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[AILA Review 36:1] 2023
► pp. 1–13

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Teaching during COVID-19

Social justice and Spanish heritage language learners

 | Loyola University Chicago
Published online: 24 July 2023
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https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.22001.bur
Abstract
Latinx who do not feel confident speaking Spanish are usually questioned. To fight these ideologies, Pascual y Cabo, D., & Prada, J. (2018). Redefining Spanish teaching and learning in the United States. Foreign Language Annals, 511, 533–547. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar suggest new pedagogical approaches to incorporate in the curriculum the experiences of the heritage language learner (HLL). Latinx in higher education expect a culturally relevant curriculum to critically listen and speak to challenge the hierarchies that marginalize them. Why is social justice education key? To meet the needs of our minority students and to fight social inequities that affect their lives (Freire, J. A. (2021). Conscientization calls: A white dual language educator’s development of sociopolitical consciousness and commitment to social justice. Education and Urban Society, 53(2), 231–248. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This article offers a proposal to teach social justice in the HLL classroom through classroom strategies such as digital stories, autoethnographies, creative writing, or oral history to provide these students with the tools they need to give voice to their communities and incorporate them in the curriculum of an inclusive Spanish classroom whose backbone is US Spanish to fight raciolinguistic ideologies that marginalize them.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Social justice
  • 3.Teaching social justice
  • 4.Classroom practices
  • 5.Conclusions
  • References
References (74)
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