 So, I'm going to now introduce our first speaker for today, who is Dr. Gabriela Zapata. Today we're going to be hearing from Gabriela and then tomorrow the other two speakers. So, Dr. Gabriela Zapata is Associate Professor and Director of Lower Division Spanish Instruction in the Department of Hispanic Studies at Texas A&M University. She received her PhD in Spanish linguistics from the Pennsylvania State University In 2002, her research foci are second language and heritage language acquisition and pedagogy, bilingualism, and teacher education. She is also interested in the development of open educational resources for second language and heritage language teaching and in language program direction. Throughout her career, she has published articles on bilingualism and second language acquisition and pedagogy in a variety of journals and edited volumes. She is also the main author of the first edition of the Canadian version of Puntos de Partida and the co-editor with Dr. Manuela Corte of the Volume Multiliteracies, Pedagogy and Language Learning Teaching Spanish to Heritage Speakers. And finally, Dr. Zapata is a Certified Actful Oral Proficiency Interviewer, Tester in Spanish. So, it is my great honor to present to you her talk, which is called Heritage Language Program Development, Administrative and Pedagogical Aspects. Here we go. Okay, buenas tardes. Good afternoon. So, today I will be talking about a program, mostly, I mean, how is it that we think about a language program, a heritage language program, and how we develop the program and then what happens after we develop it. If you want, you have this presentation in the folder, okay? So you can follow me, you know, you can follow the presentation and then I'll do it bilingually, so I can, you know, I'll change between Spanish and English, depending on what we want to do. But what I'm going to do is, basically, the first part of the workshop is going to be a little bit of, you know, talking about these issues. First we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, heritage language learners, I mean, how is it that we define them, the types of heritage language programs that we have in the United States. And then we'll start talking about how is it that we develop a language program, a heritage language program. So we'll talk about the first steps, the need for a heritage language program to show, you know, our administrators, our colleagues, why is it that we need a heritage language program, the gathering of data. Then we talk about backward design, how is it that we create our program, the mission statement, the outcomes, taking into account our institutions and also what we want to achieve instructionally. Then we'll talk about how we gather resources. But before we go on, we'll also talk a little bit about, oops, sorry. Okay, here we go. So we'll talk a little bit about the learners. Okay, what is it that we need to take into account. Then we'll talk about the blueprint for the program structure. We'll talk about the sequence of courses, the materials, teacher training, student placement. And finally, the implementation plan, what is it that you want to do in order to implement your program, the promotion of the program, the recruitment of students. Finally, we talk about program evaluation, and I will show you some examples of exemplary programs here in Texas and also in other states. And then, of course, is the hands-off work, when I will provide you with a template and then you will start thinking about your own programs. So first, before we start, let's talk a little bit about heritage language learners in the United States and how they've been defined throughout the last 20 years. So, of course, the most well-known definition is the one that was provided by Guadalupe Valdez at the beginning of the 2000s, when she talked about heritage language learners and she said she defined heritage language learners as those students who are raised in a home where a non-English language is spoken and the student may speak or merely understand. So this is very important for us to remember the heritage language. And also, they might be to some degree bilingual in English and the heritage language. More recently, last year, well, two years ago, then Saizic provided us with what she calls a prototype model of a heritage language learner. And then she proposes that this kind of prototype is made up of the following. First of all, we have to take into account proficiency, of course, language proficiency. And she talks about, since most of our students learned to speak the language at home, most of them have proficiency at the listening and speaking level. Then we have to take into account that these students have an ethnic or cultural connection to the heritage language. There is dominance in one language other than the heritage language. And then, of course, they have, because they learn the language at home, the heritage language at home, they probably have implicit knowledge of the heritage language. They have some level of bilingualism. And of course, there is an early exposure to the heritage language in the home environment. Now, to me, there are key aspects to this definition that we need to remember. Oops, sorry. So first of all, we need to take into account that we might have students with different proficiency levels. And of course, I mean, that most of our students perhaps have proficiency level at the listening and speaking because they haven't received any formal education in the heritage language. So this is very important for us to remember. Another key aspect, of course, is the ethnic and cultural connection to the heritage language. And this is going to have to play a very important role in the instruction that will provide our students. Then, of course, is the implicit knowledge of the heritage language. So we might have a lot to do when it comes to, you know, our students might be able to use the language, but they might not have any kind of meta-linguistic knowledge. They might not know what the substantive is, OK, when to use it, right? And of course, another important aspect is that they have some level of bilingualism, but that doesn't mean that they will be all the levels of bilingualism that you're going to see in your students are going to be the same. So we have to take those important aspects into account. To me, those four are extremely essential for us to understand what our students are like. And also, they are very, very important when we design our program, OK? I have a question. Yeah. Are there any linguists or experts that, oh, yeah. Are there any, am I coming through? Oh, there we go. Are there any people in the field that classify non-Hispanic students that went to a dual immersion school as heritage speakers? Yes, just without the cultural aspect, perhaps, unless they got cultural input through the school. OK, oh. So you might have a white Caucasian student that went to a dual immersion school? That is not a heritage speaker, no, no, no. Although they might be linguistically. No, really. No, they are not considered heritage speakers. No, no, no. I mean, the important thing is that what we just saw a minute ago, I mean, there has to be an ethical cultural connection to the heritage language. So that is very important, OK? So to the best of my knowledge, I don't think anyone considers a white kid who went through dual immersion as a heritage speaker, unless there's another kind of language in their family. That is the heritage language. Is it at my school in Chicago where every year we get some students who, white students who went to dual immersion schools, and they learn Spanish naturally. And so we, depending on the proficiency level that they achieve, I end up putting them in the Spanish for Neo-speakers classes since they were in Spanish in the natural context. Yeah, you could do that instructionally, but I don't think they would consider heritage speakers or heritage language learners, yes. All righty. OK, so there are different, so we have three different kinds of programs in the United States, heritage language programs in the United States. So we have school-based programs, and those are programs that we find in elementary, intermediate. Here in Texas, we have intermediate school, middle, and high schools. They have different objectives, depending on the school district. So you might have heritage programs, bilingual programs, whose main goal is heritage language maintenance, but you also have two-way programs or dual immersion programs, too. And then there is a database of programs in the United States, and let me show you this, where you can find, so this is the Center for Applied Linguistics, and then they have a database that you can search, where you can find they have different kinds of programs, and then you can find different programs in the United States. But I will tell you in a minute, there is a little, so in your PowerPoint, you have the link. I made it a link so you can get through this website. We'll talk a little bit about this database in a second. Just go back here. All right, so approximately, according to Sarah Bodry, approximately we have 105 programs, school-based programs, in the United States. But this is also based on the call database. There's also the community or organization-based programs, which are sometimes after-school programs, or weekend programs, or some summer instruction programs. And these are usually organized by nonprofit organizations, for example, cultural organizations or religious organizations, or sometimes social groups. And there are approximately 497 programs in the United States. And then, again, they have different kinds of objectives, and they have different kinds of formats. And then, of course, we have the higher education programs that you find at both public and private colleges and universities in the United States. And approximately, there are 53 programs in the United States. The only problem with the database, with the call database, is that it is self-reported. So basically, there are a lot of programs that are not there because people are not reporting them. So, for example, when I was preparing this presentation, I tried to find school-based programs in Texas, and I could only find one in the database, OK? But if you want, you can have a look also in your workshop folder. You will find the PDF that is used by the Center for Applied Linguistics that people can fill out and then send to them so that they can become part of the