OUR SPANISH HERITAGE LANGUAGE PROGRAM
Meeting the intellectual, social, emotional and cultural needs of Latino students
STUDENT CENTERED
The SHL curriculum revolves around the students, as it offers them opportunities to know and understand themselves: life experiences, values, and how to meet their linguistic, social and emotional needs, and academic plans. It respects individual personalities and their moral and ethical contributions, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, educational label and/or literacy differences.
CULTURALLY RELEVANT
The SHL curriculum integrates different ways of knowing, understanding, representing and learning information. Students understand that there is more than one way to interpret information, events or actions. By being allowed to learn in different ways or share points of view in a given situation based on their own cultural and social experiences students become active participants in their own learning.
TRANSDISCIPLINARY
A transdisciplinary curriculum moves instruction beyond just merging disciplines. Inquiry is one of the biggest differences in this learning approach. The SHL curriculum is a transdisciplinary curriculum in which students perform tasks that demonstrate their ability to apply knowledge in a creative way. It focuses on authentic learning, new points of view and current problems in the context of multiple disciplines.
TRANSLANGUAGING
In the SHL classroom, students can speak English and Spanish simultaneously according to their communication needs. They have a safe space in which they speak, read and write without being ashamed because they have been told in the past they cannot communicate “well” in English or Spanish or both.
I am a National Board-Certified Teacher of World Languages with 30+ years of experience. I have taught Spanish as a first and as a second language; and for the last 14 years I taught Spanish for heritage speakers. My mission and commitment have always been to help reduce or eliminate the gap in educational opportunities that underrepresented and first-generation college students, particularly, Latinos have. It is time to share all my knowledge and experience acquired in all those years to inspire and orient Spanish Heritage teachers.
I earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum Studies and Language Education, from Indiana University, Bloomington, a M.A. in Spanish, and a B.A. in Secondary Education with a specialization in Spanish Language Arts from the University of Puerto Rico. As a NBCT of World Languages, and as an active member in ACTFL Spanish Heritage Language Special Interest Group, I am well-grounded in current theories of world languages education. In addition, I hold a postgraduate professional license Spanish PREK-12 from the Commonwealth of Virginia.
