Spanish Composition Errors from a Combined Classroom of Heritage (L1) and Non-heritage (L2) Learners: A Comparative Case Study

In a world of declining institutional budgets, decreasing student enrollments in departments that until now may have had the luxury of separate composition classrooms for heritage and non-heritage students, not to mention individual student schedule limitations, the steady increase in enrollment of L1 or heritage students in composition classrooms which were before primarily geared toward L2 learners has created a new reality and the urgency to rethink the organization, sequence, and emphasis placed on topics and structures in the classroom. The purpose of this case study was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of L1 and L2 student composition error data collected from a sample of fifteen students enrolled in a Spanish Composition (SPAN 302) class at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC). Specific objectives for this project were to determine from the data collected: 1) the frequencies with which L1 and L2 student participants committed word- and sentence-level errors in their compositions; 2) how error frequencies compare between L1 and L2 students over a semester’s time, and in particular, with the writing of a series of five different compositions, each targeting a more advanced level of writing proficiency; and 3) how knowledge of both similarities and differences between these two groups might be applied to enhance the author’s current pedagogical model that could work for future students from both groups in a single classroom.