database. So that is one nice document to have. All right. So, of course, I mean, it gets to a point when you are someone in your community or someone in your institution wants you to start building a program. So what is the first step? So the first step, of course, is, for example, I mean, I've been in this position. The first step is always to show that there is a need for that program. So, of course, I mean, the idea is to gather evidence, as usual. For everything that we do, we need to provide evidence, quantitative, if we can, and qualitative, too, to show that there is a need for the particular program. So first of all, we have to think about the benefits of the program, not just because we know that there is a need, but we need to show that need. So first of all, we can start with the whole idea of the value of heritage language education. So we can start talking about the cognitive benefits of heritage language maintenance and also bilingualism. So there's a lot of literature out there. There's also benefits of heritage language maintenance and bilingualism connected to other types of learning. So, for example, literacy in the L2. There's a huge body of research done by Cummings in Canada that has shown that, really, if you maintain and if you let the heritage language grow, then that is going to affect second language literacy positively. And then, of course, there are social benefits for the community and family. And what I have here is you have a series of very good resources. First of all, you have some of the publications by the Center for Applied Linguistics. And you have the link there. But there's also the wonderful resource that we have in California, the National Heritage Language Resource Center, which has also tons of evidence-based publications that you can use. And I have also included, because sometimes the problem that you might have is that people don't understand in your institution, in your department even, that people don't understand why is it that if we are offering second language classes, why do we need to offer heritage language classes? Isn't it the same? They are all learning Spanish. It's based on my experience. So one of the things that I've included also in the folder is this wonderful article that was written in 2012 by Silvina Montrull, in which she shows how heritage language learners differ from second language learners. And you have the PDF there. All right. So first, you have to collect evidence about the benefits of such a program. Then you also have to look at existing programs and what they are doing. So you can compare, you can include data from programs that are similar in institutions that are similar to your program. And then you can also go to what I just showed you, the Heritage Language Programs Database. And you can find information that is going to tell you what is it that heritage language professionals are doing. And you can show successful programs. And you can find common points. And you can show how a similar program could work in your institution. So this is your second step. And then show why that program is needed in your population, among your population. So for example, you have to collect data about who your heritage language learners are and why there is a need for the program. So perhaps you can use census information. You can use instructor's reports. So specifically, for example, if you work with L2 instructors and there are heritage language learners in those classes, you can create your own census and see how many students you find each semester, for example. And then also you can create surveys. There are a lot of, like I said, there are many resources online, particularly in the National Heritage Language Research Center. You can find those type of surveys. And you can also collect testimonies from members of your local community. For example, you can talk to the parents, some community leaders, all right. And of course, the important thing, like I always say, if you're doing this alone, it might become a real challenge for you. So it's important to identify who your possible collaborators and supporters are and start a coalition, like we are doing with our colleagues here in Texas, and then try to work together towards what you need, to achieve what you need, the kind of program that you need. So once you identify all your evidence, why you gather all your evidence, then you have to start thinking about what kind of program you want based on who your heritage language learners are and what is it that you want to achieve with them. So the important thing is to start about thinking about what I do is to use backward design. So with backward design, you start at the end. You start thinking about the desired results. What is it that your goals and your standards are? And then you derive the curriculum from the evidence, the outcomes that you want to achieve. And then you need to start thinking once you have your goals, what is it that you want to achieve, then you need to start thinking about how you're going to achieve those particular goals. Backward design has been used and is being used in second language programs for a long, long time. And this is, for example, what ACFL advocates when it comes to language programs and language classes. So there's tons of research also that has shown that this is the way to go when you want to start your program. Now, so the step one is you identify your desired results. And at this point, you might start thinking of a mission statement. So it might be a general mission statement. So you might say, why? Why is it? Because if you have a mission statement, if you know exactly what you want to achieve, a grande rasgos, you have that. And so it can guide the actions of your program, what you are going to do. It can explain the goals of your program. So you have your evidence and you have your goals. So you can present that to your, for example, administrators. So also it can facilitate decision making because it's going to be kind of like a map to where you want to achieve. So what is it that you need to do to get there? And then it's going to provide a general sense of direction. And also it's going to get people excited about your program. Because if you go like, well, I'm thinking of doing this and that, but you're not concrete, people are going to say, oh, you're not serious about it. So once you have your mission statement, you have a general idea, then you can show people what is it that you want to do. So you have your evidence. This is why we need this. And this is what we are going to do, what we want to do, what we want to achieve. So that is the first step. And then what I have here is, for example, this is the mission statement for the program, the Heritage Language Program. This is very concise at the University of Arizona. So what you have here, yes, is the objective. And then what you have here is a series of goals, objectives that this program has. And this is something that you can think, I chose this one because I think it's concise. It's very easy to follow. And then there's something that can inspire you. Of course, this is their mission statement. This is something that goes with their learners. But you might find inspiration from this kind of mission statement. And of course, when you are thinking about your mission statement, you have to think about not just the instructional outcomes that you want to achieve, but also what is it that your institution needs. Again, going back to who your Heritage Language learners are. All right. And you have the presentation there. So once you have your mission statement, you have to determine what your curricular priorities are. What is it that we need to do in the program in order to get to those particular goals? So of course, I mean, Wiggins and Matai, when they talk about backward design, they talk about thinking in general terms, you can think about what is it that you want to include in your program, the content of your program. So you can talk about, first of all, you have to think about performance. What is it that my students will be able to do with the Heritage Language? How do they need to? What is it that they need to know in order to do something with the Heritage Language? What is it that they need to do with the Heritage Language, depending on who your Heritage Learners are? So you are going to think about, of course, linguistic knowledge, and you're also going to think about content. Again, culture, ethnic, and also multimodal. Because we live in a multimodal world, so it's not just a question of perhaps being able to write, but also being able to produce to develop multimodal hybrid products. And so you can think about what I like, the way they do it, because it's just so you can think about what it's worth being familiar with, and then what is important to know and do, and finally, enduring understanding. So you can have different kinds of knowledge, and then you can start thinking about what is it that your students need to do, and know. So when you're thinking about this content, you can think about outcomes. So what is it that our students are going to be able to do with the content that we provide them with, with the information that we give them? So usually when you can start, and this is at the very beginning, so you can start with very general outcomes. But at the same time, you want to be specific in the sense that our students are going to be able to do this. So you want to use action verbs, but do not overcomplicate things, so just a couple of outcomes, action verbs. And evidence of learning, how are they going to show that they have achieved that particular outcome? So then you can start thinking about performance criteria. All right. OK. So once you have that, you have your mission statement. So you have your evidence for the need for the program. You have your mission statement, and you start thinking about, OK, the instructional outcomes that you want to have. What is it that you want your students to learn? And now you have to start thinking about your resources, OK? So you start thinking about, and this is what Bodri says, defines as the next major stumbling block, OK? Because we all know, and this is one of the problems, especially with heritage language teaching, that there is a shortage of funding and other resources, OK? So here is where we need to start thinking about how we're going to do things. So what she says, and I like her recommendation, it is important to think creatively, persevere, and