Chapter 8: Contextualizing Language Teaching in the United States: Teaching a Culturally Relevant Spanish Curriculum

This paper spells out a proposal for a Spanish–as–a–second–language curriculum that places at its core the Spanish variety and Hispanic cultures found within the United States. It recommends translanguaging pedagogy to promote learners’ use of all of the linguistic resources available to them and replaces the notions of additive and subtractive bilingualism with dynamic bilingualism (García, 2009). Changes to current Spanish L2 textbooks turn the focus of the classes towards Spanish as spoken in the United States. The objective is to demonstrate how the teaching of Spanish in the United States can become the teaching of the Spanish of the United States.