Heritage Speaker Writing: Separating Dialect, Development, and Transfer
Mr. Alvarez teaches Spanish for Heritage Speakers II. A student, Marisol, writes: 'Mi tía es muy aburrida cuando no hay nada que hacer' (she means her aunt feels bored); 'La gente en mi barrio son muy amables'; 'Yo tengo 16 años y soy estudiante'; 'Ella se recuerda de su abuela.' Marisol is fluent, reads at grade level in Spanish, and switches to English for 'awkward' words. Mr. Alvarez's department uses a writing rubric that penalizes 'grammatical errors' and has a separate category for 'dialect influence.' A colleague says all four underlined forms are errors and should be corrected in red. Mr. Alvarez wants to improve Marisol's academic register without demeaning her home variety, and he has 20 minutes of conference time.
1. Classify each of the four italicized forms. For each, state whether it is best described as dialectal, developmental, transfer, or a register issue, and explain your reasoning.
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- es muy aburrida for 'is bored': this is a semantic/lexical choice, not dialect. Ser aburrido = be boring; estar aburrido = be bored. Marisol needs the estar distinction. It may be developmental or a lexical gap, not L1 transfer, because English also distinguishes 'boring' vs. 'bored.'
- La gente... son: collective noun with plural verb. This occurs in colloquial speech in many varieties, but it is nonstandard in edited academic Spanish. It is dialect-influenced/register, not a developmental mistake; she controls plural agreement elsewhere.
- Yo tengo 16 años y soy estudiante: this is correct Spanish. The explicit yo is redundant but not an error; it may reflect English emphasis or a developmental style. Do not mark it as a grammar error.
- Ella se recuerda de su abuela: nonstandard. Standard is se acuerda de or recuerda a. Recordarse de is dialectally attested but limited; it may also be transfer from English 'remembers.' This is a register/lexical issue for academic writing.
2. A colleague says all four are errors and should be corrected in red. Write a response that acknowledges the rubric but proposes a more accurate approach.
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I would say: the rubric's 'grammatical error' category should not treat correct forms as errors. Tengo 16 años y soy estudiante is standard. Marking it red would confuse Marisol and undermine trust. For es aburrida, the issue is meaning: I would ask her which idea she wants, then contrast ser/estar. For la gente son, I would explain that academic Spanish prefers la gente es while noting that plural agreement is common in speech; that is a register contrast, not a character flaw. For se recuerda de, I would offer se acuerda de and recuerda a as options, noting dialect distribution. I would revise the rubric to separate 'standard grammar' from 'register/dialect choice' so we do not penalize home varieties. Then I would use contrastive analysis: have her rewrite the sentences for a job application and compare the two versions.
3. Design a three-item formative assessment that targets ser/estar with aburrido and collective noun agreement, and explain what each item reveals.
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- Complete with ser or estar and explain: 'Mi tía ___ aburrida porque no hay nada que hacer.' / 'Mi tía ___ aburrida; siempre habla de lo mismo.' Expected: está / es; first = feels bored, second = is boring. This reveals whether the student associates the adjective with a temporary state or an inherent trait.
- Rewrite for a school newsletter: 'La gente en mi barrio son muy amables.' Expected: La gente de mi barrio es muy amable; discuss why gente is singular in edited Spanish. This shows whether the student can shift from colloquial agreement to academic register.
- Choose and justify: 'Ella ___ de su abuela.' Options: se acuerda / se recuerda. Expected: se acuerda; recordar a also possible. Ask students to identify which form they hear at home and which they would use in an essay. This makes dialect awareness explicit without shaming the home form.