Integrating Social Justice Lessons in a Spanish High School Classroom to Increase Motivation in Learning Spanish as a Second/World Language

Universities across the nation recommend, if not require, students to take two, or more, consecutive years of a world language (Grove, 2017). In high school setting, required languages toward graduation may be burdensome for students who would prefer to take other courses. For this project, I was interested in finding curriculum that presents a multicultural view through social justice issues as a component of the required Spanish curriculum. Including a diversified language curriculum will provide high school students with an opportunity think critically, where they analyze their own experiences. In this study, I implemented four mini lessons on social justice issues in a Spanish level three classroom as a student-teacher and recorded students' views prior to and after implementing the mini lessons. I analyzed their views on why they enrolled in the Spanish course, their interest in learning Spanish, and the impact, if any, the mini lessons had on them, through a pre-survey and a post-survey.