Error or Variant? A Socio-Emotional Approach to Teachers’ Feedback on Spanglish

Abstract

This article analyzes the attitudes of 41 Spanish teachers in the United States, of Latin American origin, toward their students’ code-switching and Spanglish. Based on an anonymous survey, the study examined whether they considered forms such as ordenar (for ‘pedir’), rentar (for ‘alquilar’), or borrowings like cash to be errors—and therefore subject to correction. Following this preliminary questionnaire, which revealed a widespread rejection of borrowings, the teachers participated in a training session on multilingualism and language contact, focused on the U.S. context. The final phase of the experiment consisted of a second survey including open-ended reflection questions, designed to qualitatively assess whether there had been changes in their perceptions. This survey revealed a significant shift in the overall evaluation of Spanglish and code-switching.