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County High School, GA  \nDavid Alley  \nGeorgia Southern University  \nAbstract  \nThis study examines the academic experiences of heritage Spanish-speakers who wereplaced in a traditional Spanish class for non-Spanish speakers at the secondary level. Each of the participants in the study demonstrated advanced-levels of oral proficiency in Spanish yet each was placed in a beginning-level Spanish class. An ethnographic case study method was used to explore the effect of this inappropriate placement on the students’ linguistic abilities and academic identities. This study addresses an all-toocommon practice that fails to advance heritage language students’ knowledge of their native language. The needs of these students differ from those of non-native speakers, and the type of class that they take should reflect this.  \nIntroduction  \nBetween 1990 and 2006 the number of Hispanic students enrolled in American public schools nearly doubled. Of the 49.4 million students enrolled in K-12 public education in 2011, one-in-five is Hispanic (Fry & Gonzales, 2008) . In 1990, that number was one-in-eight. The percentage of Hispanic students will continue to grow in the decades ahead. According to Fry and Gonzales (2008), the Hispanic school-age population will grow by 166% by the year 2050 while the non-Hispanic school-age population will grow by only 4%. If this trend continues, in fewer than 40 years, Hispanic children will constitute the majority of public school students.  \nAt present, Hispanic students represent 20% of the public school population nationwide (Del Valle, 2008) . Within the broad classification of Hispanic, the cultural background and linguistic abilities of students vary greatly. This study focuses on students who acquired Spanish as their first language and who live in homes where Spanish is the primary spoken language. Students who meet these requirements are often referred to by the terms residual speakers, bilingual speakers, homebackground speakers, native Spanish speakers or heritage Spanish speakers. Because Spanish is the first language of this group, it is not uncommon for these students to demonstrate limited proficiency in English. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (2012) defines limited English-proficient children (LEP) as national origin-minority group children whose inability to speak and understand  \nThe Academic Experiences of Native Spanish Speakers 35  \nthe English language excludes them from effective participation in the educational program offered by a school district. Another term that is often associated with LEP students is heritage language speaker. Heritage language students are those who have been “raised in a home where a non-English language is spoken, who speak or at least understand the language, and who are, to some degree, bilingual in that language and in English’’ (Valdés, 2001, p. 38) .  \nWhile not all Hispanic students arrive at school with a limited English proficiency, those that do present a significant challenge for their teachers and for the school system. This is partially due to federal laws mandating that every school district take affirmative steps to accommodate these children and rectify their language deficiency. A handful of states such as California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, where traditionally the percentage of Hispanic students approaches or exceeds 50%, offer a wide variety of special services to help children overcome language deficiencies including bilingual education, English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs, community-based English tutoring, and two-way immersion programs. Many of these programs are funded under Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act (Fry & Gonzales, 2008) .  \nIncreases in the population of Hispanic students in public schools in non-traditional states have also been significant. For ex","cbCaiqNRjXHceFpY","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiqNRjXHceFpY","pdf",107049,12,"English","# Introduction\n# Review of the Literature","[{\"question\":\"What is the focus of this study?\",\"answer\":\"The study focuses on heritage Spanish-speakers who were placed in beginning-level traditional Spanish classes despite demonstrating advanced oral proficiency in Spanish.\"},{\"question\":\"How was the research conducted?\",\"answer\":\"The study uses an ethnographic case study method to examine the effect of the placement on students’ linguistic abilities and academic identities.\"},{\"question\":\"Why is the placement described as inappropriate?\",\"answer\":\"The participants had advanced oral proficiency in Spanish but were placed in non-Spanish-speaker beginning classes, which fails to advance their native-language knowledge and development.\"}]","The Academic Experiences of Native Spanish Speakers in the Traditional Spanish Classroom | PDF",1792091651]