Author Description

This collection of personal essays addresses an urgent problem in language education: how to teach heritage learners of Spanish. This is a challenge for which most Spanish teachers have never been truly prepared. From the unique issues of identity that many heritage learners face (and how that impacts our classes) to the unexpected obstacles that our students face in school, we discuss surprises that we have confronted and highlight our best strategies. We describe difficulties that we have faced in our classrooms, including the initial placement of students in a heritage learners program, learning to manage highly differentiated classes, and structuring day to day lessons that engage our students. Rather than a group of scholarly essays describing ideal practices, these essays depart from the often imperfect teaching context of each individual teacher. Together our essays resonate with observations that may at times contradict each other, perhaps inviting solutions that oppose each other, but always opening doors to a world of possibilities for the teacher new to teaching heritage learners.<br> <br> <b>The profits from sales of this collection of essays are reinvested into the classroom libraries of the contributors.</b>