“¿Coche o Carro?”: Evaluating Student Perceptions of Teacher Bias in Language Education

The majority of U.S. Spanish speakers are Latin American, not Spanish. However, Peninsular Spanish (from Spain) is often treated as the standard in U.S Spanish language education, despite Spain’s population making up only about 10% of world Spanish speakers. Spanish heritage language learners in the U.S often report corrections based on their accent or dialect, instead of their grammar or comprehension. Sociolinguistic research is generally conducted with adult participants, and does not surround student experiences, especially not student experiences in language education. With specific reference to Latino/Hispanic students, judgements can be attributed to a multitude of biases, with racial and linguistic prejudices being the most dominant factors. This study (n = 105) surveyed former and current Spanish students. Questions involved student perceptions of teachers’ treatment of students, corrections based on accent/dialect, and support for teachers’ implicit bias training. There was a significant difference in student treatment (p = 0.04) and accent correction (p < 0.01) of Hispanic/Latino students compared to White students. Furthermore, it was found that 68% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that teachers would benefit from implicit bias training, meaning that in general, students believe that teacher behaviors and thus student experiences could be positively impacted with targeted training or related topics. More research is necessary, especially in adolescents, to understand how to identify and address how Spanish Language teacher bias is impacting language acquisition experiences and outcomes.