Concept-based instruction grounded on Vygotsky’s Theory of Mind: Developing heritage Spanish students’ metalinguistic knowledge on the subjunctive mood

Abstract

This paper examines the benefits of using Concept-Based Instruction, (CBI), grounded on Vygotsky’s Theory of Mind (Vygotsky, 1986), to develop heritage Spanish students’ metalinguistic knowledge on the Spanish subjunctive mood. Metalinguistic knowledge refers to the explicit and conscious knowledge students have about the linguist structures and overall characteristics of a language. It “is knowledge that students can explain and verbalize. Vygotsky’s Theory of Mind is based on the notion that development of language takes place when it is internalized and verbalized.Heritage Spanish (HS) students acquire the heritage language (HL) in informal, natural settings through interaction with family, friends, and community members. However, the heritage language input starts to diminish once students are enrolled in formal education, and English becomes the language of instruction (Montrul, 2020). It is then, that at an early age, HS students begin formal schooling in English, and many of the Spanish linguistic features, which had started to be acquired are halted. The lack of opportunities to have formal instruction in the heritage language has been one of the causes of incomplete heritage language acquisition, language attrition, or language loss (Rothman 2007; Pires & Rothman, 2009; Delgado, 2009). The Spanish subjunctive is one of the first linguistic features that suffers erosion since it is not fully developed when HSs enter formal education, and the main language of instruction is English (Potowski, Regerski, & Morgan-Short, 2009).Unfortunately, when HS students attempt to re-learn their heritage language in higher education, the instructional approaches are meant to meet the needs of the non-native Spanish students (Eckerson, 2015), which are mixed with HS students in most higher education institutions in the United States. Vygotsky’s Theory of Mind (Vygotsky, 1986) has motivated concept-based instruction to learn conceptual categories of a language such as mood, aspect, and tense. The main tenet of CBI is to develop performance not just competence on language concepts.