Exploring Bilingual Struggles in Heritage Spanish Class

Sneak Peek: Encourage self-reflection in your heritage students with this activity where tweets about the struggles of being bilingual are highlighted.

Most teenagers are trying to figure out who they really are, and how they fit in. We want them to embrace all sides of their culture, but it’s important to acknowledge that there can be some insecurity about how good their language skills really are, especially if there hasn’t been formal education in Spanish, with regard to reading, writing and spelling in Spanish.

This insecurity can also stem from the fact that when they’ve traveled, interacted with native speakers, or even tried to send text messages to family members, they’ve been made fun of for not knowing a full vocabulary or correct spellings and accent marks. Even worse, some have faced discrimination for not being Latino/a enough, or not being American enough. These experiences will be different for each student, and no two students face difficulties the same way. It’s so important to help your students dig into themselves and get their insecurities out of the way of their greater potential.

Helping students to understand and express their hybrid identities is a key aspect of a heritage Spanish class. We want to create an environment where students feel safe to share the difficulties of being bilingual.

The tweets students will read are from real people who acknowledge the same types of difficulties within the language and their Latino/a and American identities. Seeing those struggles out and in the open can help your students feel understood and feel okay. It’s always helpful to see others being vocal about this topic, as it can take some pressure off the individual going through it in real time. Your students can feel free to join the conversation, hopefully with a few laughs along the way!

Learning Objective:

In this activity the students will read tweets about bilingual struggles and compose their own tweet about challenges they face in being bilingual, encouraging self-reflection.

Materials

For this activity you’ll need:

The bilingual struggles handout (members only)
16 personalities Google Slideshow (members only)
Twitter template (FREE)
A learning management system for students to take the 16 personalities test.

*There is an option to kick off the lesson with a video about the struggles of being bilingual, but be sure to preview it first as there is some colorful language, and you’ll want to make sure you and your school would approve. The lesson is not dependent on your showing of this video, so feel free to skip it if it doesn’t fit your environment!

Prep:

For this lesson you’ll need to upload the link for the 16 personalities test to your learning management system. This test is a fun way for the students to learn more about themselves, and it’s 100% in Spanish!

Next, add the 16-personalities slideshow to your learning management system. Make sure it’s an editable slideshow so students can add their name to the appropriate slide. If you prefer not to use the Google Slideshow you can just write each of the personality types on your whiteboard.

Finally, print off the bilingual struggles handout (one for each student) and the twitter template. You’ll want to cut out the twitter template into individual tweets, and you can decide how many you want to give to each student, likely 1-3.

Of course, Twitter is now called X and tweets are now referred to as posts, so be prepared to let your students know they will be going “old-school” today, if there is any confusion.

Duration:

This lesson is designed for a 57 minute class period, but if you teach a longer block you could expand the discussion into how personality-types influence your life. Another idea would be to have students write more than one original tweet, or have them do a gallery walk to read all the other tweets their classmates wrote. There can be so much power in multiplying your students’ voices in this way.

Teacher instructions:

If you choose to open with the video, have it ready to play on the screen after students have settled in for class. Remember to check the video to ensure you are comfortable with the language before showing it, or pick out which clips you want to use.
Explain that the purpose of the activity is to help them reflect upon what struggles bilingual people face, and how they personally feel about being bilingual.
Show the video if you choose. This cues up the topic nicely, but again, this lesson can be done without it. If you don’t start with the video, simply pass out the bilingual struggles handout and the twitter templates.
Have students read the tweets, putting a star by the ones they related to the most. As an extension, you may choose to have students pair up and share which tweets they related to and why.
Students write their own tweet on a sheet of paper. Have them share it with at least two other people for feedback, then have them copy the final version onto the provided twitter template.
Have students turn in their bilingual struggles handout and their original tweet(s) to the teacher.
Next, have students take the 16 personalities quiz. Once they get their result, they will need to fill in their name by their personality type on the Google Slideshow linked in your Learning Management System, or on the white board if you chose to do it that way.

Looking for more? Get access to additional materials and lesson plans to continue this unit by signing up here to join our curriculum club (this unit is found in Ascendencia Year Three)!

If you want extra ideas on how to teach this theme check out Why Hybrid Identity is Such an Important Topic to Teach in Heritage Spanish Class.