identify all potential resources. For example, existing resources that can be adapted or recycled to start a new program. And again, my advice, like I always say, the whole idea is to not try to do everything on your own, but develop a team and assign roles, very specific roles. So you might recruit collaborators, and then you must start thinking about who your collaborators might be, administrators, former students, perhaps, OK? Community volunteers, people who want to help, instructor, staff members, and then you can also have partnerships, which is very good. So perhaps if you are a high school teacher and you want to start a heritage language program in your high school, you want to create classes for heritage language learners, and you're close to an institution, a higher education institution, a university. Contact someone at the university. A lot of times, I mean, we at universities we really want to help. But sometimes, first of all, we don't know who to contact at the public education level. But when we get those contacts from teachers, we are very happy to help, OK? It's always a question of everyone being always really busy. And then it's a question of knowing who to contact, OK? And if appropriate, of course, we can identify grants, perhaps, donors, and organize fundraising events. So the whole idea is baby steps. Start modestly, but with big dreams, OK? So maybe you can start with one or two classes. But then thinking, OK, in the future, our program might have not just two classes, but three, four, five classes, OK? All right. So and of course, I mean, the essential aspect for me, because I do multiliteracy's pedagogy. This is what I am all about. So of course, to me, the most important thing to remember is what Calansis and the dimensions of new learning. What learning is all about in this age and age, OK? So one of the important things to me, well, the essential thing for me to remember is, of course, the learner, all right? So again, why is it important for us to develop our own programs, our heritage language brand? Why is it that I've been saying, you have to think about your particular population? Because the whole idea is that we want to move away from that place where one size fits all. It's the norm. We want to go to a place when it is clear that effective teaching is basically teaching for learner differences. And what we have is we want different outcomes for our different programs, depending on our needs. And of course, what is important to remember is that when we think about our learners, we need to think about learners' diversity. We need to think about diversity in terms of, we need to think about learners' diversity, the different types of knowledge that our learners have, what we are expecting for our different learners, learners' outcomes, and also learners' worlds, where our students are coming from, OK? So then, of course, we have to remember, of course, that we need to take into account material conditions. I mean, our learners are going to where they are coming from in terms of family, community. Also, we have to think about our learners as people, I mean, their age, their race, sex and sexuality, physical and mental abilities, and of course, the whole idea of the symbolic differences that we find among our learners to culture, language. And then, of course, we have to think about, the whole idea is that we need to try to answer to include all of these in our program, OK? When we are developing our program. All right. OK, so essential for all heritage language programs, and this is how I see as essential for all of them. And then when you are creating your own programs today, you have to think about that. So first of all, I think that, you know, what is essential for all heritage language program is a comprehensive body of pedagogical resources that answers the needs of heritage language learners. So what we want to have is materials that are culturally relevant for our learners. So if our learners, if we are teaching in an area where most of our learners are Mexican-Americans, we're not going to include perhaps material from, you know, Dominican-Americans, OK? So we want to include things from their community. That's the whole idea. And so we want to be able, yes, to include culturally-relevant material, but we also want to be able to include materials that are going to be appropriate to develop their knowledge, the skills that we want them to develop. And we want to include, we want our students to maintain their cultural integrity, but we also want them to succeed academically. So we have to take into account what their academic needs are, OK, and they are going to be different. And then of course, I mean, we have to remember that our students are coming to our classes with an implicit knowledge of Spanish. So, you know, they might be able to use Spanish, but we need to help them develop that metalinguistic knowledge that they don't have, OK? All right. OK. So again, what is it? Now we'll start thinking. So we have our evidence for the language program. We have our mission statement. We have an idea of the kind of knowledge our students need. We have to take into account our learners. And so now we start thinking about, you know, the sequence of courses and the pedagogical materials that we're going to use. So we have to think about the goals of the field. I mean, what is it that the goals of the field are and how those goals are, you know, commensurate with what we want to achieve. So of course, I mean, we have different goals in the field. So we have the maintenance of the heritage language, the acquisition of a standard dialect, the development of bilingualism, or the development of literacy skills. Now we have to think about what is it that we want to achieve. So the point of departure is the learners and the community, their linguistics needs. We have to think about their type of bilingualism, their proficiency levels. And then we have to think about the cultural needs that are related to the community, okay? So the fourth, once you start thinking about all these aspects, the best way to start a program is to start thinking about the most needed courses. What is it that you really need? And so you want to plan a step-by-step implementation, but you also want to be flexible because there might be changes that you have to take into account and that might happen. Also we have to think about what can be realistically accomplished. What are the available materials that you have and the personnel, right? So the first step in designing the Heritage Language Curriculum, of course, is to understand the learners' needs, both in terms of their proficiency levels. So we need to know at what level our students are, their academic goals, what is it that they need to achieve, and their literacy background. And also we can take into account their motivation, okay? Why is it that they're taking the class and why they have that interest in taking the class. An important thing to remember for us, and I completely agree with Baldry when she says this, it is crucial to steer away from deficit-oriented proficiency assessments that focus exclusively on learners' problems. So the Anostic Assessment should identify strengths first. All right, so what is it that our students have? What is it that they're bringing to our programs and what is it that we want to get to, okay? So the important thing is to legitimize Heritage Language Learners as native speakers of Spanish, okay, and if we do that, students will be invested and this is crucial for success. So tomorrow, we are going to have, we learn more about the kind of materials that can achieve those goals in, you know, when Jose Esteban and Shanina give their presentations on creating materials, okay? All right. Now, so then, how is it that we are going to determine who our students are? And then the resources that we have. So first, we'll start thinking about the materials, but also we need to start thinking about teachers. Who are the people that can teach these classes? Do we have the personnel in the program to create a program? And then, my colleague Flavia Verpolitis is going to give this presentation tomorrow again when she'll talk about teacher preparation, okay? But then if we go back to the student, what is essential, of course, is to have a good way of placing our students, all right? So what we need as the point of departure when it comes to, you know, where our students are going to be is an effective placement test, all right? So there are recommendations from the field. There are in-house, the recommendation from the field is to, of course, create your own test, okay? Because of course, I mean, you have to think about your own students, all right? And there are two excellent articles by Fairclas and then Potoski et al, where you know you have very important information that you can follow to do so. And there's also a variety of different ways in which you can place your students, okay? But each program will need to determine what works best because, I mean, you have to determine what works best in terms of who your students are, the kind of instructors that you have, and the resources that you have, and the support that you have. So again, as with any, that's the thing, you know, with heritage language teaching, there is not one size fits all. I mean, each program is going to need to develop their own resources or adapt what is out there to their own learners. And that will, you will have to think about, again, who your students are, what your goals, the goals that you have to accomplish, and also what you have available, okay? The viable option, again, is to create a task force and to try to get people to work with you, collaborate. That's the important thing, okay? So what is it that you have to do then? Once you have all the different aspects of the program ready, so you have to plan a timeframe for each step of development and implementation process. You have to set very specific objective or work outcomes for each step of the process, so you have to organize your, from the very beginning, you need to know exactly when each aspect of the program is going to happen. You have to assign roles and distribute responsibilities among your team. You have to use graphic organizers, for example, and you have to establish a digital presence. I think that is very important, even when the project is in its development stage. So you have to let people know what you are doing, the kind of program that you are