Sofía from Cusco: marking a heritage variety
You teach Spanish at a Porirua secondary school. Your Year 12 class of 28 includes six heritage speakers: three born in Aotearoa to Colombian parents, two from Santiago, and Sofía, who arrived from Cusco fourteen months ago. In a recorded oral, Sofía says «He ido a la casa de mi tía, nomás», aspirates or drops final /s/ («loj chicoj»), uses «guagua» for a baby, and says «ha habido» where your textbook sequence wants «hubo». Your marking schedule awards Achieved for 'inconsistent control of past tenses' and 'non-standard pronunciation'. Sofía has stopped speaking in group work; a classmate has told her she 'speaks wrong Spanish'. The HoD wants consistency with the other two classes, both of which use the same schedule. A parent has complained that the school is 'lowering the standard'.
1. Critique the marking decision using sociolinguistic reasoning. What is being assessed, and what is being punished?
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First, separate two questions the schedule has fused.
What is being assessed? If the criterion is 'control of past tenses', the question is whether Sofía's choices are systematic within her own variety. They are. Andean Spanish, like much American Spanish, distributes the pretérito perfecto («he ido», «ha habido») differently from the Peninsular norm embedded in the textbook sequence. S-aspiration and elision («loj chicoj») are rule-governed, not random: they occur in coda position and are shared with Chile, the Caribbean, Andalusia and much of Latin America. «Nomás» is a discourse marker of limitation or emphasis, not a filler. «Guagua» is a Quechua-origin word that is standard in Peru, Chile and Argentina, not slang. Awarding Achieved for 'inconsistent control' mislabels systematic difference as failure of control - that is a measurement error, not a standards decision.
What is being punished? A fourteen-year-old's home language, in front of her peers, after a classmate has already told her she speaks wrong. The withdrawal from group work is the predictable result.
The parent's 'lowering the standard' complaint and the HoD's 'consistency' argument are both answerable, but only if you can show what the standard actually is. The real constraint is external and legitimate: the Scholarship paper rewards range, precision and register-shifting, and the written paper uses standard orthography. Sofía needs to command the standard as an additional register, not as a replacement for her own. That distinction - resource, not deficit - is itself a Scholarship-level insight and belongs in the scheme, not left for her to absorb alone.
2. Write the feedback you would give Sofía (in Spanish, 100–150 words) that is honest about the exam's demands without endorsing the classmate's judgement.
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«Sofía: tu español no está mal. Tu español es de Cusco, y eso es una ventaja: tienes cosas que la mayoría de la clase no tiene. Lo que el examen pide es otra cosa: un registro escrito estándar que también necesitas saber usar. Cuando escribas, revisa la -s final y cuándo el examen espera “fui” y cuándo “he ido”, porque ahí te van a evaluar. Cuando hables, no cambies tu manera de hablar para complacer a nadie. En la grabación escuché “nomás”, “guagua”, la -s aspirada: son rasgos sistemáticos, no errores. Vamos a hacer una tabla de dos columnas: lo que dices tú, lo que pide el examen. Así el estándar es una herramienta más, no un juicio sobre tu familia.»
The reasoning to explain to the HoD:
- I name the variety positively before naming the exam's demand, because the message she has already received is that her Spanish is wrong. Order matters.
- I use «y» rather than «pero» at the hinge: «pero» would cancel the compliment.
- I am concrete about what the exam rewards - vagueness would leave her to guess, and guessing is what produced the silence.
- I invite metalinguistic work (the two-column table) instead of correction. Naming her own features is exactly the analytical skill the external paper rewards, so this is not a lowering of standards; it is a different route to the same standard.
3. The department must translate the school charter's line 'Every student is welcome here' for a whānau evening. A student proposes «Todes son bienvenides»; the HoD proposes «Todos los estudiantes son bienvenidos». Decide, and justify with reference to audience, RAE guidance and usage.
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Audience first, symbol second. The line will be spoken aloud to a mixed room: older Chilean and Colombian grandparents, staff, and students who use -e among themselves.
- «Todos los estudiantes son bienvenidos» is grammatical and instantly readable, but the generic masculine asks half the room to do the work of assuming they are included. It is not wrong; it is doing less than the sentence claims.
- «Todes son bienvenides» signals affiliation with youth usage very efficiently - and costs comprehension for the older half of the room, at the exact moment the school wants a conversation about belonging. It also invites a fight about grammar instead of a conversation about welcome.
- «Todas las personas son bienvenidas aquí» avoids the generic masculine by lexical substitution rather than morphological innovation, is grammatical under any norm, and is warmer than «los estudiantes». It keeps the promise of the sentence without making the form the subject.
Recommendation: use the third for the charter and formal stationery; allow -e in student-written and youth-facing material, where the audience is the users of the form.
On the linguistic argument: the RAE's grammar treats the masculine as the unmarked generic and has not endorsed -e in general language, but that describes one norm rather than prohibiting all use, and usage is genuinely split. The honest position is that both forms are defensible in different registers - which is why the choice should be made by audience, not by appeal to authority.
Anticipate the objection: 'so you are banning todes'. No - the policy sets a default for institutional texts and leaves the form available elsewhere. That distinction is what lets it survive a staff meeting.