March 23, 2005
Class, professor address needs of Spanish-speaking students
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A new class is helping Purdue University Spanish-speaking students learn more about the language they grew up listening to and speaking with their family.
"There is a growing Latino population in this country, and for many of these students Spanish is their first language," said Sonia González, assistant professor of Spanish and director of the Spanish for Heritage Language Students program. "However, these Spanish-speaking students spent most of their time learning English in school. And even many of those who enrolled in traditional Spanish classes did not find a program that addressed their linguistic needs as a native or heritage speaker."
The term "heritage" is used to describe a student who grew up learning Spanish to some degree and is also bilingual in English, González said.
Students interested in the fall 2005 course can attend an informational session at 6 p.m. on April 7 at Stanley Coulter, Room 131. Refreshments will be provided, and students currently taking the course will be available to answer questions. Students interested enrolling in the course need to take a placement exam at 6 p.m. on April 21 in Stanley Coulter, Room G030. For more information, contact González at songonza@purdue.edu.
In this class the coursework is tailored to the needs of fluent speakers who want to develop their Spanish linguistic and grammar skills, González said. These students, who are from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Columbia, Ecuador and the United States, have spoken Spanish at home with relatives, and in some cases it is the only language their parents speak.
"I was born in the U.S., but my parents are from Jalisco, Mexico, so I did not speak English until I started public school at age 6," said Joel Muñoz, a junior studying Spanish and secondary education who is taking Gonzalez' course this semester. "Of course, I learned how to read and write in English, but I never learned how to read and write in Spanish. My goal in this class is to learn grammar and how to write professionally in Spanish."
Each student also is responsible for a community project that promotes Spanish. Many students are tutoring children at local schools, but Muñoz produced his own Hispanic radio show for WBAA, Purdue's public radio station.
Similar classes have been offered in California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona since the 1970s. More classes will be offered at universities, especially in the Midwest, as the Spanish-speaking population continues to grow, said González, who was born in Mexico and grew up in Los Angeles. She completed her doctoral degree at Stanford University, which is home for the Spanish for Home-Background Speakers, the nation's largest academic program for this topic.
"We recruited a specialist in this area because offering a class for Spanish-speaking students to learn more about their native language and heritage can help Purdue recruit more Spanish-speaking students," said Paul Dixon, professor of Spanish and head of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. "This class, under leadership of Professor González, is promoting the benefit of studying two languages and demonstrating how these languages overlap in people's professional and personal worlds."
As of 2003, the Hispanic population is the largest minority in the United States, González said. By 2050, Hispanics are expected to make up 25 percent of the country's population.
"Many people do not realize the U.S. has the world's fourth largest Hispanic population behind Mexico, Colombia and Spain," González said.
The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures offers courses in languages, literature, linguistics, culture, civilization and film. Major concentration programs are available in French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish. Other languages offered include Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Latin and Greek. More than 5,000 Purdue students take classes in Spanish every semester.
Writer: Amy Patterson-Neubert, (765) 494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu
Sources: Sonia González, (765) 496-2260, songonza@purdue.edu
Paul Dixon, (765) 494-3834, pdixon@cla.purdue.edu
Joel Muñoz, (765) 491-1061 munozj@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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