The Bishop Ward Spanish programs intend to form students who are linguistically and culturally competent in order to function in today’s  multilingual society. Our Department offers two types of Spanish courses:

Heritage Spanish Courses
Through the heritage program we reinforce bilingualism and bi-literacy, with the objective to fill epistemological lagoons in some knowledge areas. Through this process we pursue the  incorporation/re-acquisition/extension of certain aspects that heritage speakers need. These courses will implement a “macro focus” (Carreira) that integrates the language knowledge that students bring to the class, to break it down from the general to the particular. The multi-literacies approach works with different genres, considering the language as an identity practice and not only as a decoding one (Kern, 2004; Beaudrie, 2014).

Goals:

• Students will examine sociolinguistic concepts.

• Students will contrast cultural and linguistic diversity within the Latino culture.

• Students will reflect on Hispanic Literature as a resource.

• Students will explore their own identity and origin through the language.

• Students will develop and improve audio, reading, and written language skills.

• Students will extend their orthography and grammar skills.

• Students will develop bilingualism and biliteracy.