Critical Tasks En Acción in the Spanish HL Classroom

Abstract

This En Acción paper describes a virtual asynchronous task-based lesson on promoting critical language awareness in a blended Spanish heritage language (HL) writing course in a university setting. By merging philosophical underpinnings of critical pedagogy and task-based language teaching approaches, this paper showcases the design of a virtual critical task for students to challenge deficient linguistic ideologies (e.g., normative monolingualism, standardized Spanish) associated with the multilingual practices of Latinx individuals in the United States. Additionally, following task-based language teaching methodology, a description of pre-task and post-task activities are included to support the execution of the critical task as well as to guide students’ reflections on their critical task performance.