balanced biliteracy instruction to teaching more advanced literacy skills in only one language, English, which becomes their primary academic and professional language for later schooling and higher education. As a result, ‘‘bilingual students rarely develop advanced biliteracy’’ (Colombi and Schleppegrell 2002, 4), due to bilingual pedagogy that does not provide opportunities for learning the academic registers for the duration of the students’ education.3 Therefore, many bilingual learners cannot gain access to any opportunities to develop advanced biliteracy until they gain entrance into higher levels of education. [34.228.7.237] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 04:21 GMT) ADVANCED BILITERACY DEVELOPMENT IN SPANISH 243 HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS OF SPANISH IN THE US EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM Heritage speakers of Spanish in the United States constitute an important student population with unique linguistic and educational needs and challenges in learning both English and Spanish (for further discussion, see Valdés 2005). Spanish heritage speakers provide an example of a heterogeneous group of learners , both linguistically and culturally. Heritage speakers’ use of Spanish...