3.2 A collaborative project for, by, and about Hispanic South Carolinians

The growth of Spanish Heritage Language (SHL) programs across the US has been matched with an increase in the use of varied teaching approaches to efficiently meet the unique needs of heritage learners (Beaudrie, 2020). Macro approaches, such as project-based teaching and experiential learning activities, have been found to be helpful because they are meaning-based and, therefore, better suited to address issues such as learners’ ethnic identity, attitude toward their own linguistic variety, among others (cf. Carreira, 2016; Parra et al. 2018). In Fall 2021, learners enrolled in a SHL project-based course (N=6) at a Southeastern public university and completed several short projects. In this presentation, we will focus on the largest project that these learners engaged in by working collaboratively in and outside of the classroom. The objective was to produce a ‘chapter’ for future SHL learners; the final product contained a reading, oral narratives collected from parents and Latin@ professors, data about the Hispanic community in South Carolina, and follow-up activities. All of these elements were assembled in a wiki. The structure of the chapter was adapted from Chapter 6: “En el mapa: Latin@s en Ohio” from the course textbook, Foulis and Alex’s OER, Mi idioma, mi comunidad: español para bilingües. Qualitative data obtained from the students’ reflections about the project will reveal the impact of technology-mediated, collaborative work on a SHL course. The wiki contents will be shared to also gain insight into what affective needs (e.g., ethnic identity issues, attitude, connection to heritage language) students sought to address through this project. Beaudrie, S. M. (2020). Towards growth for Spanish heritage programs in the United States: Key markers of success. Foreign Language Annals, 53(3), 416-437. Carreira, M. (2016). Supporting heritage language learners through macro-based approaches. In M. Fairclough & S. Beaudrie (Eds.), Innovative approaches in HL pedagogy: from research to practice, pp. 123-142, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Parra, M. L., Otero, A., Flores, R., & Lavallé, M. (2018). Designing a comprehensive curriculum for advanced Spanish heritage learners: Contributions from the multiliteracies framework. In G. Zapata & M. Lacorte (Eds.), Multiliteracies pedagogy and language learning: Teaching Spanish to heritage speakers. London, England: Palgrave Macmillan