Las variedades hispanoamericanas en el paisaje lingüístico de la didáctica de ELE

In this paper we aim to analyse the presence of American varieties in the teaching of L2 Spanish, focusing in particular on textbooks, students’ books and online resources used both in Spanish classes and in teachers’ long-life training. The relevance of this investigation derives from social and cultural changes in contemporary city landscapes: migration fluxes moving from Hispanic American countries to Italy present linguists and teaching experts with new challenges, because of the presence of second generation and heritage speakers in L2 Spanish classes. In order to check whether L2 Spanish learning materials and teachers take these changes into consideration, we designed two different surveys: the first one targets students at higher proficiency levels, with the aim of exploring whether their former training has dealt with American Spanish varieties; the second one addresses teachers, to describe and evaluate their knowledge and skills concerning American varieties and to investigate whether and how they treat them in their teaching practice. We also extend the analysis to the examination of the most widely used and recent textbooks, students’ books and online resources with a view to quantifying the presence of the Hispanic American component in this material. Results show that the large use of cultural contents from American Spanish is not appropriately exploited to develop students’ linguistic competence. Hence, we remark once again the importance of considering the richness and complexity of linguistic input in L2 Spanish teaching materials (both in materials and in teachers’ long-life training). This is possible by relying upon the tools provided by Linguistic Landscape theory and methodology, with a view to responding to the needs and expectations of students and of contemporary society in general.