Return migration: A Spanish literacy program for transnational students in Puebla, Mexico

Puebla is one of the poorest states in Mexico and one of the main regions from which Mexicans migrate to the United States. However, over the last ten years, more than one million Mexican families have returned to Mexico (PEW Research Center, 2015). This phenomenon has had important economical, demographic and educational consequences (CONAPO, 2015; Moctezuma, 2013). Transnational students coping with hostile situations have poor academic performance and may drop out (Zúñiga, Hamann & Sánchez 2008). One of the main challenges is the use of cognitive Spanish in a scholarly context. Although research has shown that academic Spanish is one of the main factors that allows transnational students to better adapt to the new educational system (Despagne & Jacobo, 2019), no public policies exist to support their adaptation process. Hence, the aim of this research is to offer an innovative Spanish literacy course for transnational high school students in Puebla, Mexico. The course will be designed based on student's funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff & González, 2005), specific plurilingual needs (Coste & Simon, 2009), and will include pedagogies of both linguistic areas, Spanish as a heritage language (Potowski, 2018; Parra, 2017) and Spanish as a second language (Valdés, 2006). Select References Consejo Nacional de Población/CONAPO. (2015). El retorno en el nuevo escenario de la migración entre México y Estados Unidos, México, D. F.: CONAPO. Despagne, C. & Jacobo, M. (2016). Desafíos actuales de la escuela monolítica mexicana: El caso de los alumnos migrantes internacionales. Revista Sinéctica, 47, 1-17. https://sinectica.iteso.mx/index.php/SINECTICA/article/view/645 Parra, M. L. (2017). Resources for Teaching Spanish as a heritage language. Observatorio Reports, Cervantes Institute at Faculty of Arts and Science of Harvard University, 032-06. PEW Research Center (2015). More Mexicans leaving than coming to the US. Washington, PEW Research Center Hispanic Trends. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-us/