trying to develop, okay? So this is very, very important. Also, you need to promote your program, and also you start thinking about student recruitment. So for example, you want to identify stakeholders, okay? People that might be interested in the program and who might be able to help you. You have to organize promotion and recruitment team. So again, you cannot do everything on your own, so perhaps the people that are developing the program with you are not going to be the same people that are going to be recruiting students for the program or promoting the program. So you might have a whole team and then you assign different roles to different people. So you can create informative sites, for example, or videos. You can create your own YouTube channel in which you can, people like stories, people like to know what you are doing and then you can start from the very beginning talking about how the program was conceived, why is it that you need the program, so you can promote your program and your initiative with a YouTube channel, for example. You can conduct information sessions for parents, for other instructors, for students, for administrators. You can organize events to introduce the program to the community. You can visit schools, community organizations. And once students have been placed in the program, you can send welcome emails to the students, the parents. And you can visit L2 classes, for example. It depends, I mean, this might not, of course, this might not be appropriate for you, but you can visit classes to identify possible heritage language learners, depending on what you want to do, right? Okay, once you do that, this is for later, of course, but this is, I wanted to introduce this because this is something that you have to think about. If you're thinking about program evaluation, perhaps sometimes, you know, thinking about how the program is going to be evaluated gives you some ideas about how, when you are conceiving the program during consumption. So, for example, there is an excellent book and then I have, you will find all of these, all my references are in the bibliography that you find at the end of the presentation. But there's an excellent book, a very recent book that was published by McKay and Davis and they talk about program evaluation, language program evaluation. So, what I have here is the evaluation, I mean, it's gathering information about a variety of elements and then, for example, what is it that you want to focus on in the evaluation and that might help you with the conception of your program. And you might want to evaluate a program to understand what and who the program serves best, demonstrate what is it that the program is doing, why is it doing to whom, improving what is it that you want to improve and then also judging the program value, for example, why is it valuable, for whom it is valuable. And then the point of departure is identifying and engaging specific users of the evaluation findings, who the evaluation is going to benefit, creating evaluation questions, the type of information you need and then you plan the evaluation schedule. But of course, this is a later step, I just wanted to give you this information for you to start thinking also about a particular aspect of your program or the development of your program that you might want to include in the conception of the program. And here you have some questions that you can use, okay? And of course, I mean, before you start organizing your program, I want to show you two exemplary programs there at the university level. I wasn't able to find, I was able to find some programs, school-based programs, but not enough information on them, unfortunately, but two of the programs that I want you to have a look at are, but these are programs that took years to develop, okay? The first program is the one at the University of Arizona. So this is a program that has, of course, the mission statement, I show you, I explain what a heritage language learner is and then of course, they have different kinds of courses, okay? And so you can see they have different kinds of courses, a variety of courses. This, of course, is an exemplary program. It might be too ambitious for you at the very beginning. I know it is too ambitious for me and my current institution, okay? But it's something that I would love to see in my program, in my heritage language program in the future. So the whole idea is to show you these programs, it's not to say, oh my God, look at this wonderful program. Why can I, it's not to give you envy, but inspiration, okay? So just thinking about, oh, wow, they were able to do this. Perhaps someday I will be able to do this. But the whole idea is to think about, what is it that is offered, you know, in different programs across the nation? And of course, a local program, which is the program at the University of Houston, which is also an excellent program. And then we have all the information here, the offerings, and then of course, they have different levels, the same thing. And then you have very specific, you see very specific descriptions. And then also you have the whole idea of, what is the difference between a second language learner and a heritage language learner? So these are programs that have been around for a while, and this is something that we can aspire to, all right? So these are some of the other programs that I wanted to show you, that you can explore on your own. And of course, there are others, but those are the ones that I really, really like, and that's why I wanted to show them to you. And of course, here in the Center for Applied Linguistics, there are some programs, okay, that are school-based, okay, community-based, but there are mixed with other programs, with higher education programs because, like I said, the database is self-reported. So there are, and also, if you get to some programs, you have very little information about the programs, let's see, what was the one, the one in? So you have some information, but there's not much, see? They haven't reported what kind of materials they are using, so because it is self-reported. So it's not because they don't want to do it, it's just like people don't have time, we all know how busy we all are. So sometimes you want to do it, but then don't have time to do it, yes. I was just wondering, when you do go to those exemplary programs, do they have a curriculum laid out online as well, or is it just the course descriptions? Some of them have syllabi, yes, out there, but no, I mean, not necessarily, yes. But I'm sure that if you want to contact the people that are in charge of those programs, they will be happy to give you that kind of information. Yes, I think yes. That's the thing, it's a very nice community. I mean, it's a very, very nice community, and then I'm sure that has always been my experience. People are very generous, and they are happy to give you as much information as they can. Yes, yes. And that is the whole idea. Don't be afraid to contact people who, you know, so, oh, I love that, oh, maybe I can contact that particular person, and that particular person is going to give me information, or if they don't have that information, they will guide you and say, we don't have that, but this person might have it, okay? So yes, that's one of the things that I would recommend. All right, so now enough of me talking, and let's get to work. So what I want you to do is to start thinking of what I've created is a template for you guys. You have this template, it's a Word document, but you can open it with Google Docs, and you can share it, and this is something that I would like you to do in the time that we have left, which is an hour. Okay, I would like you to think about, conceptualize a particular program, either if you want to, or we would like to have in the program. So what we have here is I'm going to show you how I have done this template. So first of all, of course, when you're thinking about your program, the most important thing is to identify who is going to be in charge of this initiative, okay? Just think about your own institution, for example. I mean, who's going to be the person, all the persons in charge of the program initiative. So you can think about the collaborators, and then the name of the people, and the role that they are going to have, okay? So you can have, you know, you can change it, you can add more people, okay? Just start thinking about that. And then you need to think about the timeline, okay? So then for each state, you're going to have, you're going to add a particular information. So remember, the first stage is to gather evidence, okay? For to justify why you have your program. So you want to start thinking about when is it that you want to start that particular stage, and then what is it that you want to end that particular stage? And then what your objectives are going to be for that particular stage. So your objectives might be to, you know, for example, create a survey for the community. Who is going to do it, interview students? Who is going to do it with the objectives, okay? What your objectives are going to be. What is it that you want to achieve in that particular stage, okay? So we have to, the objective is to gather evidence, and then by that particular day, what is it that you want to achieve, okay? So you need to follow all the steps that I show you, okay? And you have to think about the objectives and the outcomes that you want to achieve. Then you need to think about your learner characteristics. I mean, think about your learners in the particular area where you are. So for example, in this case you want to provide evidence, you want to provide, you don't have the statistics, but if you want, you might have learners performance other, so the age range, because depending on the age of your learners, you might want to, I mean, your program is going to be different depending on who your learners are. So your population, for example, the communities, you can provide geographical and census information, cultural aspects that you want to think are important, socioeconomic backgrounds. So you want to add all that kind of information because that is going to guide the kind of material that you're going to use. Like I said before, if you are teaching Mexican-American kids, you might want to include, for example, pieces by Mexican-American writers and not perhaps Dominican-American writers because you want them to, you want to keep things within the community, okay? So