Centering Critical Language Awareness (CLA) in Spanish Language Teacher Education in the United States

Abstract: Language educators play a significant role in either challenging or perpetuating ideologies in the classroom, curriculum, and profession. Due to the historically persistent ideological positioning of Latinx/Hispanic and Spanish-speakers in the United States and the lack of professional preparation for educators working with these populations, this paper argues for the inclusion of critical language awareness (CLA), or “the understanding of how language is imbued with social meaning and power relations” (Leeman 2018: 345), as a core goal, tool, and outcome guiding language teacher education. In this article, we begin by discussing the theoretical underpinnings of CLA, its historical trajectory, and why CLA is a fundamental principle underlying social justice for Spanish language teaching in the United States. Then, we describe various examples for implementing CLA across different institutions and provide evidence of their impact through localized case studies. We conclude by discussing ongoing challenges in critically oriented teacher training, as well as identifying future directions for building a collective liberatory praxis.