September 15 – October 15 is Latino Heritage month, so this issue of the Alliance News Flash focuses on resources and information for Spanish speakers and Latinos in the U.S. Highlights include the launch of a redesigned Web site on teaching Spanish to native Spanish speakers (SNS), new Spanish language programs, and SNS articles featured in a new book.

The Alliance has redesigned the Teaching Spanish to Native Spanish Speakers (SNS) Web site to make information about the Spanish-speaking population in the United States and resources for working with Spanish speakers in Spanish language programs more readily available. Learn more.

This book, now available in paperback, contains five chapters focused on Spanish speakers. A quick overview of each of these chapters is outlined below.

• Guadalupe Valdés, Sonia V. González, Dania López García and Patricio Márquez, in “Heritage Languages and Ideologies of Language: Unexamined Challenges,” focus on the experiences of Latino heritage speakers in a Spanish language department and offer recommendations and implications to strengthen heritage language departments in universities.

• Mary McGroarty and Alfred Urzúa in “The Relevance of Bilingual Proficiency in U.S Corporate Settings,” explore Spanish in the workforce and how language and occupational identity interact.

• Claudia Parodi describes the California Spanish vernacular (SV as it is spoken in Los Angeles ) in “Stigmatized Spanish Inside the Classroom and Out” and presents an alternative for Chicano bilinguals.

• Joy Kreeft Peyton, in “Spanish for Native Speakers Education: The State of the Field,” reviews curricula and instructional strategies used in SNS classes, based on work with 30 SNS teachers.

• Andrew D. Cohen and Tania Gómez, in “Enhancing Academic Language Proficiency in a Spanish Immersion Classroom,”show that it is worthwhile to provide students with explicit strategies to develop their knowledge of academic language.

Read more about this publication.

The Alliance will periodically feature information from our new Heritage Voices project, where we plan to occasionally highlight stories from programs and heritage language learners and give voice to important work and information of interest to the heritage language community. Program Voices and Language Voices will be expanded over time. We will be featuring Escuela Bolivia, profiled below, as our first Heritage Voice example next month.

In the meantime, please visit our Online Collection of National Heritage Language Program Profiles to learn more about the following two Spanish programs we have recently added to our collection:

Escuela Bolivia is a Saturday heritage language program aimed at developing the Spanish and English language skills of both heritage speakers and non-native speakers of Spanish. Learn more about Escuela Bolivia.

Spanish for Young Heritage Speakers: Nuestra Lengua is a PreK–6 grade program begun by the Department of Modern Classical Languages at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia . It offers a unique experience for heritage Spanish speakers to enhance their literacy skills, oral fluency, and pride in their heritage language and culture. Learn more about Nuestra Lengua.