identify the linguistic needs. What is it that my students have and what is it that my students, where do I want them to get, okay? So this is very important. What are their cultural needs? I mean, what is it that they need culturally, okay? You remember, we want to, yes, we want to perhaps, you know, we want to take their Spanish to the next level, but we also want to take their identity to the next level, okay? So what are their academic needs that are going to be different from their linguistic needs, okay? What is it that they need to do with the language, all right? It's not just what is it that they need to know about Spanish but then also what they need to do with Spanish academically, okay? So you have to start thinking about their academic needs. Based on all that, you're going to create a very simple mission statement for your program, perhaps just a list of objectives, okay? And then based on three and four, who your students are, where their needs are, then you start to start thinking about the curricular priorities. And then what is worth for my students to be familiar with? Okay, so this is the lowest level of content. What is it important to know and do and then what is enduring understanding? What are some of the essential, what is this essential knowledge and skills, okay? All right. Based on that, you're going to think about outcomes, all right? And then based on everything that you said, you can think about a particular course that you would like to create. So for example, you can think about a possible title, the average enrollment that you're going to have, the total contact hours per week, the personnel who's going to teach that class and what that role is going to be. And then of course the objectives of that particular class and the outcomes, all right? And the possible pedagogical material, technology needs. These are all things that you need to think about when you are creating a program and a particular course and also other needs. So you might want to think about, not just technology, not just possible pedagogical materials but other needs that you might have, okay? Perhaps if you want, for example, if you want to create a class in which your students want to collaborate with the community-based teaching, then you might need to think about where your students can do their community work. So you might need, the other needs might need identifying organizations where they can do that particular, they can carry out that particular activity that you want them. And then you want to start thinking about teacher training, okay? What is it, for example, if you need to train teachers, what is it that they might need first? So the possible title of a workshop, the person in charge, the tentative date, of course, I mean, we're not going to do all this today but this is some of the things that I want you to think of when we're thinking about a program. The objectives and then the outcomes for teacher training, technology needs and other needs. And then the student placement, you need to think about placement methods, the person, the people that are going to be in charge, tentative dates, the same objectives. And promotion, who's going to promote the program and the timeline, okay? The activity, when it's going to happen, you know, when it comes to promotion, the actions, the resources and the outcomes. So there's a lot I know, we cannot do all of this this afternoon. This is just for you guys, it's a template that you can take with you and then you can use, okay, when you start thinking about a particular program. You can also modify it. You can add other things and you can say, oh, okay, I think that in our program we need this and this and that. So for this particular workshop, what I would like you to know, what I would like you to do is to focus on, let's focus on what we can think of, all right? Things that you know. For example, think about the student population that you're teaching, all right? So I want you to tell me a little bit about who they are, okay? If you think about what, more or less their socioeconomic background, their linguistic needs, all right? So I want you to do number three, okay? And I want you to do number four, to think about a mission statement and objectives for the program. Number five, the curricular priorities and the outcomes and perhaps a particular course that you can think of and the final thing that I want you to do, no, and that's it, that's it. Okay? So it's a lot, I know it's a lot, I know. So what I want you to do is, we're not going to do, I'm not asking one of you to do things, but I want you to work in groups, okay? Yes? Okay, it was on. I want to take this back to one of the first remarks you made about self-identification of the heritage learner. That is one of our first difficulties and I'm coming from being a heritage listener from being a passive user. So my first identity was, since I don't speak Spanish regularly, even though I understood everything, I must start in 101. I self-identified as not knowing Spanish. And many of our students, if asked, are you a heritage user of language? No, I don't speak enough. I don't have enough lexical skill. So even if we want to identify our students in a certain way, they don't want to be identified that way. So how do you overcome that first barrier of them wanting to be placed in a heritage learner class? Well, it's information. It's just, it's legitimizing, it's legitimizing Spanish and legitimizing the whole idea that they are heritage speakers and they are really Spanish speakers, okay? So one of the things that you can do, for example, is advertise in a very positive way what it means to be, I mean, why is it good to be a heritage speaker? So one of the things that we are doing, for example, right now in my institution is creating videos with their own students. So our own students, our heritage language learners, which we interview them and then we ask them what their experience was in the heritage language class and how they feel that, why they enjoy that particular experience. So the thing is that sometimes it has to do a lot with peers. And then if you, and again, it's given information and then, for example, also creating, also that something that is working for us is, for example, creating specific cultural events in which we invite heritage language learners to talk a little bit about their families. To, we also, we invite them to also help second language learners with their Spanish that legitimizes them a lot too. And then it's always the whole idea of, you know, basically saying, yes, your culture is very rich, yes, it's wonderful that you are bilingual. And you know, the whole point is that is you don't need to be perfect, you don't need to speak a particular language perfectly in order to be bilingual. So it's a lot of information and a lot of, you know, selling the whole message from student to student. So that may be one thing that you want to do, you know, just, you know, advocating, I mean, using your previous students to tell your new students why those courses are valuable for you. That has worked for us. Even the students creating the videos. Yes. I was wondering, you mentioned the placement test. So I get, as you mentioned, you get just a big variety of ability levels. Some kids that, you know, had private school in Mexico before they came over and some just rode the train, La Vestilla all the way across and they had little education, but they're all put into the same class. And so when you give a placement test, what do you do with that information? Like how do you, because they're not gonna allow me to separate, let's say the ones that had private schooling from the ones that didn't, they're all gonna be placed in the same class. And so what is the most effective method to kind of reach all students? And then my second question is, we just adopted Authentical from Pearson. Do they, do you know if they have a heritage language book in Spanish or is it just for L2 learners? Well, there are, okay. Let's go one question to the next. What you do with your placement test, it will depend on your institution. I mean, and a lot of things, I completely understand because I mean, we have a lot of limitations as educators. The whole idea is like, one of the things that sometimes work is to create projects, okay, that are going to involve different, and that's what, for example, Cummings has done in Canada with kids, with immigrants from different, with different proficiencies in English. So what he does is like, we do too is create these group projects in which students, from the, you put together students with different skills. And then they can create, they can help each other. They can, and it has to do, they can tell, for example, one of the things that you can do is to, they can tell their own stories. I mean, their immigration stories. And they can create a particular identity text. For example, we work a lot with that entity text. And then they collaborate, in which one student, for example, might have more proficiency at the oral level than another student, one particular student might have more proficiency when it comes to writing. And they collaborate. So one person tells a story, for example, while the other one writes it, okay. So the whole idea, but of course, I mean, it takes a lot of planning and tomorrow, you'll get a lot of good ideas from my colleagues, who will be talking about the development of materials. And then informing. I mean, that's the thing is, it's a lot of advocacy. A lot of what we do is just fighting with administrators. And then trying to inform them about the realities when it comes to the linguistic realities. And then also, okay, what is it that you really want from these kids? Why is it that we're teaching this class? What is it that we want to accomplish? Are we just offering these classes because we have to? Or do we really want to get somewhere? So again, it's also showing them evidence. This is not working for us because our students are not doing this or this. And so this is the way we can change it. And then proposing little steps, baby steps. So perhaps, you know, you start with one small thing and then you move more and more and more. Get more people involved. When it comes to books, yes, there are books out there. But my suggestion, and this is what we, this is what I did in California when I was teaching heritage language. I created my own materials. And that's why we have, you know, we have, and this is the good thing now