Language Shyness among Heritage Speakers

Let´s talk about the widespread belief among native Spanish-speaking parents that what their heritage speaking children really need is to be corrected every time they make a mistake. This belief even shows up among some Spanish teachers!

As a non-native speaker (I did not start learning Spanish until I was in my mid-twenties), I have often felt slightly conflicted when I meet parents because of my refusal to correct the speech of my heritage speakers. It is not that I doubt my own language competence or that I am intimidated by the regional dialects of my students; whenever I have corrected heritage students in the past I have always had the feeling that I am employing a technique that “wins a minor battle while losing the war”.

If you teach heritage speakers, and especially if you have a separate class for heritage speakers, you really must read this article by Stephen Krashen on language shyness. Within the article there is great validation for FVR. This is the article that I would use to make a case for funding if I were writing a grant application to enlarge my FVR library.

photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ieepco/6217914163 made available through a creative commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/