Peer-to-peer translanguaging academic spaces for belonging: the case of Spanish as a heritage language

ABSTRACT

This ethnography analysis presents the translingual academic moments – moments in an academic interaction where both Spanish and English are used – of a group of six Spanish Heritage Language students who work as academic peer tutors in a Spanish for Heritage Speakers Program at a large public university. The analysis of peer-tutor interviews and transcriptions of tutoring sessions demonstrates that peer tutors translanguage with the two overarching goals of furthering their tutees’ academic literacy and building community, illustrating the extent to which translanguaging supported this peer-led Spanish heritage academic learning community. By exploring the goals with which Spanish heritage peer-tutors deployed translingual language in a non-classroom academic context, this work argues for the importance of critically examining heritage student translanguaging in academic contexts in order for researchers and educators to leverage bilingual students’ learning trajectories.

KEYWORDS:

• Spanish as a heritage language
• translanguaging
• peer-to-peer tutoring
• academic literacy

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the anonymous peer-review feedback received in previous drafts of this paper, and the thoughtful suggestions that improved my analysis. All remaining errors are my own. Additionally, I am grateful for the institutional support of The University of California Institute for Mexico and The United States (UC MEXUS) who supported the data collection phase of this study through a dissertation grant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

I am grateful for the institutional support of the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) who supported the data collection phase of this study through a dissertation grant.

Notes on contributors

Lina M. Reznicek-Parrado

Lina M. Reznicek-Parrado is a faculty member in the Department of Spanish Language, Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Denver, and the founder and director of the Spanish for Heritage/Bilingual Speakers at the same institution. She specializes in heritage language pedagogy and is interested in issues related to bilingual/heritage language education and teacher training, academic language and literacy for linguistically diverse student communities and topics surrounding Spanish in the US.