that, you know, we are creating more materials. They are online on the page that Shostling show you. And then that's the wonderful thing that we can share and we can adapt, and that's the beauty of it. And that's what we are trying to do. That's what we are trying to do. I don't particularly like any commercial textbooks for heritage language learners. I think that they are very cookie cutter, you know, education. I mean, it's just like, I don't like that. That is so good for my students. But again. I use pieces from different textbooks, but there's not a good book for heritage. So it's just not. Exactly. Because it doesn't take into account the varying degrees of proficiency with both the written and the reading portion. I mean, they're a bit of the level. So, you know, you can show some kid a story they can read and comprehend it, but the other kid that doesn't have, then you, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't sound very effective, so. Exactly. So then that's another thing that you might think in, you might take into account when you develop your courses. Is it, what is it that we need to, that they need? I mean, what is it exactly that they need? Perhaps you cannot focus on all, you know, like we used to call the four skills, you can focus on two of them, for example. What is it that academically you want them to achieve? What is it that linguistically you can achieve with them? So it's a lot of decision making and it's a lot of, you know, and I can't give you, that's the thing, you know, we cannot give you any particular, this is the way you do it. No, because your students are all different. Your places, your institutions are all different. And that's one of the things that, you know, and that's why I like Calences and Coupes so much, because that's what they say, you know, learner. The learner is what you need to take into account. Within your limitations, your institutional limitations. For example, I'm teaching in high school and I have a lot of students who are newcomers. So the level of the Spanish sometimes is very low. They have, they come with no education enough, but they cannot be, they don't have the academic level. They seem like some heritage speakers, so they grow up here, they speak the Spanish, but they learn in English in the school. So they have an old academic level developed in their language. So we need to look at what they need. So kids that we need to, you know, I think, I'm thinking that for this program, it's more for university or college. So with the high school, we need to look more carefully who is in that group. So because we need most to differentiate because some kids, what I noticed, if a kid never learned or studied Spanish formally, but has a good level in reading and writing in English and speaking in English, so when they can transfer perfectly to the academic language in Spanish. So we just need to help them to improve the speaking, you know? So, but we are in the same classroom with another kids that even they are very fluently or only in Spanish, the academic level is very low. So that's why you need to find a middle ground. I mean, and then also that's why, I mean, what has worked for me and, you know, my research is the whole idea of having these different kinds of skills together and these different kinds of proficiency together. I mean, a lot of group work, a lot of group projects, you know, so then putting students together that have different strengths. And so, and then you give them specific roles and each person is responsible for one particular aspect. But it all depends, of course, what your goal is and that's why I said, you know, when you're thinking about your courses and the kind of ways in which you create your course and if you're thinking about, you know, what is it that I'm going to give them in this particular course, in this particular program, you need to think about all this, who my students are. So these are the steps that you need to follow, you know, when you start thinking about that. But then, of course, I completely understand that there are limitations instead of institutions and then also, do you have the personnel to teach those particular classes? Do you, are your teachers ready to implement, for example, this particular project work curriculum? So. I just wanted to make a comment for what, I've seen the growth to go back to her question and her statement of how do we attract, how do we overcome the labels of the, especially in high school. What I've noticed this year, I started the Spanish Honor Society and to tell you the truth, in the Spanish Honor Society high school level, we have the Honor Society, but you start enticing the kids with the Spanish Honor Society. And what does it do? Well, you have to have this kind of GPA and well, do you have to speak Spanish? Well, yeah, you have to speak Spanish one, two, or be a heritage speaker and take the AP and blah, blah, you don't have to be in pre-AP or AP classes to be part of Spanish Honor Society. And that's how I've noticed this year, just by starting the program, they were like more Spanish speakers were going, well, what do you get at graduation? You get that sash, yeah. Oh, really? I want to be part of that. And so you kind of, well, you have to bring up your GPA. You have to turn on your grades. You have to, well, I don't want to take the example. That's fine. And so it kind of touches them. And they see, well, like he was saying, they're not necessarily, what is the heritage speaker looking? You know, they're like, whoa, your president is African-American and he speaks Spanish? Yeah. Oh, and so you start noticing that because you get the mentality of college bound in high school too. So I don't know that. That's kind of how I enticed the high schoolers this year. And that's what, that is exactly what you need. I mean, you need, and then it's wonderful if you could create a little video or something and then show it to students or then you can have, you can interview them and then you can show them because that's the thing, that's how you get people excited or then even create an informative little leaflet or whatever brochure that says, if you do this program, these are the benefits. And so students, oh, okay. So it's the whole mentality that if I invest in this particular class, in this particular program, then this is what I'm going to get. So, and especially, I mean, and also information about, for example, the kinds of, if there are any institutions that you think that your students are interested in, especially when it comes to universities, colleges, programs, and then if you do some research and then you show what kind of scholarships they might get because they are heritage language learners, that might also motivate them, yes. And the whole idea of legitimizing who they are, I mean, to me, that's the most important aspect. It's just like, what they bring to the whole, it's the whole point, it's like, we say because I mean, I have the other way, with some of my second language learners, they go, I have an accent, I say, yeah, so what? I have an accent too. You know what that means? That means that I live in two different worlds. What people who don't have an accent and speak only one language live in one world. How boring is that? That's what I always tell them, you know? I have access to another world, they don't. So, who cares if I have an accent? Who cares if you have an accent? And then if they say, when my students, my heritage language learners tell me, I don't speak Spanish. What are you talking about? I'm just like, you're communicating. You are able to express who you are. It's your identity. And then I always bring the two worlds, you know? Remember, two worlds versus one. You are two, they are one. So, it's a question of legitimizing. Yeah, that's the most important aspect. Going back to his comment on the different levels of learners, have you ever seen the New York City curriculum for secondary schools? My county has encouraged us to use this and I've just looked at it a little bit, but it breaks it down into, it has like, level one cipher, level two cipher, and then it goes into then regular level one, two, et cetera, et cetera. And then it breaks down for each type of learner, what the different targets and abilities would be. So that could be something to look into. I was hoping you would have looked in, hear what you thought about it, but it's whatever. Like I said, there's a ton of resources out there. It's just, but it always goes back to what works for your students. I mean, it might be a wonderful, like, you know, when people say, oh, you know, you have to follow these particular standards by AFOL, and then you have to think about who your L2 learners are. So, you know, that is important too. So the whole thing is like, you know, who are your learners? Is this a good program for my learners? If I'm going to adapt this program, is it going to work with my students in order for it to work? What do I need to do? And that's the whole point. It's the point of departure is always your learner. It's always what your community needs, not what other people are doing that might look wonderful. Yes, it might look wonderful, inspiration, it works for them, but can it work for my students? So that's the whole point. Any other questions? Yes. I have a comment. Going back to legitimizing the students' culture. I work here in Austin, in South Austin, at Aikens High School. And 12 years ago, when I moved here from California, I found that my Texas Spanish speaker students were a little bit different than the California ones. And I thought that what it was a little weird, they were hiding, they weren't proud. And I taught in East LA for 18 years, so that was not the case, because everybody there was Mexican mostly. And they felt good about who they were. So I started a program called Latinos Unidos, and it has grown year after year. And the students are very happy about their program, they're very proud of it. We put on this huge Cinco de Mayo program at our school. We sell out every year. It's a 500 seat theater. We sell out, it is the most popular program in the school now. Where when I got there, I asked, what do you do for Cinco de Mayo, or for any kind of Latino activity? And they were like, not much. And so coming from Los Angeles, I thought this is crazy. So we started that. And we just graduated a whole bunch of seniors, and they got chords for participating in Latino Unidos for three years, doing community outreach. Most