Denise Hanson - Malcolm Shabazz City High School, Madison WI ...

facing native Spanish speakers in Spanish language classes. Native Spanish speakersoften struggle in traditional Spanish language classes because those classes are notstructured in ways that enhance the native speakers' oral knowledge. To the contrary,their deficits (for instance, in writing) are highlighted and for many of them, theexperience is demoralizing and does little to contribute to their sense of themselves asstudents. The native Spanish speakers' natural mastery of oral Spanish is often scarcelyrecognized and rarely valued in our language programs. Over the years, I have worked toopen my classroom to these students and encourage them to take my classes.Unfortunately, my attempts to move native Spanish speakers into my classroom oftenbackfired when the other students made comments, often sarcastic, to native Spanishspeakers like "What are you doing in this class? You already know Spanish" or worse,"You should know Spanish." As María Kellor, a retired MMSD Spanish teacher noted inher research, "not only is this experience in the Spanish classroom harmful to the Spanishspeaker's desire to learn his own language, it also has a tremendous impact on his selfconcept"(Kellor, unpublished Master's thesis, 29).In short, there is much evidence advocating Spanish classes for native Spanishspeakers. Before my current project began, I specifically catered to the needs of nativeSpanish speakers by individualizing my plans and expectations, giving them moreappropriate literature, and most importantly, asking them to take leadership roles in orderto help other students with oral practice. However, it was clear to me that this was not asufficient response to the problem.The benefits the native-speaking students brought to any Spanish class were clearto me. What was not clear was how to deal with the concerns I had about the nativeSpanish speakers' frequent problems with Spanish language literacy. I knew these wouldcome to the surface, and that I would need to address them. The lack of a strongbackground in Spanish language literacy haunts these students as they struggle withwritten exams, papers, and the like. It is important to note that until recently, foreignlanguage classes nationwide have heavily emphasized writing skills, with grades beingbased mostly on traditional paper and pencil test scores. While there is currently moreemphasis on speaking, the traditional focus continues.