14 Replies to “Metas and Mindsets in the Heritage Spanish Classroom (David Giancaspro)”

  1. Wonderful presentation, I definitely got the gist of a completely new framework of teaching that I was unaware of. I just wanted to comment how this theory of mindset goes very much hand in hand with usage-based linguistics, which operationalize language as a dynamic system that changes throughout our lifespan and in which variability is the norm. Making students aware of this parallelism between language and mind might be interesting 🙂

    1. Priscila,
      Thanks for your feedback on this! I’ll have to track down some cognitive work (written/recorded in Spanish) about the mind as a dynamic system and then use that in class, too.

      Best,
      David

  2. Dear David,
    Great approach to HS insecurity and to reframing perceptions. We are all aware of HS insecurity and I’m sure that there are a lot of other wonderful instructional ideas people are implementing. But your approach, based on growth mindset training, has great potential beyond that course and as a framework (to find the key aspects that need to be tackled to reframe perceptions). I can totally see how beginning courses for HSs at a Hispanic-serving Institution like ours could benefit enormously from this. Also, I can see how the development of some shorter instructional sequence could be designed and adapted for use by High-School or other college instructors who also serve HSs while not necessarily teaching a HS class or as discussion group sequence by Spanish clubs (which in Hispanic-serving institutions play a big role encouraging the use of Spanish). Let me know if any of this is of interest to you, but I really like the fact that this goes deeper into te problem of insecurity, which is in essence “a problem inside the mind” in the sense that it is about perceptions, emotional impact of discourses and experiences, etc. Thanks for sharing the way you apprached this issue.

    1. Pablo,
      Thanks for your kind words! I think your idea of adapting this idea into other spaces (e.g., Spanish clubs) is really interesting! Let’s find a time to talk about this sometime this summer!

      Hope you’re doing well!
      David

  3. I like this approach very much, definitely want to steal it for my SHL course!

    1. Mary,

      Steal away! If you make any adjustments/changes that work well in your own version, I’d love to hear about them.

      Best,
      David

  4. Congrats! This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing with us.

    I’m co-directing a Working Group next academic year on Spanish Heritage Speakers in the Classroom, University and Community, and I’d love to have some of these materials to share with colleagues.

    Thanks again!

    1. Becky,
      Thanks for your message. I’d be glad to share the materials with you. When we meet later this week, remind me, and I’ll send everything to you via email.

      Best,
      David

  5. David! Excelente trabajo!

    This approach should be implemented not only in Spanish HL classrooms but in other HL classrooms as well. Reflecting on how HL is taught, especially in other languages it very much relies on the deficit approach. I love the idea of setting goals and auto reflection of how they see themselves using the HL.

    1. Thanks, Esther! I’m glad you liked my approach here.

      Have a great week,
      David

  6. Un acercamiento muy positivo para ellos y ellas y elles, centrado en el crecimiento, gracias por compartirlo, voy a tomar algunas ideas y ojalá que te animes a publicarlo, quizás en la sección de acción de la revista de Spanish as a heritage language.

    1. Irene,
      Gracias por la sugerencia. Creo que es buenísima idea crear un artículo cortito (“En Acción”) basado en esta presentación para mandar a SHL.

      Saludos,
      David

  7. Great presentation and a well-informed approach to address HL mindset. What other learning tasks or activities you use in your class do you think help students change their minset? How would you think critical pedagogies/tasks or activities help in this change of mindset? Could you think of an example. Thanks again for sharing your teaching approach.

  8. David! I LOVED LOVED LOVED this presentation!!! Thank you for the amazing idea!

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