of them have passed their AP Spanish Language and Culture and Spanish Literature. So most of them will probably have a minor in Spanish. And so that program has grown a lot. And one of the things, the kids prepared this album for me, a beautiful album. And they said, we felt at home. You provided a second home for us. And we felt that our language and our culture was valuable. And so we felt really good and proud about who we were. And so I'm thinking slowly they're not hiding anymore. But we need to provide avenues for them so that they can feel proud of who they are. They wore those chords so proudly at graduation. OK, yes. Is it working? Yeah. So how do you strike a balance between respecting the heritage learners vernacular, which many times might have some features that are stigmatized in the greater Spanish-speaking world? So striking a balance between that and providing, for example, reading and writing skills, which just by definition requires some sort of standard idealized variety of Spanish. I always talk about registers. So for example, a lot of my students, even my graduate students, some of my graduate students who are heritage language learners, say Aiga. I never correct it, ever, ever. Because I mean, when they're talking to me and it's just a very informal conversation, I always tell them it's a fine form. I mean, when you use it in oral conversation. And it's fine. But when you're talking about more academic Spanish, I talk about the existence of a written standard. And that's why we need to use it. So I always say your Spanish is wonderful. Your Spanish is appropriate. And that form is appropriate when you're using it with your mom. You use it to me when we're having a conversation. But if you're going to write a particular essay, for example, or if you're going to write a letter of application for a job, you need to use standard Spanish. But I always say that their Spanish is wonderful. I never say you don't speak Spanish correctly. No, not ever. I always say there's not correct or incorrect Spanish, but there is appropriate or not appropriate Spanish for the social situation. That's it. To me, there is not incorrect Spanish. It's appropriate or not appropriate. That's the whole rule. But generally, the materials for the course will be geared towards reading and writing skills. Exactly. It depends on what they need. It depends on what they need, what students need. If that's what they need, yes. Any other? OK, well, we have half an hour. So if you want, you can go somewhere else to work on this. And then we will come back. And then it's one of you guys. I mean, if one particular group wants to present a couple of, you can focus on one particular. We won't have time to do this. But let's reconvene. Let's see. So you can do, for example, if you want, you can focus on three. You can work with someone else. You can focus on four, if you have to think about a particular program that you want to implement. Or you can focus on number five, or number six, or number seven. So just focus on one. You can work with, if you work in groups, you can work on one particular Google Doc. And then you can share it with us. And then you can talk about it. So let's do this in 20 minutes, OK? If you want to stay here, fine. Or if you want to go, go. And then we will reconvene at 10 to 4, OK? 3.50, OK? So why don't you work, all right? Yes. What you can do is, oh, well, send me the, share with me, yes, the Google document, yes. And then I open it and you tell me what you want to do. If you want to share it with me, do you have it there? Did I put my email here? No, I didn't put it here. I hope I put my email and you share it with me. And then I open it and you tell us a little bit what you want to do. There it is. So if you want to share it with me, it's zapata.tamu.edu, OK? If you see it there. No? Nobody has shared it with me? It's very boring. I already talked. You have to talk. So now I want to see what you think. Because I saw that a lot of people were working on that. Nobody wants to share anything with me. OK, I'm going to see. OK, I'm going to put it here. There it is, zapata.tamu.edu. Oh, OK. I don't feel like I put enough together to share a whole document. OK, OK, what did you tell us what you did? But I notice you're a certified OPI tester. And I'm actually at the end of the OPI certification process right now. And I've found that being familiar with Actful's proficiency levels has really informed my practice as a heritage language teacher. And so I've already placed incoming freshmen for next year into my heritage classes. And I found that picking the proficiency level that I want for a baseline first year heritage student really helped me with my placement process this past year. Because I've always had some students that I've admitted into my classes that end up not doing so well. And I discover along the way that their language proficiency was just not what my base level for the course was. So this past year, or in May, I decided that I wanted students with a minimum proficiency of intermediate mid as an entrance level for my first year heritage course. And so this past year, there were some students that I would have admitted into my classes hispanoblantes in years past that probably would have ended up not doing so well. But just so like for the mission statement part, I put to get students to the advanced level of language proficiency and some students to advanced high, which of course is functioning at the superior level most of the time in most ways, but maybe not all the time. But like you said about differentiating for students at different proficiency levels, I think being familiar with Actful's proficiency levels is really important for our heritage classes, perhaps even more relevant than for our general language classes. So it's interesting that you are finding, because a lot of people do not find the Actful proficiency levels useful for heritage language learners, because there are so much variety. So then if you have, for example, if you have your mission statement, I mean, when you're thinking about having the proficiency level, OK, so you're thinking about proficiency, but are you going to only focus on proficiency or are you going to focus also on performance at the different modes of communication, so interpersonal, interpretive, and presentation? Are you going to do that? I mean, because perhaps that's one of the things that you might be interested in when you're talking about heritage language learners, because perhaps at the interpersonal level, communicating with other students, they might not need so much help, but they might need more help at the presentational level, when you know the presentational mode of communication. So when you write, when they have to write, and also if they have to do academic presentations, depending on what you. So that you might want to, perhaps in your mission statement, you might want to add that too. In particular, what is it that you're looking for? Because I mean, you're looking at overall proficiency, and then how is it that you're going to make sure that they got there? Is it going to be just OPI, which might not tell you much about proficiency at the writing in the writing aspect? So that's one thing that I would add very specific, be more specific about what exactly is it that you want to achieve, but it will depend on who your learners are. But I, yeah, and now that I have this knowledge through the OPI training, I can start hammering out the details, like you just said of all that. But I think that I hear a lot of heritage teachers talk about, well, I have these five kids, que lo entienden, pero no lo hablan mucho, o si lo hablan un poquito, but I feel that the actual proficiency levels help you zero in on, OK, what am I expecting from a student, and then you have to decide what kind of baseline proficiency level you want for your courses to, and that's for certain modes. Exactly, for certain modes of communication, and that's going to depend on who your students are again. Exactly. It's all about the learners, about the learners, yes. OK, any other, let me have a look at my Google and see if we have people sharing things with me. Let me see. Maybe, let me see if I have it in there. All right, let me just get it through my email. OK, so Megan, do you want to tell us about it? Let's have a look at this. OK, I don't have a lot of experience with this, so this is just based on what we're looking to do at my school starting. We don't have the University of Kansas, and we don't have a Spanish for heritage speakers, but we do have a lot of heritage speakers enrolling in advanced grammar, which I speak, or just in the grammar courses, and they have to go through all of these courses that they don't really need, so we're starting to create it. In terms of the timeline, it won't be for the fall when they're going to start it. It would be probably in a year, maybe in the spring. I don't think we'll be ready in the spring. So that's the adoring for the students, and then the community mostly in Lawrence is Mexican-American or Central American-American. So usually, in classes that I teach, I try to be really flexible and get to know the class and then maybe adapt it or change some of the readings to engage them a little bit more in the cultural content, because they do get really excited when they identify more with what they're reading. So I think that what we haven't really established exactly what we're looking for, so I kind of thought about what we've talked about and what I've seen in the classroom. So I think working on kind of confidence is an important part, which you mentioned, and just making the students feel like they are capable. I also feel like the lack of confidence comes with the more formal rhetoric in Spanish. They really want to have more guidance, and how do I transition? What are the formal words for this? Even though they're using it correctly, they don't believe that they are, and they want you to really, the students in the class who want me to edit their papers and read through them the most are the heritage speakers or even students that I would consider native, like I had a student coming from Peru who constantly wanted me to reread her papers. So I think it really affects their confidence to be in these classes with L2 learners. And in terms of the academic needs, like what do they need to do with Spanish? Which, I mean, I was thinking kind of, you know how they can use the language professionally