An Infusion Curriculum for the Heritage Speaker of Spanish

This article presents an overview of the literature on program models for teaching Spanish to heritage speakers, noting definitions, intake and placement procedures, typical offerings, and effective approaches, and covering a proficiency orientation, infusion of subculture materials, study of sociolinguists, community involvement, and cooperative learning. It then focuses on three studies conducted in an urban commuter institution with a large number of heritage speakers to determine students' views of mixed classes, motivations for rejecting heritage classes, and assessment of their own language background and abilities. Finally, the article reports on an experiment to infuse materials about southwest Spanish into second-, third-, and fourth-semester classes. The experiment was well-received by students. It suggests both a permanent infusion curriculum for the regular Spanish course sequence and using this approach to interest additional heritage learners in classes tailored to their needs. Appendices present questionnaires and a description of southwest Spanish. (Contains 35 references.) (Author/SM)