The learning and teaching of Spanish as a heritage language through community service-learning in New York City

This study explores the effects of the implementation of a community service-learning component in a foreign language teaching methodology course. Participants (N = 21), all heritage speakers of Spanish, were pre-service 7-12 Spanish teachers at two middle-sized, public postsecondary institutions in New York City. As part of their community engagement experience, participants selected a site from a list of middle and high schools where they would get the opportunity to work with heritage learners of Spanish. Throughout the semester, they had to identify classroom needs, select one of those needs, develop an action plan to address that specific need, and finally reflect on the impact of their intervention on student learning and on their own professional, academic, and linguistic growth. At the end of the semester they completed a post-community service-learning survey consisting of 27 statements and 5 open-ended questions. The results show that the experience helped participants gain a better understanding of the teaching profession and how to become more involved in education. Moreover, it allowed participants to see how course content could be applied to the teaching of Spanish. Conversely, results do not show a direct effect on how pre-service teachers view their identities as Hispanics/Latinos and as speakers of Spanish. The study concludes with pedagogical implications for heritage language instruction and the implementation of further community service-learning in languages for specific purposes and proposes directions for future research.