and showing how it's an asset for them in their professional life and how it should be a point of pride, but also an asset and learning different rhetorics that can be useful for them professionally. And you were saying, I think it's multimodal products, which would take different rhetoric, so kind of introducing them to that. The mission statement was really hard for me after looking at that really beautiful mission statement from Arizona University. So it's not particularly original, especially in about 15 minutes. I feel like it's pretty... But you can start thinking about it. Yeah. I really liked what they had put in terms of connecting the students to their cultural heritage and their personal experiences and preparing them for advanced courses to do the major. And then when I got to the priorities and outcomes, I didn't, I kind of, we were ending it then and I went down to there. So this is what our school, which there's a spelling error, this is what our school is kind of looking to do, which is to create that first one, Spanish for Heritage Learner's Course, and then it would feed probably into the advanced grammar course, which is probably gonna have to change eventually, but this is the course we're looking to create. The class size would be about 15 to 18 students and it would be three hours a week. And I didn't really get down into the objectives and the curriculum, but it would probably be similar to the ones that are already listed. So I hope that that... But that's a very good beginning. I mean, just start thinking about one particular course that you want to start and then moving from there, I mean, see how it goes. Then create this pilot course, collect evidence about student performance and then think about what the next step is. One of the things that I wanted to tell you, for example, I mean, especially something that works really well and in a way, it can help both cultural needs and academic needs. It's the use of genre-based pedagogy. Genre-based, genre-based pedagogy. And that is a pedagogy that originates, is also connected to the multiliteracy's pedagogy. But it's basically, you work with texts and then it's a good way of... So you work with different kinds of genres, okay? And that is the important thing. But then the point of departure is a particular model, text, a text model. And then that is when you can introduce the cultural aspect because you can use text from the community. So written by Latinos. And I've used it in my heritage language classes and also I'm going to use it. This semester it's going to be more experimental but because it's going to be, I'm going to be using a system that is called Scholar that has been developed by Calensis and Cope. And then I'm going to use genre-based pedagogy in a class that has mixed L2 and heritage language learners. Now, one of the things that, how I'm going to start it is like the first, it's, again, the whole idea of this particular class is literacy, the development of literacy. So it's mostly developing writing. And so what I'm going to do, but at the same time, of course, while I develop writing, I am also developing their grammar and anything that has to do with literacy. I'm going to use, it's all going to be all topics related to their own experiences. So for example, the first one is going to be a narrative, it's going to be how they felt when they go to the university. So what I'm going to use is a short story, well, not a short story, it's one of the chapters from Francisco Jimenez's last book, I don't remember the title right now. Masa Shade, Masa Shade, Masa Shade, see. But then he talks about, it's very interesting because he talks about the whole trip to the university. I mean, it's, even though it's old, it's very, students can relate to that because it's the whole feelings, how he's feeling that he's going to this new university and then how the family is feeling. And so it's the whole idea is that, this is a narrative, so this is the model text. And then what you do with genre-based instruction, you analyze first the text, you analyze the kind of structure that the text has. And at the same time, the kind of language that you use when you create a narrative. And then students construct a text together. And in this case, my students are going, I'm going to mix heritage language learners with L2 learners to construct their own narrative. Then you analyze the text that they have constructed together. And then the final step is the individual construction. So it's joint construction and then individual construction. And I'm going to do with different genres, but what I'm going to do is to use this particular online environment scholar so that students can provide one another with, they're going to be peer reviews, okay? Very guided peer reviews. So that is one way in which you can connect the culture and then what they are trying. So instead of just getting any kind of text, oh, this is a narrative or this is an expository essay from whatever topic. What I'm going to do is use only topics that are related to university students' experiences. So that's one of the things that you need to start thinking. So it's a particular class. It's just one class, but you start thinking about that. But then you bring their own experiences. So for example, if you have some Central American students, you can bring, for example, something from a Mexican American student like Francisco Jimenez, but then you can bring a narrative that is multi-modal. For example, some of the narratives that have video stories of, for example, how a particular student came to the United States or something like that. So that's one way of doing it. But it's a very good beginning. Now the only thing that I would do is like, this is a very good way of starting. And then just go more specifically to, what is it that, if you want them to use professional Spanish, for example, if you want them to be good at professional Spanish or being able to use Spanish to communicate in the professions, then you might want to think about what specific, what is the main interest that your students have? What is it that they are going to think about the job market in that particular area where they might work or the community? And also start thinking of community-based instruction too. That's another thing. But these are all steps, but you can start thinking about all that. Any questions? Yeah. I just had a comment on her. Yes. The benefits of them as professional and all that. And how the Spanish benefits as professional. A very cool project I do with my Spanish speakers is they do, it's a pretty long project, but I have them go out to the local businesses around. I teach in your Brownville, Texas, which is not far from here. And they ask questions like, how important is it as an employer to have employees who speak Spanish? How does it affect your business? How does it bring back clients back to your business versus a business that doesn't have employees who speak Spanish? And anyway, they create this long poster board thing, and then I take them to Texas State University and I meet with a professor, Dr. Yasmin Rivaya, who teaches a class called Spanish for the Profession, Spanish for the Professions, in which she teaches those same very topics. And so then my kids will present their poster boards to her students, and then her students will ask my students questions about what they found, how was the interaction, et cetera, et cetera. And so it really, really, it's a source of pride for them. And my L2 Spanish students don't go because they're not heritage speakers. And so they, well, I want to go to Texas and you know, this is for my Spanish speakers only. And I'm fortunate, because I coach also, so I have to have a bus driver's license, so I get the bus and I take them and we spend all day in Texas State and they really, really have a good time. And I point out to my students, like, I want you to look around and I want you to see what students look like at a university. There's almost 40,000 kids that go to school there. And to them, initially, they think, oh, it's just white kids who have money. And I say, open your ears and listen, you're gonna hear lots of languages and you're gonna see a bunch of different students. So it's a really, really fun project. And I think you mentioned, you know, finding people in the community. Yes, exactly. And like a local university and it really, really helps them. And they really look forward to that project every year. It's kind of a fun deal. So anyway, that's what I do with my kids. Another thing that we are doing in our program is we are creating now other kinds of videos with some of us, you know, who are also first generation students, you know. So we are, basically, we tell our stories because they see you and they say, oh, this person has a PhD. No, let me tell you about my story. So that's another thing that we're doing to, to basically to tell kids. I mean, it can be done. I mean, this is where we come from, you know. And then we, let me share your stories and see how important it is, you know, when you, that, you know, coming from a poor environment that doesn't mean that you cannot get a university degree. And that's one of the things that we're doing. We are creating the first generation university, yeah, professors, so, for the first generation students. That's one of the things that we're doing, yeah. Anyone else wants to share? Thank you so much, Megan. Thank you, thank you very much. Great job, thank you. And if you need any help, just let me know, okay? So anyone else who wants to share their ideas, we have, you know, a couple of minutes. Well, we'll be here, you know, until tomorrow afternoon. So, you know, if you have any questions, if you have any comments, if you want to share anything with us, you know, we're very, very happy to know what you're doing. I mean, any kind of ideas. And I hope that this was in some way useful. Tomorrow you will have more, very useful information about how to create activities, also about teacher training. And then at the very end of the session, we will have questions and answers. And then we're going to have a break now. And then when we come back from the break, you are going to have some information about some of the available resources that we have for everyone. Thank you, thank you very much. We have Gabriela for her presentation. And now we have 15 minutes break. So you guys can go have coffee or tea and stretch your legs. And then we'll be back in 15 minutes.